Include an extra meet in the season schedule, or give athletes more time to train?
Allow more athletes a chance to compete for a national title, or leave the system alone?
These questions were posed in the late 1990s when the U.S. Track Coaches Association brought up the idea of expanding competition opportunities at the NCAA Championship meet.
While track and field had more participants than any other Division I NCAA sport, the national championship meet was capped at 756 participants; 378 for both men and women.
The Division I Championship Cabinet agreed that more opportunities to compete for a national title were necessary, but a simple increase in the championship meet cap wasn’t enough. The cabinet insisted that a qualifying system be devised that would send the most deserving athletes to the final meet of the season.
After much debate between coaches and the NCAA Track and Field Committee, the result was a regional qualifying system that was approved by the NCAA in 2000 and put into use for the first time last year. The national meet cap was raised to 1,088 (544 men and 544 women) and the country was split into four regions (West, Midwest, Mideast and East), with each region hosting a qualifying meet for the right to go to nationals.
Regional qualifying marks and times were implemented during the regular season to determine which athletes would be eligible to compete. Once the field was set, the top five finishers in each event from each region, would advance to nationals. If 20 athletes per event didn’t equate to enough participants to fill the national meet cap, at-large candidates would be added from a descending-order list of athletes who entered the regional meet with a high rank but failed to crack the top five during competition.
Mark Bockelman, assistant director of championships for the NCAA, said the highly competitive regional meets that took place for the first time last season were good for track and field.
“If you feature four meets all around the country, all at the same time, it will bring a good amount of attention to track and field,” Bockelman said. “The product on the field of the four regional sites last year produced good, competitive track meets. Then we had an outstanding championship meet as well.
“The implementation of regionals also allows athletes who might not have qualified for nationals otherwise, to get one more competitive meet.”
Last season’s regional qualifiers brought mixed reviews from coaches and athletes, with the biggest gripe usually being the timing of the meet.
“I don’t like the regional system at all,” Oregon throws coach Lance Deal said. “It’s hard on the athletes. When Pac-10s, regionals and nationals are all two weeks apart from each other, it’s hard to peak and maintain a high level of performance.”
UCLA men’s track and field head coach Art Venegas said he is also concerned about the health of his athletes.
“We were opposed to the regional, but once it passed we wholeheartedly have to support it,” said Venegas, considered one of the top throws coaches in the country. “It’s important that we do as well as we can, but we have to be careful of using the athletes properly in terms of nationals. We’ll have several athletes not doubling or trying to get as many points as they can because they need to be ready for (NCAAs).”

Another timing issue that athletes have with the regional system is the disruption of their class schedules. The NCAA meet, which was held in late May in 2002, now falls during finals week for Oregon students after being forced back due to regionals. Athletes from Texas, on the other hand, who have been done with class since mid-May, are forced to wait around for the national championship meet to arrive.
“I find it to be a little bit annoying because it draws the season out a little bit longer,” Oregon women’s javelin thrower Sarah Malone said. “My biggest peeve is that now nationals fall on finals week. Trying to get things worked out with your teachers is difficult.”
Malone enters the weekend ranked third in the nation (179 feet, 7 inches) and second in the West.
Not all feedback has been negative. Oregon pole vaulter Tommy Skipper said he enjoys every chance he gets to step onto the runway and compete. The freshman has worked hard lately, winning the Pacific-10 Conference decathlon and pole vault championships, but is still in favor of having the extra meet to improve his technique.
“I think it’s awesome,” Skipper said. “We just got out of Pac-10s and there’s a lot of people fired up to come back and show they can do better. A lot of people are hungry for that next meet because they didn’t do as well as they would have liked to. That’s where I stand personally; I’m hungry to jump again. I take a week off and that’s too long. For me, the meet, a couple of weeks later, works out perfectly.”
After competition this weekend, Bockelman said the regional system will be reviewed by the NCAA to search for needed improvements. This year’s regional sites include Florida (Gainesville) in the East, Louisiana State in the Mideast, Texas A&M in the Midwest and Cal State Northridge in the West. The championship meet will be held June 9-12 at Mike A. Meyers Stadium in Austin, Texas.
Bockelman said that after two years of the system being in place, many of those who were stuck between supporting and opposing the regionals will likely lean towards favoring the system.
Oregon enters competition this weekend with several athletes in position to advance to the NCAAs. Jumps coach Bill Lawson said there’s nothing an athlete or coach can do to change the system at this point and it will likely be the schools who can best adapt that will come out victorious.
“I think the good coaches will prevail,” Lawson said. “The good coaches, who systematically peak their athletes correctly, without injury, are going to be the one’s who get them through to the national meet. I’ve never been a big fan of the regional qualifying system, however, we’re learning to work within that system and we’re going to take as big an advantage with it as we can.”