A regular season should matter. But it doesn’t in college track and field.
Because of the changes the NCAA made to its Regional system this year, pretty much nothing accomplished in the regular season means anything in the sport.
All athletes start on equal footing at four Regional meets and have to finish in the top eight to advance to the NCAA Championships, either automatically or through an at-large bid.
That means a team can have the best regular season in the country, watch one or two of its better athletes false start or have a bad day at regionals, and see its national championship hopes go down the drain.
Take Arkansas, the defending men’s NCAA champion, for example.
One of the Razorbacks’ top sprinters, defending 100-meter champion Tyson Gay, flinched in the blocks at regionals and will not have a chance to defend his title. Though Arkansas may still have enough depth and talent to win, it’s still a costly blow to the team’s hopes.
UCLA, too, got a taste of how a season’s worth of work can be nullified by one bad afternoon. Senior Yoo Kim, the runner-up in the pole vault at the NCAA Championships, saw his Bruin career come to an abrupt end on Saturday when he failed to clear a single bar in a thunderstorm at Oregon.
Kim, to his credit, did not complain about his fate, but let’s be honest. There’s no way he shouldn’t be competing in Sacramento, and the same goes for the defending champion, Oregon’s Tommy Skipper, who also no-heighted on his home track.
It’s not just the athletes who don’t qualify for NCAAs that dislike the regional system. In reality it’s most detrimental for the sport’s top athletes.
Elite collegiate athletes train to peak for their conference meets in May. They train to be at their best at the NCAAs in June. And they train to succeed at U.S. National Championships in July.
Asking them to try to peak an additional time between their conference meets and the NCAAs is counter-productive. Those who peak at regionals often aren’t at their best at the NCAAs two weeks later. And those who train through the meet run the risk of seeing their season end early.
Even the most logical argument for regionals – that they benefit the fans – doesn’t stand up under closer scrutiny.
Because athletes advance automatically by finishing anywhere from first to fifth place, there’s no reason for the top athletes to lunge at the finish line, risk injury, or compete to win at all.
Perhaps the most stinging indictment of the regional system was the fate of UCLA’s Jessica Cosby, one of the nation’s top throwers.
Cosby, who was battling a case of pneumonia, had to compete in the shot put competition at soggy Hayward Field on Saturday afternoon, even though she had been having trouble breathing prior to the meet.
Had she sat out the meet, she would not have qualified for NCAAs, and what has been a spectacular senior season would have effectively been thrown away.
But in a courageous move, Cosby threw three times, finishing second before being taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
Yes, that was an inspiring performance, but she shouldn’t have had to compete. Her excellent regular season should have been enough.
Quiñonez is thinking about becoming a Milwaukee Brewers fan. Stop him and e-mail him at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.