By Michael Newman

DyeStat Illinois Editor

 

The summer months are a time for me to get ready for the upcoming cross country season. Before I open the door for 2013 Cross Country, we need to close the door on what happened in track & field in Illinois.

 

The actual season for track & field is over for most of the athletes. Some have chosen to continue down the Junior Olympics route. The actual end of this season for coaches and administrators occurs at the beginning of September when the IHSA advisory committee will meet in Bloomington to discuss possible changes in the sport.

 

Little does most of the public know that coaches have been meeting throughout the summer planning their attack for the advisory committee meeting. The big question is from their reflections of what happened during the season and what needs to be done to make the sport better.

 

I am just a fan of this sport that is blessed with the opportunity to write about track and cross country. When I look at some of the issues that will be put on the table, I am wondering if those subjects will make the sport better for the kids or is a matter of agendas.

 

I am not an IHSA official. I have never been one. I have started meets way back when so I do know the rules. I have never been to an advisory committee meeting, never been invited, nor think that I will ever be in on one of those meetings.

 

I guess on some occasions I have used DyeStat Illinois as my bully pulpit. I do not know if it is right or wrong but it gives me the opportunity to write something about the sport to have people think about. Such is the case here.

 

If I were at the advisory committee meeting at the IHSA office, these would be the views that I would share. Some of you will not agree with what I think and that is you prerogative, but maybe chew on my thoughts so that you can think if yours are right or wrong. Deal?

 

 

1         Should relay points be counted double at the IHSA state meet?

I checked all of the big track states to see what kind of scoring is used at their state meets. Out of all of those states, only Texas doubles their relay points. They also only score the first six places. Not until a few years ago Texas only had to relays in their state meet program on the boy’s side (4x1, 4x4). Hence the reason for scoring double points in the relays.

 

The argument in Illinois to double their relay points started when Lake Park won their first state championship in 2010 when only three athletes accounted for their team points. This subject came up again after this year’s boy’s state meet when Providence Catholic placed second in 3A with only three scoring athletes and Pekin’s Cole Henderson accounted for all of his team points in placing third.

 

The number of events that have athletes that compete in sprint events in the state meet (including hurdles) is 8 or close to 45% of the events that are contested at Charleston. With three of those events being relays, doubling the points for the relay events would create an unfair advantage for the schools that are strong in the sprints.

 

For the longest period of time in the state meet, it was always the schools that were strong in the sprints that walked away with the state trophies. The boys’ team from Lake Park changed that when they won the state meet with the majority of their points in the field events. What is wrong with that? Coach Jay Ivory and his staff at Lake Park noticed that the athletes that came out for their team gravitated to the field events. They built off that strength and now they have four straight state championships. They did nothing wrong. I talked to an opposing coach at a meet and he was complementing what they had done taking their best athletes and putting them in events that exerted less energy compared to say multiple rounds of sprint events or distance doubles.

 

There are some of the sprint programs that instead of working on getting athletes in field events would propose to have the double relay points. The main thing you would is find ways to score points with the athletes that you have. Maybe I am being naïve in thinking that with my old school thinking.

 

If the IHSA were to do that, there would have to be some compromises to keep everything fair. Maybe the 4x2 should be eliminated. In its place, maybe add another distance relay perhaps the Distance Medley instead of the sprint relay. After all, you would have to keep the meet fair for the teams that are powerful in the distances. Perhaps in the distance events if you are not going to add another distance relay allow schools to add three athletes in the distance events at sectionals. If you double the relay points, you have to keep the playing field even.

 

Think of this comparison: you have a couple of schools that dominate in cross country year after year. Instead of other schools finding ways to improve themselves to get to the level of the powerful schools, they make a proposal to change the scoring of the state meet to where the powerful schools would be scored with their top five runners while the other schools would only have to count the first four runners. It is the same kind of proposal with doubling relay points. You penalize the teams that have success in other events by doing this.

 

One thing that I would worry about if the double relay point would be put into effect would be how it would affect the individual events. Would coaches put their best athletes in relays knowing that they would be able to score more points? There would be a sacrifice in most cases in the individual events where those events would suffer.

 

Let’s not use the argument that swimming uses double points for their relays. In swimming, you only have nine events that are contested along with three relays. I can understand why the need for the double points in swimming. I just can’t see how it would be beneficial in track & field. Let’s not recreate the wheel to benefit some that will hurt many.

 

2         Should we create a separate meet to determine the team champions and then individual champions?

I think this question should be addressed especially after what happened in the scoring in the boy’s 3A state meet last May. Part of the reason that Providence Catholic and Pekin placed second and third in that competition was because of the accelerated schedule that the IHSA put into effect (I’ll get to that in a little bit). Some of the coaches that I have talked to in the last couple of months have stated that it should be “teams” that should be considered in the team championship. We see this happen every so often. In 1981, Mike Conley won four events to lead Luther South to a team championship. Nick Bromberek was the only athlete to score points for Lemont and they ended up placing second. Now we have Cole Henderson scoring all the points for Pekin and his school placed third.

 

The idea of a separate team championship does intrigue me. However there are a number roadblocks to get this to happen.

 

I would have to agree that the wrestling advisory committee did the right thing in the ‘80’s to have the individual wrestling championships and team championships on separate weekends. It has been successful for that sport for the last thirty years. I think the question we would have to ask would if it would have the same effect in track & field?

 

It would eliminate the griping and complaining by some coaches that one athlete scoring all the points for the school does not constitute a team champion. Would you consider Lindblom High School a great track team because they finished third at the state meet in 2012? Shamier Little was the only athlete to qualify from the school. Her efforts lifted the school to that finish. Not the ideal definition of a team in that situation.

 

To get a separate team championship meet to happen in Illinois is easier said than done. The first question I would have is that how many teams would qualify for this championships? Do you take the sectional champions only and then take the top second place teams?

 

Where would these meets take place and when? Illinois is unique in that the Girls & Boys State Meet are on separate weeks. Do you follow the model that wrestling has set up and have the meet the following weekend? If you do that, you have a big conflict in that the Girls team championship would conflict with the boys individual championships in Charleston. Does the IHSA have enough quality officials to make this happen? After watching track the past season, I have doubts about that.

 

The wrestling model works is because wrestling is a one gender sport and that there are no conflicts. One weekend individual, the following weekend team. I am sure the adding of the team championship has been economically beneficial to the city that has hosted it with it now located in Bloomington.

 

One option is to hold the team championships the week after the state meet at three locations, one for each class. 3A could be in the Chicago area either at Benedictine University or North Central College. 2A & 1A could be in the Bloomington / Normal area using Illinois State or Illinois Wesleyan. Each class meet would have Girls / Boys together. Would the IHSA want to separate the three meets? It is not done in wrestling but logistically I could not see it being done in one location.

It then comes down to the fact if the meet is the week after state and is in three locations, would there be enough quality officials? I know the officials have to pay their way to Charleston. Would they be willing to do it one more week? Those are the questions that the IHSA needs to ask themselves. It would also come down to whether it would fit in their budget. We will get to a part of that issue when we talk about Qualifying Standards for the state meet.

 

If we cannot do the separate team championships, there is one thing that could be established that would make the team issue a little easier to stomach. Using the 3A Boys State Meet as an example, there were 30 schools that only qualified one individual to the state meet in Charleston. What I would propose is that the school that has only one individual qualify for the State Meet would be ineligible to score points at the meet. We do that in cross country with individual athletes, why not try it here.

 

In the instance with Cole Henderson, that rule would not have effected Pekin. Along with Henderson Pekin also had Nathan Mefford qualify in the 800 Meter Run. He did not make it to the finals. Even though that Henderson was the only Pekin athlete to make it to the finals, his points would still count. If Henderson was the only Pekin athlete to qualify out of sectionals, Pekin would not be eligible for the team championship.

 

3         Should there be 4 classes in track & field and cross country?

It won’t happen. Track & Field and Cross Country do not fall under the criteria for four classes that the IHSA set up in its classification system. Since either of these sports are not bracketed, the most classes that can be set up is three. The cutoff between two and three is 450 schools which both schools are above. I don’t see either sports going back to two classes. That would be taking a step backwards and I know the IHSA frowns against that. Once they make a change, they move forward from that standard.

 

I was one of the doubters that the three class system would work in these sports. Seeing the opportunities that it has given schools in both 1A & 2A I think it has been a huge success.

 

What some of the schools have had a problem with is the changing on how the classifications are determined in these sports over the past few years. The past two years the IHSA went to a 30%/30%/40% for the three classes. The big thing was that it treated the classifications between track & field and cross country differently. It should have been done like that a LONG time ago. Sorry to those of you that disagree with me. There are fewer schools in cross country compared to track & field and the classifications reflect that.

 

I know it is confusing to fans and some coaches that schools keep flip flopping from class to class. It happens in other states as well. It just happened later in Illinois. I’ve heard terms from coaches that the way classifications are determined by the IHSA are program killers. My reply to that would be it is if you let it be. I talked to one coach a couple of years ago after he found out that his school would be placed in 3A for track and 2A for cross country. His comment was that they knew that they would be in 3A eventually. This change in the IHSA just accelerated it.

 

Would I change the percentages that the IHSA uses? No. I think regardless of what ever percentages that are used, there will always be a school that will be unhappy. It comes down to the attitude that you bring forth to your team. Make a positive out of a negative or lemonade out of lemons or something like that.

 

Should we talk about the multiplier / waver in this piece? Not at this time. It is something that is bigger than track & field at this point and something I think the IHSA should examine closer.

 

Maybe they already are. In a June 10^th announcement on ihsa.org, Executive Marty Hickman announced that a committee was being formed to study a presentation made by Washington HS principal / Superintendent Jim Dunham about a success factor formula. Basically it would move schools up a class who have experienced success beyond the median of other schools in their class. I won’t comment on it right now since I have not seen the details of this. I guess I am not thrilled of this idea. We will see.

 

4         Should how we qualify for the IHSA State Track Meet be changed?

The last two subjects that I will look at are areas where I think in some cases that the IHSA has forgotten that the meets are all about the kids and not the people running it. From what I have heard from fans and coaches, the state track meet has become less about the kids and has become more about the spectacle of the meet itself. We will get to the actual meet in the final section. First let’s look at if qualifying for the meet should be changed.

 

There has been qualifying standards for each event I know since I started running oh so many years ago. In the last couple of years, it has been become more and more of an issue with some coaches to get away from this and to modify the way qualifications happen for the state meet. At the 2011 Boys state meet, there were only seventeen runners that actually participated in the 3A 100 Meter dash. Opportunities for athletes to run in this meet did not help that some of the conditions in the sectional were not optimal. ITCCCA North President Andy Preuss came up with a proposal that I thought was acceptable. With all sectional meets now required to have their meets timed by FAT systems, I thought this was acceptable. There would be no bias, no fudging in hand times like there was in the past. Since the meets throughout the state sectional meets are within a two day window, it would make this proposal fair.

 

The proposal that was brought to the track advisory committee last September was that the top two finishers in each of the running events would automatically qualify for the state meet. Then the fields would be filled to a set number so that there would be full fields. For example, 36 athletes/relays would be in each of the 2A/3A running events and 45 athletes in each of the 1A running events. There would still be qualifying standards for the field events. The advisory committee approved this proposal.

 

Before it went to the IHSA Board of Directors, the proposal had to pass through a board of IHSA athletic directors. They voted down the proposal. It all came down to that it would cost more for the schools to do this.

 

Fiscally, it would cost the IHSA more under that proposal. In 2013 for example, there were 398 boys entrants in the 1A running events which was 18.45% more than the standards that the IHSA set up for this year. If the proposal had been approved, there would have been an additional 42 more entrants in those events. I don’t think the IHSA athletic directors could stomach those numbers. All together, the increase for all Boys entrants above the 2013 standards was 22.91%. On the girl’s side, it was 21.41%. Overall in both the boys & girls running events, the increase was 22.16%.

 

I only had numbers for the 2012 Boys state meet. There were 88 more entrants in the running events in 2012 compared to 2013. The increase over the 2012 standards was a whopping 33.1%. So by looking at the percentages on the Boys side over the last two years, you can see how much the IHSA saved this year.

 

I can see why the Athletic Directors voted down the proposal. The money would have tough for some schools to stomach.

 

I would propose this for the qualifying standards. Keep 2 entrants automatically coming out of each sectional meet. I would decrease the numbers from the original numbers to get our fields. I would decrease it from 45 to 36 entrants per running events (20% decrease) in 1A. I would decrease it from 36 to 32 in 2A/3A (11.1% decrease).

 

Using these numbers in 3A Boys over the last two years, there would have been 10 less entrants in the field in 2012 and 41 more entrants in 2013. It would even out as the years would run out. It keeps the numbers at an even level instead of the fluctuation that there is every year. Most importantly, there would be no time standards. I know some of the old school coaches want to know how many athletes they have qualified when they leave the stadium after their sectional meet. It would mean waiting a day to see the complete fields. With technology now and with how fast the results are posted, I think we can wait a little.

 

The biggest thing it would be beneficial to the athletes for the opportunity to compete at the state meet. Maybe we should remind some of the athlete directors and such that this is all about the kids…right?

 

There is another proposal out to have qualifying for the running events throughout the season. It is a good idea but I have my doubts about it. I know that the majority of the meets in Illinois at this point, but what happens when you have an athlete qualify in three events (for example 800, 1600, 3200) during the season. It will make more confusion for the IHSA when it gets closer to the state meet. The proposal states that there would still be sectional meets to start out with but eventually fade away. The IHSA in their guidelines believes of having athletes qualify from each portion of the state.

 

What about the sprints? If you were to allow qualifying during the season, you would have to factor in the meets that had “some” wind help in those sprints. If you did season qualifying, you would have to have wind anemometers at every meet to make sure the times or jumps were under legal winds. That is the only fair way that you could contest those events. In a normal meet, you would need two IHSA officials to read the wind gages. Do we have enough IHSA officials that are trained to read these? I do not believe we do.

 

One way that I was thinking that I know the IHSA would not approve is have qualifying standards for each of the sectional meets. Each school could enter up to four athletes in each event if they meet the qualifying standard for that event. I believe the reason that the IHSA would vote it down is that they want every school to have the opportunity to have athletes in each sectional meet. It is just a thought but maybe it’s a place to start.

 

Maybe in a number of years, this might work. I know it works in D3 Meets in the NCAA. I do not think it is ready to work in Illinois. I am not being negative about the seasonal proposal. I am just being a realist.

 

5         How the state track & field meet is run…should it be changed?

I was at both the Boys and Girls State Meets. It was a difference between night and day. It seemed that the Girls meet ran without a hitch. The Boys Meet was a different story. I have never seen at a state meet so many athletes disqualified because they did not check in on time. (You can read what I wrote about the Boys Meet HERE.)

 

In the rules for the state meet, the IHSA prints up the following things for the athletes, coaches, and fans:

 

Coach/Athlete Responsibility: Times are approximate and competitors are responsible to report prior to an event. Regardless of the time an event is scheduled, events will follow one another in the order indicated and the meet will be kept moving along. It is the responsibility of the coaches and their athletes to monitor the progress of the meet and to report for competition appropriately. Do not rely solely on calls from the PA announcer. Section VII-G-1,2,3 (Reporting To The Clerk of The Course) of the Terms and Conditions will be strictly enforced. 

Consult the State Final Meet time schedule included in the State Final Program and advise competitors to be ready to compete at times scheduled (Note: Thursday & Fridays Times are approximate.) In case of delays, the time intervals between events will be approximately the same unless weather conditions dictate otherwise. The meet will be kept moving.  MEET MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE THE MEET SCHEDULE AT ANYTME THEY DETERMINE CONDITIONS WARRANT CHANGES. COACHES MUST MONITOR ALL PUBLIC ADDRESS ANNOUNCEMENTS AS ANY CHANGES WILL BE COMMUNICATED OVER THE PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM. IT IS THE COACHES RESPONSIBILITY TO MONITOR THE MEET AT ALL TIMES AND TO PRESENT HIS /HER ATHLETES TO THE APPROPRIATE CHECK--‐IN LOCATION AT THE TIME DETERMINED BY MEET MANAGEMENT.

If you look at the Track & Field Rules Interpretation video (slide 68) that each coach is required to look at before the start of the season, it has a section in for reporting to the clerk’s tent before the start of the race. In the video, it states that once the head clerk does the final attendance after the second call that it is up to the head clerk’s discretion to disqualify an athlete from an event. In the video states that there are no appeals to the disqualification.

 

So…where should I start? There are so many loop holes in the rule sets forth for the state meet.

 

In the sectional meets that I was at this spring, the meet directors were adamant that the time schedule would be followed to give athletes a fair chance. I was at a meet at Homewood-Flossmoor where there was rain throughout the area. They stayed on the time schedule. In the above statement, it said that times were approximate. It states regardless of the time schedule that the meet will go order of events and the meet will move on as scheduled. So how come there were dead moments in the Girls State Meet waiting for the time on the schedule when the race was supposed to start? There is no consistency in the enforcement of the rules the way I see it.

 

The calls at the state meet for both the Girls and Boys were spotty if that. The people doing the PA up in the press box have more of a responsibility of calling the action on the track (since the meet is not streamed online) than announcements for calls of the event. From what I have heard from athletes, there were no calls at the tent for an event. So the question that I have for the IHSA is how do you determine when as disqualification for an athlete checking in when you do not have calls for the event? Nowhere in the rules that I could find was a time set forth that an athlete must be there by? How can you disqualify an athlete when you have no time set? I can see if they are taking the athletes out of the tent, but there were instances at the Boys Meet where the athletes were being lead to the track and athlete was allowed in who was noticeably late.

 

There are no set rules anywhere (other than the calls that were not happening) when the schedule is sped up due to bad weather (I will get to that in a minute). How do you determine when an athlete is late when the schedule is in hyper drive like it was for the Boys finals?

 

There were no problems in the Girls State Meet with check ins. There was different clerk of the course that was running it compared to the boys. I’ve heard of ten different instances of problems of check ins at the boys meet. Maybe it comes down to common sense with whomever is running the tent. The question would be if there was any being used on those three days.

 

Of course, it is always the athletes or coaches fault. It is never that of the IHSA….right?

 

A coach forwarded me a letter that IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman wrote to the coach. In one part of the Hickman letter he stated that “However, the fact of the matter is, we aren’t the ones that let (I deleted the name of the athlete) down. Below are two excerpts from information we provide to you.  Clearly, it’s your responsibility to follow the meet schedule and have your athlete ready to go, regardless of the printed time schedule.

 

So I guess it is the coach’s fault for the actions of the IHSA officials in that tent. No calls…no schedule to base disqualifications off of, especially Saturday. I was in the press box on one of the mornings of prelims and there was an IHSA official that was taking down times of when the event would start and when it would end. I saw in the prelim schedule that there were no times set…only a start time for the running events.

 

One thing I would ask is you need to eliminate the outdated call system and run the state meet by time schedule in both the prelims in the finals. In the rules there should be some kind of statement stating that an athlete will be subject for disqualification xx minutes before the time of their scheduled event. That and having someone that can enforce that rule without prejudice.

 

What happens when the schedule is sped up?

 

This is the second time in three years that the Boys final was put in order of events. I can understand it the first time. I had seen the radar the morning of the event and I knew we had a huge storm coming in. This year….come on!

 

I was at the USATF Youth Championships at the end of June. On the final two days of the competition, there were forecasts for chances of thunderstorms. The officials alerted everyone in the stands that they may have to speed up the schedule or halt the meet. I know there was an official that was watching the radar and someone from the university was watching the lightning sensors that were in place in the stadium. It got to the point where the weather became horrible and the meet was called off. There was monitoring of the situation.

 

One thing that the High School Athletic Association in Ohio does is that they tweet if there are any weather alerts and change of schedule that the public, coaches, and athletes should be aware of. Sine we are in a technological age, why not use some of it. The scoreboard should have been running a scroll about the schedule being sped up. Also, put it on the IHSA website. The more places to let the public know, the less problems you will encounter.

 

I could not tell you what the deal was with the IHSA on that Saturday. All I know is when I was entering the stadium right before the finals, Assistant Executive Director Ron McGraw was with meet manager John Polka on a walkie-talkie telling the press box of their intentions of speeding the meet up.

 

In the letter written to the coach by Hickman, he stated about the Saturday schedule:

“I was at the IHSA Boys Track and Field State Finals on May 25, 2013, and I was in complete agreement with the time schedule modification.  It wasn’t rain that was the issue; it was lightning.  The weather models on May 25 were predicting lightning and storms.  Meet management felt that in order to complete the meet, the schedule had to be adjusted.  And quite frankly, with only a couple of exceptions, the competitors were able to meet the check in requirements of the accelerated schedule and participate in the finals. To your initial point, we did put the athletes first and that is why the schedule was accelerated.  It would have been irresponsible for us not to accelerate the schedule.”

It was irresponsible for the IHSA to speed up the schedule. I had checked the national weather service website and weather.com before I left for the track the first time before the start of the Sections of the 3200. When it started to rain, I went back up to the press box to get my umbrella. I checked the forecast again. “A 60% chance of scattered rain expected to end before 2:00 PM.” It did stop before 2 PM. I remember interviewing athletes during the 200 Meter Dash and the 1600 Meter Relay and there was no rain in sight…the meet ended at 2:30 PM. It did not rain again until 6 PM. The meet would have been long done by that point.

 

I thought it was even more hilarious (but sad) that after the mile relay was completed, there was an announcement made from the IHSA due to the threating weather approaching, all spectators were asked to leave the stadium. The awards would be given in the dugout. When that announcement was being made, I looked to the west and the south where all the rain HAD come from, the skies were clear and the sun was out. WHAT A JOKE!

 

Everyone makes mistakes and admits to them. There is only One that was perfect in this world. For the IHSA to say that they were right in their decision, I think they are trying to fool themselves. I do not know who they put first. Athletes who were trying to compete in two or more races were upset that the meet was sped up. If the IHSA would have stayed on the original schedule, only the events up to the 100 Meter Dash would have been effected. If was only rain that fell on that day. The athletes in Illinois were used to running in precipitation this season. It was not helping the athletes or the coaches that by the misjudgment of the IHSA, the schedule was moved faster. The only thing I can suggest that in the future when this situation happens again, I hope that the IHSA has learned from the mistake that they had claimed not to make and think before they make another action.

 

So what should we do about checking in at the clerk’s tent when the schedule is sped up? We have all that technology. Have someone who is technically efficient in the clerk’s tent either communicating that it is now time to check in at the tent for the event. It could be tweeted or put on the scoreboard but it could warn coach and athlete that they need to get their butts over to the tent before they are disqualified. There would be no confusion in this process. I hope it would be something that the IHSA would consider.

 

I also like what the IHSA does before the state cross country meet. It requires a coach from each team to attend a coaches meeting where the meet official goes over what their team needs to do before the start of the race, after the race, etc. Let’s do something like that for track. Class 1A coaches either meet Wednesday afternoon or before the start on Thursday morning. The same with the 2A or 3A coaches. Meet Thursday afternoon or Friday morning before the start of the 2A Meet. Make it clear to the coaches that if they do not attend, their team does not compete. It is all about accountability both on the IHSA part but also on the coach.

There were other things that happened on that Saturday. The people that were making the award announcements did not have a clue about track & field for both the boys and girls session. For example in the Girls 3200, the time of 11:10.77 was announced “Eleven point ten minutes point seven seven seconds.” It was embarrassing.

Another thing that I was surprised to not hear from is that coaches have not been educated on rating the officials. My dad used to be an official and would revel when someone rated him (bad or good). Maybe after what I have seen happen during this year where things were not called (Homewood-Flossmoor Girls Sectional 4 x 200 Meter Relay) it is time to rate the officials that were there appropriately instead of putting your head in the sand. It still makes me sick when I remember the Head clerk of the Boys State Meet joking that the meet was finished two hours ahead of schedule. I wish I could rate the officials. Here again, there are some great officials out there that know there stuff.

 

I think the one thing that I hope the IHSA gets to is that the state meet is all about the kids. They have trained their lives to get to that point only to have it ruined by inconsistency rulings by officials. I talked to an athlete at the Midwest Distance Festival that happened two weeks after the state meet who had been disqualified for not checking in on time (so to speak). He said it was something that he will never forget.

 

Coaches and officials are supposed to be mentors for the kids that they are dealing with. Maybe for some of the officials, the passion for the sport has been outweighed by the responsibility that they have acquired. I ran at three state meets in my life. There are some bad memories from a few of them but it was something that was not caused by an official. In my day, the officials were professuional and efficient. I knew as an athlete where I stood. I am guessing from some of the athletes that I have talked to that they are not. That needs to be change.

 

Maybe the motto for the IHSA for 2014 should be “Return to the passion of sport.” That is something that was missing in most cases for the state series of 2013. It is an attitude change that the IHSA desperately needs to put in effect for this year. That not only comes from me but that is the consensus of what I have heard from the coaches that have communicated with me. We need this change not only for our sport but for the young men and women that make the choice to compete in it.