Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Stanford Invitational entries posted

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sam Pons in the 3k...hmmm...

Anonymous said...

I cant wait to watch the Boys Mile since you had to run under 4:27 to even make it this year! If not will see what schools fib about their times!

Anonymous said...

People have bad days. If you doubt someone's entry time do a search and look it up. With the internet most PR's are easily found with a little research. That said, this is all on the coach, not the kids so tread lightly.

As a parent I have a problem with coaches who enter times that are slower or faster than what their PR is to win a shirt or get into a meet. Coaches should be held to an ethical standard and should not speculate, but enter what has been run.

I understand for some invites early in the season you may need to do some guess work for your freshman runner has not run that event yet. Stanford is not one of those meets. If you don't have the time, train hard and get in next year.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully we'll get some decent weather on Saturday. I was at the Dublin Distance Festival last weekend and the wind and rain really slowed down the times.

John said...

Anonymous said "As a parent I have a problem with coaches who enter times that are slower or faster than what their PR is to win a shirt or get into a meet. Coaches should be held to an ethical standard and should not speculate, but enter what has been run."

I'm not a coach but it's just not that easy or in many cases best for your athletes to do this. Early in the season a coach is trying to gauge their athlete's current condition to get them into the race in which they can be most competitive.

Given the above parent's logic a coach should seed a 4:26 runner from junior year at their PR even if he is coming back from injury and is only in 4:40 shape - and thus knock someone else out who might be more deserving at the moment.

Or the coach should seed a sophomore, who ran 11:10 in the 3200 as a freshman, at his PR even though he put in a big winter base and can probably run sub 10:30? I'm sure this would get all the conspiracy-theory, T-shirt junkies in a twist.

BTW, my son was similar to the latter example and ran below 10:20 to open the season. Fortunately his coach seeded him and his teammates significantly below their PRs from last year to get them into the correct heats and all ran faster than their seed times.

Oh yeah, only one of them won a shirt.

Coach Small said...

My 2 cents (that have a resale value of about 1/25 of a cent)...

A coach should have some leeway as to entry times for most early season races. In that I agree with John from the above post. Still, sandbagging is not cool and as a Coach I always want my kids to do their best, not win a slow race for a silly shirt. If you want one so bad, run a PR and I'll buy it for you.

That said, a coach should have NO leeway when entering a top tier meet like Stanford, Arcadia, Top 8, etc. and marks should be verified by the meet director. If you have not run a time for these elite meets there are smaller invitationals for you to run in. I am glad that the larger meets verify times as exaggerated times often keep out deserving athletes who have already run those times.

I know Arcadia will scratch all athletes from a team where there is found to be marks that are not legitimate. I am sure many get away with it still but being honest for big meets is the right thing to do for your athlete and others.

Just my take on it.

John said...

Thanks for the post Coach Small. I completely agree regarding the big invitationals.

Do you know if the marks have to be posted this year to get into Stanford, etc?

Anonymous said...

"Do you know if the marks have to be posted this year to get into Stanford, etc?"

Not always, since Stanford is so early in the season, previous season marks have always been acceptable for entry.

In the entry information for Arcadia, it states that previous season's marks are acceptable, but current season marks are weighted far more highly.

Coach Small said...

As stated in the above post marks are generally accepted for the current season and the previous one for most invitationals (unless stated otherwise, I think the Top 8 is one of those exceptions). Also those times are minimum entry times. At Stanford they take the top 36 entries below that standard.

http://www.gostanford.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/stan/sports/c-track/auto_pdf/2011SIHSInfo

Mile (Top 36) 4:29.9 5:17.9
(standard refers to time for 1600 meters)
3000 Meters (Top 36) 9:59.9 11:44.9

Anonymous said...

I had emailed to see what it took to get into Stanford this year and they said, This year a 4:27 does not get into Stanford from a email I recieved. They apoligized and wished the athlete much luck threw the Season and Hopefully Next Year.

Anonymous said...

What's your point? I think it is pretty clear. You have to run sub 4:30 just to enter. They take the top 36 entries. Seems pretty straight forward.

I am pretty sure you can find 36 kids 4:20 and faster that want to run Stanford so its not surprising that a 4:27 didn't make it.

Anonymous said...

Yes you are right it does state run 4:30 just to enter, but then 2008 8 runners, 2009 2 runners and 2010 9 runners under 4:20!

Anonymous said...

Early season meet... Guys with 4:20 PR's are 4:25ish right now. If you enter their PR from this season or last it makes sense that a 4:27 PR doesn't make it in.

In 2010 29 runners were under 4:27. I am assuming the others had bad days. I suggest getting at good PR at top 8 this year!

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