This year, it's the field events that will have to learn the most new tricks.
Track and field will look and feel a little different this spring as we adapt to the new NFHS rule changes. I'll try to summarize the ones most likely to impact your life around the oval this spring in the paragraphs that follow and then provide a link to download the full text of the rules changes at the bottom of the article.
Use of Video in Coaching During Competition
Coaches may now show video of athletes to those athletes between trials in the field events. The viewing must take place in the unrestricted area of a coaching box (perhaps a football end zone on many tracks, especially for the high jump and horizontal jumps). Video, of course, has long been in use as a coaching tool. This move takes the tablet-as-a-coaching-tool right up to the venue. Possession of a recording device with instant replay capabilities is no longer deemed an advantage available only to a privileged few.
Videos of an athlete's trial, however, may not be used to call in question an official's decision.
Uniform Rules
By now, we are accustomed to the annual tweaking of the uniform rules. As certain as the wind blowing in springtime are the annual alternations of the boundaries of the uniform rule. This year, the single-color rule for spandex worn under uniform shorts is history--at least so long as the spandex reaches no lower than the top of the knee. Look for stripes, patterns, and bursts of color to proliferate from beneath track shorts--just as traditional track shorts have begun to disappear from the scene.
The single-color rule remains in place for half, three-quarter, and full length spandex worn beneath uniform shorts or uniform spandex.
Return of Throwing Implements
This one isn't a rule, per se, but comes as a strongly-worded point of emphasis. You need to read "legal liability" between the lines of this one. Pretty clearly, at least one somebody got pegged with a lobbed or rolled implement sometime over the last 12 months.
The idea here is that throwing implements (shots, discs, and javelins) are not to be tossed, rolled, or lobbed back to the competitor. They are to be hand-carried to the edge of the throwing sector and returned to the athlete or to another individual who will, in turn, return the implement back to the thrower (presumably not by rolling or tossing it).
This one holds considerable potential to slow down the progress of throwing events, especially the discus and javelin. That's just the reality of the situation, even if the person retrieving the implement runs to the edge of the sector to return it to the thrower. And, it's likely to require another person or two working in the throwing sector. Ironically, this could lead to more implement strikes within the sector itself, but presumably the folks working in the sector are paying good attention at all times. We shall hope so.
Owing to this point of emphasis, the shot put may see a surge in declined rails such as are currently in (good) use at the throwing rings at Longmont and Roosevelt high schools. The person retrieving the implement simply sets it on the rail and lets it roll gently back toward the throwing ring. A few feet of level railing at the end of the declined section allows the shot to slow down before being picked up by the thrower.