Keeping you abreast of the developments from the track and field committee meeting...
As track and field committee meetings go, this one was not overloaded with issues that will change the day-to-day nature of how we do track and field, but there were definitely some newsworthy items coming out of the meeting nevertheless.
The committee spent some time discussing the Week 12 proposal. The proposal did not quite meet the formal requirements of a proposal to the committee, but the committee felt it well worthwhile discussing the issue just the same. There will be no change to Week 12 policies this year (one meet only for each school in the final week before state).
My distillation of the proceedings of the discussion is that CHSAA and the committee would like to see a proposal meeting all formal requirements of a proposal that ensures any athlete competing in Week 12 (or any week, for that matter) be accompanied by a member of the coaching staff of the school. A proposal that limits the number of Week 12 meets (presumably to two meets while still limiting athlete participation to one meet) would be helpful.
The committee did appear to be open to concerns that there are reasons a team might want to split into two meets the last week before state--things like AP/IB exam schedules, keeping more athletes around to that point in the season, and such.
In other matters, CHSAA and the state officials association both stressed the need for quality administration of qualifying meets. This would include, but is probably not limited to: an adequate number of meet officials, a member of the coaching staff of a school competing at the meet not acting in the role of a head official at a meet, having sand pits up to level, ensuring that wind gauge operators and field event workers understand their tasks and the importance of same, and keeping distance heats to a reasonable number of athletes so that risk of injury is minimized and lapped runners can be adequately tracked through the entirety of the race.
CHSAA also took input about holding next year's committee meeting on the Friday of the track and field coaches clinic rather than the Monday following.
Lastly, the committee spent some time discussing the Black Forest League proposal to relax the wind reading standards for state qualifying. Ultimately, the committee opted not to go forward with the recommendation. The committee met in executive session over the proposal, so I am unable to address any specifics of the discussion.
I can say, however, that Gregg Dahlberg's (Mr. Dahlberg is an assistant coach at Peyton High School) presentation dealt with average wind readings around the state in various localities, especially in the month of April. To this observer's ear, the committee seemed clearly cognizant of the problem of non-legal winds, but also saw problems with a solution that allowed marks up to a wind reading of +4.0.