If you were thinking the same old assumptions apply this year for high school indoor track and field, think again. A lot has changed.
Balch Field House is done. The new 300-meter University of Colorado indoor track will be the venue for one, and one only, USATF-Colorado meet on January 7.*
All other USATF-Colorado meets will be taking place on Sundays at the Air Force Academy. Dates include January 15 (Martin Luther King Mile-Hi), January 22 (Tony Wells), and January 29 (State). High school coaches are advised that Sunday contact rules apply for these dates.
Colorado School of Mines will not be taking high school athletes for their indoor collegiate meets this year. Instead, CSM will be offering a series of four winter indoor meets for high school students on Thursday nights. Those dates will be January 19 and 26, plus February 2 and 9.
The Air Force Academy will be hosting their high school indoor open on February 4, which is a Saturday.
The following weekend, Western State and Great Southwest (Albuquerque Convention Center) figure to split the Colorado crowd between two exciting and fully up-to-date venues. Both meets are on February 11. If you are really ambitious, and a touch insane, you could probably compete in both, since Western State is a morning-into-early-afternoon meet and Great Southwest is an evening meet.
For most of our indoor athletes, the indoor season ends with the Simplot Games in Pocatello, Idaho, on February 16 - 18.
If you aim to get an indoor competition in before the holidays, your options are now down to one--the Air Force Holiday Open on December 9. Since Mines is not taking high school athletes at their open meets this year, Air Force is the only option that weekend. As a result, it will likely be a substantial field of high school athletes converging on the Cadet Field House next Friday.
Changing rules at the NCAA level will make it more difficult going forward for colleges to accommodate high school athletes at collegiate indoor meets. Although the formal implementation of the rule has been put off for a year, a new rule at the college level will require athletes to have marks in the TFRRS system for seeds in all college meets or be seeded with no mark. At present, at least, there is no system in place for high school athletes to have marks entered into the TFRRS system.
Colorado School of Mines is opening their high school indoor meets series, in part, to fill a gap of indoor opportunities for high school athletes in view of that new rule.
To this point in time, Adams State University has given no indication that their indoor facility will be available for high school competition.
* - Note: I'm getting mixed messages now about the location of this meet. It may be at Balch. :-/