If you're paying attention, you've already noticed a big change in the Colorado indoor meet schedule for this winter.
Instead of its familiar place on the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend, the Air Force High school Indoor Open will take place four weeks later, on Presidents Day weekend.
And that raises a few eyebrows. It doesn't take too much calendar calculus to realize, "Hey, that's the same weekend as Simplot!"
It seems we're about to find out if the Rocky Mountain Region is big enough for two major indoor meets, albeit several hundred miles apart, on the same weekend.
Ralph Lindeman, head track and field coach at the United States Air Force Academy, understands the risk, but is willing to take that risk. The old date on the weekend of the Martin Luther King holiday wasn't working.
"We've been under 500 athletes, and the meet hasn't grown. It's been constant for the last four years."
It didn't help that the former date put the meet up against the Carl Lewis Invitational in Texas, effectively shutting off the flow of Texas-based athletes to the Air Force meet.
Lindeman believes the meet, as previously scheduled, also fell too early in the indoor season to be as big as it could be. The staff at the Academy are looking at the later date as the key to growing the meet, "We'd like to see it grow annually by about 20%, get to 800 to 1000 athletes, and make it a two-day meet with qualifying rounds. The facility and the community can handle it."
Even with the Presidents Day hockey tournament in town the same weekend, there's no question Colorado Springs can handle an event of the size Lindeman envisions.
Regardles of whether the community and facility can handle it, the meet will need buy-in to succeed. Lindeman believes there's evidence that the buy-in is ready to happen, "We polled several coaches and many indicated they'd like to come here."
And there are lots of reasons to come to the Air Force Academy for an indoor meet like the Air Force High School Open. For starters, the indoor field event facilities are second to none--and that includes anywhere in the nation. Field event records at the Cadet Field House are world class kind of marks, and the runways used for the jumps and pole vault have a lot to do with that. They're so fast that the biggest problem athletes face is overshooting their marks.
The Air Force Academy indoor facility also features an oversized, six-lane, six-laps-to-the-mile track. The straightaway for 60 meters and hurdles has eight lanes. That gives them a lot of options that no other facility in the Rocky Mountain region can match. It also allows them to push athletes through events at a much faster rate than most indoor facilities.
But it goes beyond facilities. Colorado Springs is easy to get to for most of Colorado's population--and Colorado high school athletes is the first crowd the folks at the Air Force Academy are trying to attract. It's also readily accessible to athletes in Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Arizona, and Nebraska.
And, when you're looking in those directions to fill your meet, you're not setting up for much of a conflict with Simplot. Certainly, some Colorado athletes who've traditionally made the trip to Idaho may have to make a decision this year, but it's less of a decision the farther from Idaho that you get.
So, we'll see a different date this year for the Air Force High School Indoor Open. If the meet grows, it will be deemed a success by the Academy. Pulling in more field event specialists, who may be a little closer to competition readiness by mid February than mid January, would be a first indicator that things are proceeding according to plan.