Winter Track Committee

New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association

1161 Route 130 North, P.O. Box 487 Robbinsville, NJ 08691

Meeting Minutes

March 9, 2004

Robbinsville, NJ

9:30 – 11:00 am

Present were: Lou Fraulo (Clifton High School), Cark Rickershauser (Cherry Hill, NJ), Bill Collins (Highland Regional),

Wayne Gardiner (Delbarton High School), Al Naimo (Bergen Catholic), Jack Martin (Westfield), Len Pietrewicz (Randolph High School) and Don Danser (NJSIAA).

First off, for the most part, all agreed that the winter meets went very well. The major problem has been the large number of entries in the Groups III and IV, which triggered the survey that was given out during the Group II & III meets and posted on the major track sites for coaches who did not get the paper copy at a meet. The results of the survey have been posted already on the major track sites (lfrauloracingsystems.com; mctrack.org; and Monmouth.com/~scullion).

After much discussion of the survey and the problems facing the program, it was acknowledged that the coaches have caused the problem by entering athletes who were below the guidelines listed in the tournament regulations. The changes that are being proposed will help, but won’t solve the problems unless coaches themselves pitch in by not entering athletes who are not up to the standards that will be developed for each group.

1. By unanimous vote, the committee decided to substitute the 4x400m relay with the 200m dash (final on time). The rational for this change was that we would be changing a sprint event for another sprint event, while saving about an hour each session. In effect, we would then have a purely relay program, and a purely individual program. The order of events will be as follows for 2005:

Girls 3200, Girls 200, Boys 200, Boys 3200, girls hurdle trials, boys hurdle trials, girls 55 trials, boys 55 trials, girls 800, boys 800, girls hurdles final, boys hurdles final, girls 55 final, boys 55 final, girls 1600, boys 1600, girls 400, boys 400.

2. By a 5-2 vote to ad the boys and girls pole vault to the program as a scoring event. A boy must have vaulted 10’ during the 2004-05 season to be eligible for the meet, and the girl 8’. The number of entries per group will determine if that group will run a standard pole vault event, or be subject to a “six-attempts only” rule. Athletes to be eligible must make the “Pole Vault Eligibility List” that will be maintained by Lou Fraulo (lfraulo@erols.com) and posted on his website (www.lfrauloracingsystems.com). This event addition is subject to approval by the NJSIAA Program Review Committee and the NJSIAA Executive Committee.

Note: If the pole vault becomes part of the program, it will mean that boys and girls will not high jump at the same time; for 2005, girls will start both the high jump and pole vault events followed by the boys (will be the reverse in 2006).

3. Qualifying standards will be established for entry into the group meets. Standards will vary for each group and will be based on the previous year’s results. The committee decided to wait and see how the coaches handled these standards before specifying how violations would be handled. They felt the coaches should be given a chance to help solve the problem voluntarily, thereby avoiding the necessity to apply sanctions to violators.

Another result of these changes is that the 4x400 will not appear in the Meet of Champions. The relay meets will stay the same.

The NJSIAA has no control over the dates and times Princeton gives us. As a result, the Committee felt we should maintain the 12-wildcard procedure (6 wildcards from groups I and IV, and 6 from II and III) for advancement from the groups to the meet of champions instituted this past season because of the great spread in dates. We will not know what dates we will have next year until the fall of 2004. All we can say is that on the first available day will be the Relays for Groups IV (am) and I (pm), the next will be Groups III (am) and II (pm). The same pattern will hold true for the Group Meets (IV and I, then III and II). 2005 is an odd-numbered year, thus events will run girls, followed by boys.

In closing, the committee would like to thank all the coaches who took time to either fill out a survey form or write an e-mail response. The information taken from the survey helped the committee reach a solution that will make the meets more “championship” like, yet allow room for expansion of the program.