NEW
1161 Route 130 North,
2010 NJSIAAA Winter Track Committee Meeting
Meeting Minutes
Members present:
Members absent: Ralph Ross
[NJSIAA Executive Committee Member] and Ray White [
First of all, everyone involved with this season’s tournaments -- student/athletes, coaches, school administrators, officials, workers, and even the fans are to be congratulated for their patience and understanding as well as for their cooperation and help during this season’s trials and tribulations caused by the record snows of this winter. Without everyone’s support this season could have been a total disaster. Instead, the committee felt the meets went extremely well.
Another indication of that is the number of correspondence received, which amounted to one e-mail complaining about how we started the 400 m dash at the sectional level.
The National Federation rules stress that in a multiple section event, all sections of that event must use the same starting procedure. We were using the 2-alley start for the slowest seeded sections and 6-lane start for the top 2-seeded sections in the 400m dash and the 4x400 meter relay. We tried to use just the 6-lane start for these two events in the first session of the sectionals. This resulted in a meet that was over 90 minutes longer than the same meet the previous year, so we used the 2-alley start in all of the following sessions to keep the meets at a reasonable length.
After discussion, it was decided to keep the alley starts for these two events in the sectionals only, but to use three alleys instead of two, placing three runners in each alley [the middle alley should have 1-3 seed, top alley seed 7-9 & scratch alley seed 4-6.] This should create races with less bumping in the initial 200 meters. This same procedure will be used in the relay meet for the 4x400 and sprint medley.
For various reasons, the committee elected to keep seeds at the group meet based strictly on section performances and seeding at the Meet of Champions based strictly on the group meet performances. Two coaches had asked that Sectional Winners and/or Group Winners be given automatic spots in the seeded sections of the next level meet. The main reason the committee did not like this was that it would bump athletes from the seeded section who would have legitimate chances to medal and if you did not bump them, it would create too large of a seeded section.
Although we received no correspondence on this, there was discussion on the Finishlynx system results for a Group III boys 3200. A claim was made that the times for all the finishers were off by about 1.5 seconds. According to the company that produces the program, this could only happen if there was a false starting of the clock just before the actual start by the gun that went unnoticed by the computer operator. Even so, every start of the clock is recorded (it is called the Delta time) in the system, no matter how the clock is started [The clock can be started accidentally by the starter by hitting the gun sensor on his/her side on the way up to the firing position. It can also be started by the computer operator by hitting a specific key on the keyboard.] When this problem was brought to the attention of the timers, they checked the Delta time to see if there were two starts indicated very close together. They could not find any. We asked two other experienced Finishlynx operators to check, and they, too, found no evidence of a false start. That is why the time was allowed to stand as recorded. We will explore other ways to have a “backup” for the main system other than hand timing, which by definition is always faster than automatic timing.
Other matters:
Seeding for the relays. Current system is too burdensome administratively and was not working because may coaches were not reporting good times their teams had achieved. Therefore, next year, assuming the tournaments will be offered, we will use Milesplit to create a verification list of running event relays and use that as a basis of seeding the meets.
Facilities – It was discussed that an additional site is needed for the Sectionals so that they can be conducted over a 2 or 3 day weekend, but the only other facility available to us is Jersey City Armory which has many problems, starting with the field events, not to mention the inability to guarantee dates because it is an active military facility.
Pole Vault and High Jump – Because we have two venues for these events, raising the bar twice the standard height is no longer necessary. Make starting height for girls pole vault at entry level meets 7’6’ for all groups.
Dates/Times of winter track meets – 2011
I. State
Relay Championships: Entries Close
Site:
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Date |
Group |
Starting Time |
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Group
IV Boys and Girls |
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Group
III Boys and Girls |
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Non-Public
Boys and Girls |
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Group
II Boys and Girls |
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Group
I Boys and Girls |
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II. Individual
State Group Championships
Entries Close
A. Sectionals (PUBLIC SCHOOLS ONLY)
At
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Date |
Group |
Starting Time |
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North 1 Gr 1 and 4 Boys and Girls |
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North 1 Gr 2 and 3 Boys and Girls |
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North 2 Gr 1 & 4 Boys and Girls |
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North 2 Gr 2 & 3 Boys
and Girls |
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Any weekday session postponement will move
first to Sunday as an added 3rd session with the sessions being
rescheduled to
If inclement weather would cause the sectionals to be postponed beyond Monday, the entire program would be postponed a week. [The sectionals would finish during the weekend of Feb 11, the Group Meets would begin on Feb 18, and the meet of champions would be Feb 26]
B. State Group Meets (All Schools)
At
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Date |
Group |
Starting Time |
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Groups 1 and 4 Boys
and Girls |
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Non-Pubic A & B
Boys & Girls |
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Groups 2 and 3 Boys and Girls |
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Monday, February 14 – Snow Date
C. Meet of Champions:
At
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Date |
Group |
Starting Time |
|
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Girls |
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Boys and Girls Pole Vault |
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Boys |
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