For years, the postseason in Division I outdoor track and field has consisted of conference championships and, for those who met the NCAA qualifying standards and finished high enough on the descending-order lists, the national championships.

Beginning in 2002, though, major changes will be in order that include adding regional qualifying meets, placing greater emphasis on the conference championships, dramatically increasing the field sizes for the NCAA championships and pushing the national meet back one week.

The Division I Championships/
Competition Cabinet at its February meeting approved recommendations from the Division I track and field subcommittee regarding championships field expansion and regional qualifying. While many details remain to be solidified, it is certain that what takes place after the 2002 regular season will be much different than now.

To make all the pieces in the postseason puzzle fit, an increase in the number of competitors at the national championships was necessary. The track and field subcommittee made its case by noting several statistics regarding participation rates and the ratio of participants to championship qualifiers.

First, the number of men's competitors at the national championships has not increased since 1989. On the women's side, the only increases since 1993 have been to accommodate the additions of the hammer throw and pole vault to the meet.

The current championships cap of 388 men and 388 women means the ratio of championship qualifiers to total participants is 1:23 for women and 1:24 for men, based on the 1998-99 NCAA participation study. Those ratios were the highest among individual-team championships in Division I.

For the 1998-99 championships, men's golf had the next highest ratio at 1:20, followed by women's swimming at 1:16 and men's and women's tennis at 1:15.

The track and field ratios will be lowered significantly by the 2002 expansion of 40 percent to 544 participants of each gender. For the women, the ratio will be about 1:16.3, with the men's ratio improved to 1:17.2.

Crowded selection

So how will the nearly 1,100 competitors to the national championships be determined? Using the current Division I cross country selection method as a model, the approved proposal calls for a combination of automatic qualifiers from the regional meets based on finish, and at-large qualifiers based on the descending-order lists from the regular season and regionals.

In cross country, the top two teams and top four individuals who are not members of those two teams from each of the nine regional qualifying meets automatically advance to the national championships. The remaining 13 teams are selected at-large, based on criteria that include regional finish as well as regular-season results.

The plan for 2002 is for advancement to the track and field championships to occur at four, two-day regional qualifying meets. The only events not included in the advancement procedure would be the decathlon, heptathlon and the men's and women's 10,000-meter runs. Those events will not be included in the regional meets, and competitors will continue to qualify for the national championships by meeting a predetermined standard.

Otherwise, the top five finishers in each individual event and the top three teams in each relay event from each of the four regions will advance to the nationals. The fields, expected to be about 26 for each individual event and 17 teams in each relay, will then be completed by selecting at-large entrants.

The Division I subcommittee will base its selections on the descending-order lists from all regular-season competition and the four regional meets. However, an athlete must compete in all events at a regional meet in which he or she wishes to remain eligible for an at-large spot to the national championships.

"We want the regionals to carry significant value," said Howell. "This stipulation will prevent an athlete at the top of the descending-order list after the regular season from not competing in the regional meets."

To enhance further the importance of the regionals, team scoring will be compiled and team champions recognized. "We believe this is a highly visible way to promote the team aspect of track and field, as well as develop some regional rivalries that currently do not exist because of conference affiliations," said Mark Bockelman, NCAA assistant director of championships and liaison to the Division I track and field subcommittee.

Changes strategy

Conference championship meets have always been an important part of most teams' seasons, and this proposal should only increase their significance. The conference champion in each individual and relay event, other than the combined events and 10,000, will automatically qualify for the regionals.

In addition, the conference competitions will most likely be the final ones before the regionals, giving athletes one more opportunity to move up the descending-order lists that will be used to round out the regional fields.

Putting regional meets into the mix will force the national championships back one week, to conclude the second Saturday in June rather than the first. The regional meets will take place two weeks before the national championships, giving athletes adequate recovery time between the competitions and providing coaches and spectators time to complete travel plans.

However, the addition of another major meet in the form of regionals will most likely impact the way coaches deploy their athletes.

"Coaches will have to be more selective as to whether they want athletes to compete in two, three or maybe even four events," said Bubba Thornton, head men's track and field coach at the University of Texas at Austin. "They will need to reach decisions with their athletes as to the importance of qualifying for the national championships and yet competing in enough events to remain in contention for team titles."

Howell believes the addition of the regionals and the field-size increase will give the postseason a boost in interest and support. "I expect attendance at the national championships to increase, not just because there are more competitors, but because more schools should be represented," Howell said.

"That means alumni and other friends of those institutions will have the chance to go out and follow their athletes, both at the regionals and nationals."

Still some unrest

Although the original regional-qualifying model was developed in the summer of 1999 by an ad hoc committee with members representing both the Division I track and field subcommittee and the U.S. Track Coaches Association (USTCA), some skepticism remains in the coaching ranks over whether its addition is a positive step.

One of the concerns coaches have is that institutions will have to pay their own expenses to attend and compete in the regionals, just as they do in cross country. With the additional week until the national meet, programs also will bear more costs in housing and feeding their athletes who will be competing in the championships since most schools will have already completed their academic year. Still others believe only the field-size increase was necessary.

"Regional qualifying and the field-size increase originally were presented to the Championships/Competition Cabinet in February as two different proposals," Bockelman said. "The cabinet voted not to address them separately, but as a package.

"Throughout the entire process, we have remained in close contact with the coaches association and will continue to do so."

Thornton also noted that coaches have not been left out of the decision-making process. "Coaches may say that they have not been given a chance for input, but there have been meetings about regional qualifying at the USTCA convention and the various Division I championships," Thornton said.

"The question is whether they took advantage of the opportunities that were presented."

Howell acknowledges that getting the proposal off the ground and through the Division I governance structure has had its rough spots. "Any change of this magnitude presents challenges," he said. "However, at several points along the way, there have been signs of encouragement.

"The Championships/Competition Cabinet's approval was confirmation that this was a positive step for Division I track and field."

"There will be positives and negatives involved that will take two or three years to work out. No matter what, though, the athletes will perform well and make the thing work."