A proposed system for advancing through the Division I Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships would replace the current regional qualifying system with what is being called “first-round” qualifying that would establish fields for the national finals through head-to-head competition.

The Division I Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Committee prefers conducting those first-round qualifiers at three sites – in the eastern, central and western areas of the country – but says a two-site format also would be manageable in determining the 24 individual qualifiers in each event (except in the heptathlon and decathlon) who would advance from the first round to the national finals.

In either case, first-round qualifying would be conducted over a three-day period, compared to the two days currently scheduled for regional meets.

The committee will recommend approval of the new format at the Division I Championship Cabinet’s September 16-17 meeting in Indianapolis. If approved, the new format would first be used in 2010.

The proposal was created by a Division I study group that included members of the track and field committee and representatives of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. It is supported by the executive committee of the track and field coaches association.

The proposed format’s primary feature is that it basically would require competitors to reach the national finals through head-to-head competition. Currently, approximately one-third of participants in national finals advance on the basis of marks achieved through the regular season, via a qualifying system that combines competition at four regional sites and the use of a national descending-order list of season-best performances to fill incomplete fields.

Under the proposed three-site first-round qualifying system, each area would place the top 32 declared student-athletes in each event (based on the national descending-order list) in first-round competition at the area site. Those 32 student-athletes then would compete to determine the eight competitors in each event who would advance from the site to the national finals.

In a two-site first-round system, each area would place 48 student-athletes per event at a site, with competition determining 12 competitors who would advance.

Under either system, student-athletes would compete in an equal number of preliminaries at each area site, thus addressing a complaint under the current system that competitors in smaller regions advance through fewer heats in track events or face smaller fields in jumping and throwing events than counterparts in larger regions.

Sixteen relay teams would compete in each of the two relay events in a three-site format, with five teams advancing from each site; 24 teams would compete in each relay event in a two-site format, with eight teams advancing from each site.

The top 24 heptathlon and 24 decathlon competitors as determined by the national descending-order list of season-best performances would advance directly to the national finals, skipping first-round competition.

In addition to promoting equitable opportunity for advancement through head-to-head competition, the committee believes the proposed system could broaden access to national finals.

The committee prefers to conduct first-round qualifying at three sites because it would be easier to manage the approximately 1,300 participants competing at each site, compared to approximately 1,900 per site in the two-site format. A three-site format also generally would require shorter trips by participating teams to competition sites – which participating schools would continue to pay for, as they do to travel to the current regional sites – than a two-site format.

However, the committee acknowledges that a two-site format might better serve the goal of competitive equity by increasing head-to-head competition, and believes the larger meets still would be manageable.

Previous proposals to change the regional qualifying format, which has been used for six years, have ranged from moving schools from one region to another to improve balance to conducting all head-to-head qualifying competition at one site. None have won enough support, however, to be adopted.

The Division I cabinet recently asked the track and field committee to consider another possible approach: A system in which student-athletes at the top of the national descending-order list would advance directly to the national finals – essentially receiving a bye during regional competition – while the remainder of the field qualifies through the regional meets.

The track and field committee, however – responding to what it believes is broad support for head-to-head qualifying throughout the championships – prefers that all competitors participate through all rounds. It also is concerned that the opportunity to earn byes might create an environment in which coaches and student-athletes might be pressured to travel more and “chase marks” for that purpose.