We just got back from Rowlett High School, where track and field coach David Nanez had a meeting with his athletes, at which he told them that the regional track meet was cancelled.

A new report has just come out that the University Interscholastic League (UIL) is re-thinking that stance. You can read about it here.

So the good news for the track athletes is that there is a chance the regional meet will still be held. What the UIL was originally going to do was cancel that meet, and use times from the district meets to determine which athletes would go to state. There are eight districts in Rowlett's region. The state qualifiers would be the top four finishers in each event, taken from the eight different district meets. The problem with that is, weather conditions can change from one district meet to another. For example, it was windy at Garland's district meet, where Rowlett competed. That will help the long and triple jumpers, but it will hurt runners who are competing at distances of 400 meters or more (because they have to run a full lap around the track at least once, so they'll be running into the wind).

Kyle Clemons is a specific example of what was wrong with the UIL's original stance. The Rowlett sprinter won the 400 meter dash at the state meet last year. At this year's district meet, he finished in first place, but because no one was pushing him (and because he had to run another event soon after) he slowed down at the end of his race and coasted through the finish line. Clemons wasn't running to make a time; he was running simply to qualify for regionals, and once he knew he had that locked up, he slowed down to conserve his energy.

But, as the report above indicates, the UIL is trying to figure out a way to hold the regional meet, so hopefully Clemons and other athletes like him won't miss a chance to compete for a state title.

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.