{"id":457,"date":"2011-03-18T05:39:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T12:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=457"},"modified":"2011-03-18T05:39:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T12:39:00","slug":"a-return-to-collegiate-dualtriangulars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=457","title":{"rendered":"A Return to Collegiate Dual\/Triangulars!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading through the news a couple days ago, I came across this<\/a> article referencing UCLA\u2019s return to a dual\/triangular meet schedule as opposed to running primarily in \u201cinvitational\u201d meets. I am hoping that this is successful for UCLA and it\u2019s track program, and that the result will see other prominent programs follow.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited because if large college programs would get back to conference dual\/triangulars, as well as hosting multi school meets from outside \u2013 SEC v Pac12 quadrangular for example \u2013 it would be a major marketing coup for the sport. Why? Because it will bring high level track and field back to the community!<\/p>\n

Nearly every densely populated area has at least one major college within a relatively short drive \u2013 to me that means a couple hours or less. Many more major colleges within an area than you would fine professional sporting teams \u2013 NFL, NBA and MLB \u2013 many many more. As a matter of fact major colleges inhabit areas that professional sports do not, such as the Universities of Oregon, Florida, and Arizona. <\/p>\n

College football and basketball programs have long tapped into this base of fanatical sports fans. Look no further than the hoopla that is \u201cMarch Madness\u201d that is about to begin! Collegiate track and field once had as fervent a following. UCLA v USC was once as big a meet as the Welklasse in Zurich \u2013 and the results were just as good! Ditto Auburn v Alabama, and Arizona v Arizona State. <\/p>\n

When colleges started spending more time at invitational meets \u2013 such as the Florida Relays, Texas Relays, Penn Relays et al \u2013 the support of college track and field took a nose dive. Back in the day schools used to send athletes to these kind of meets when they had individuals that were in need of qualifying marks for nationals. Rather than leave it to chance that the marks would come at the conference meet, they sent these athletes to invitationals where there was certain to be the kind of competition that could spur them to such results. <\/p>\n

But what started as a necessary augmentation to the schedule in time morphed into THE schedule, as it became easier to go from invitational to invitational than to set up and schedule duals, triangulars and other meets. As a result the college track became a place to train, and not the place to invite the community to come watch a track meet. Hopefully this is about to change. <\/p>\n

With a return to high level track to college campuses, we could bring athletes like those on the Bowerman Watch List<\/a> \u2013 athletes of national and even Olympic caliber to neighborhoods near you! Athletes that John Q Public can become familiar with and budding youngsters in middle and high school can go out and watch \u2013 and go home and emulate. Bringing these athletes to local college campuses is perhaps the greatest source of marketing available to the sport! <\/p>\n

Some of my best early memories of the sport are of watching various meets in Northern California at UC Berkeley, San Jose State, and Stanford. I waited with baited breath annually for the \u201cDouble Dual\u201d with UCLA, USC, Stanford and Cal \u2013 which at it\u2019s peak boasted athletes like Greg Foster, James Sanford, Clancy Edwards, Tony Campbell, Millard Hampton, James Owens, Willie Banks, Don Quarrie, and Mike Tully. <\/p>\n

So here\u2019s hoping that UCLA\u2019s return to this type of schedule is successful! For the revival of UCLA and for the sport in general. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading through the news a couple days ago, I came across this article referencing UCLA\u2019s return to a dual\/triangular meet schedule as opposed to running primarily in \u201cinvitational\u201d meets. I am hoping that this is successful for UCLA and it\u2019s track program, and that the result will see other prominent programs follow. I\u2019m excited because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-7n","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}