'00 Track Post-Meeting Minutes
Minutes of 6/5/00 SCVAL Post-Season Track Meeting Attendees All schools in the SCVAL had a coach at the meeting at one time or another except Homestead and Fremont. Also, Lee Volta, the athletic director in charge of track for the SCVAL attended the meeting. Lawson - Lynbrook VanZant - Wilcox Lee - Gunn Abbott - Milpitas L'Heureux - Santa Clara Kappen - Santa Clara Daner - Gunn Shimazaki - Monta Vista Chiappa - Cupertino Volta (AD) - Santa Clara Clark - Saratoga Read - Mtn View Gutierrez - Los Altos Chisam - St Francis Jones - Paly Bang - Los Gatos The meeting was held at Harry�s Hofbrau in Mt.View and lasted from 4PM to 6:30PM. DeAnza & El Camino Division Meets Evaluation Monta Vista directed the El Camino meet and Milpitas directed the DeAnza meet. Most thought that the meets went well. It was noted that the DeAnza meet took about an hour less than the El Camino meet. This may have been caused by the fact that the El Camino ran extra heats in the 800 and 1600. Also, Ernie Lee did an excellent job as the chief finish line judge and Scott Chisam did an excellent job as the clerk of the course for the trials for the DeAnza division. This also many have contributed to the DeAnza division finishing more quickly. CCS Meets (North Meet/Semi-Finals/Finals) All SCVAL teams are required to provide help for these meets. Homestead provided no help and others provided minimal help. Wilcox provided more than its share. It was suggested that in future years that who was going to help with the various assignments be determined at the pre-season meeting before we break out for our separate division discussions. Suggestions For Future CCS Meets Paul Jones of Palo Alto made several suggestions for changes in the three CCS meets. After a lengthy discussion, we agreed to make the following suggested changes to the CCS: 1 Retain the North & South meets. 2 Eliminate the Semi-Finals. 3 Run slow and fast heats at the CCS Finals meet with the slow heat being run first. 4 Score farther than the first six places. We would like to score 12 deep. This might limit the impact of a few stars and make it a true team battle. 5 Do all seedings based on time. 6 Allocate specific time slots for awards. Division Champions Determination Walt Van Zant of Wilcox proposed that the by-laws be changed so that the division champions would be determined based solely upon dual meet results. After a discussion of the proposal, it was overwhelmingly defeated. As per Lee Volta�s suggestion, we agreed to revise the by-laws to make it clear that the division championships are based upon a combination of the dual meet records and the division finals and that there can be co-champions. Re-Alignment of Leagues We agreed that our preference is to re-align so that the five FUHSD schools are in the same league along with Los Gatos and Saratoga. However, we did not have strong feelings on the two schools that would be paired with the FUHSD schools. It could be Santa Clara and Wilcox or Los Altos and Mt.View or Palo Alto and Gunn. The primary reason for our wanting to get away from the strong league/weak league concept was that it is extremely difficult to make this determination when you have coed teams. As an example, Saratoga had a strong boys team this year but had a weak girls team in comparison to the remainder of the DeAnza. Cupertino had the same problem when it was in the DeAnza. Marshall Clark of Saratoga also noted the travel problem. The FUHSD teams and Los Gatos/Saratoga district teams do not have buses. The FUHSD teams have to rely upon cars to get to meets and the LG/Sar teams have to pay for buses. As an example, it would have cost Saratoga $1400 in buses to get to Milpitas this season. Fortunately, Milpitas agreed to travel to Saratoga this season. If the athletic directors and Board of Managers does not agree with our re- alignment proposal, then we must re-align in accordance with our by-laws. These by-laws require that the top team in the El Camino division move up to the De Anza division and that the bottom team in the DeAnza move down to the El Camino division each year based upon the performances of their varsity, frosh/soph, and JV teams at the division finals. Lynbrook had the best record in the El Camino division at their division finals meet and they want to move up to the DeAnza division. Milpitas and Los Altos tied for the worst record in the DeAnza division at their division finals. Both coaches felt that there were extenuating circumstances that caused their teams to perform poorly at the division finals. As examples, several Milpitas athletes did not participate due to injuries and Los Altos concentrated its efforts on the frosh/soph division. Thus, neither coach wants to move to the El Camino division. There are no provisions in the by-laws to break ties. The DeAnza league coaches do not want to add Lynbrook and leave Milpitas and Los Altos in the division because we would have too many teams - eight for boys and nine for girls. We did not discuss the possibility of sending both teams to the El Camino division. We agreed that at least one team should be transferred to the El Camino division but could not resolve the problem of who should be transferred because of the lack of a tie-breaker rule. Therefore, we decided to leave it to the athletic directors as to who should be transferred to the El Camino division. Number of Qualifiers to the CCS Meet From Each Division Paul Jones suggested that we change the allocation of qualifiers to the CCS meet between the two divisions. We discussed the subject and decided to do nothing at this time because we do not yet know how the leagues will be re- aligned. Limitation Upon The Number of Entrants Per School at the Division Finals Formerly, the CIF limited the number of competitors per school at the State Meet to three. They have now expanded this limitation to four. Our league still has a limitation of three. A proposal to increase the limitation to four was made, discussed, and rejected. Honor Coaches Nominations It was noted that Marshall Clark had won the honors coach award for the CCS in track this past season. Marshall humbly accepted the award and made a brief acceptance speech of about a half hour, thanking, among others, his mother, father, wife, and kids. We then voted upon who should be our league honors nominees for 2000. The nominees were Julie L�Heureux and Hank Lawson. By-Law Change Suggestions We began discussing these changes near the end of the meeting. We agreed upon several changes but ran out of time to complete our review of the by-laws. It was agreed that Walt Van Zant, Hank Lawson, and Lee Volta would complete the review and make additional changes. These changes will be e-mailed to the coaches prior to 9/1/00 and voted upon by the coaches. If approved they will be presented to the athletic directors for their approval at their September 2000 meeting. The changes that we did agree upon were as follows. 1-Change section 1 of Article II to read as follows: Teams and individuals must comply with section 3 of Article V of the CCS bylaws. That is, neither a team nor an individual may compete in more than fifteen (15) contests during the season. This includes league competition. Division trials, finals, CCS, or state meet competitions are not included in determining the limitation. A group of eight (8) or more athletes shall constitute a team at any meet. Thus, if seven (7) or fewer athletes are entered by the school in a meet, that meet will not be counted against the team limitation. However, it will count against the individual limitation for all of the athletes that participate in the meet. 2-Change section 2.6 of Article III to read as follows: 2.6 Alternates are to be listed for each Varsity event from the Division finals to provide selection of individuals to the next higher meet. The alternates will be listed in the order of their marks with the best mark listed first. The results of both the El Camino division and DeAnza division will be considered when determining the best marks. 2.6.1 F/S & JV finishers may be considered when varsity lists are exhausted 3-Change section 2.6 of Article III or other appropriate by-law to show that all alternates must have met the minimum standards in their event at the division finals in order to be listed as an alternate. As of now, these are the standards as used by the DeAnza division because the El Camino division does not use standards when determining entrants for their division finals. 4- Change section 2.6 of Article III or other appropriate by-law to show that a school will not be allowed more than three entrants in the CCS meet when alternates from the FS or JVs are entered in the CCS meet. Thus, if a school already has three varsity entrants in an event, none of its FS or JVs will be allowed into the CCS meet as an alternate. 5- Change section 2.6 of Article III or other appropriate by-law to show that no FS or JV relay team will be allowed as an entrant to the CCS meet. 6-Change section 1.2 of Article IV to delete the words �if necessary.� 7-Delete the last sentence of section 1 of Article V, which states �Separate finals shall be held in each Division run by a paid official(s),� We want to put the reference to paid officials in a more appropriate section. 8-Add a reference in Article V to the use of standards as option that each division may use when determining entrants for the division finals. 9-Change sec 4 of Article VI to list the JVG and FS 3200 as starting just prior to the GV and BV 3200. We had previously agreed to this change but the change has not yet been made to the by-laws. 10-Change section 1 of Article VII to be consistent with the CCS hardship rules. That is the hardship must be due to a non-track related injury. Also, the hardship athlete must have posted a mark that is in the top 8 of all marks posted at the various league finals for the North Meet schools. This mark must be verified by the coach of the hardship athlete. Further, all hardship runoffs must be contested at the same site and this site must be decided upon at the pre-season league meeting. Suggested By-Law Changes That Were Rejected It was suggested that the reference to the pole vault in sections 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 be deleted because we no longer hold pole vault competition during dual meets. This suggestion was rejected because there is a possibility that some day we will again hold pole vault competition during dual meets. It was suggested that we hold trials in the 800 and 1600 at the Division Trials/Finals so that the distance runners would be put on a par with the sprinters and so that the distance runners could get used to what they would have to do at the State Meet level. This suggestion was rejected. Agenda: Agenda For 6/5/00 Post Season Track Meeting I. Division Meet Evaluations a) What was good about the management of the meet? b) What wasn�t so good? II. CCS Trials/Semi-Finals/Finals a) Did all SCVAL schools help with these three meets? b) Suggestions (i) Seeding of division winners. (ii) Scoring deeper than 6 places. (iii) Should we eliminate the North & South meets? (iv) Spacing of the awards ceremony. (v) Any other suggestions. III. Determination of How League Champions Are Determined? a) Any interest in having champions determined solely upon dual meet records with individual champions and qualifiers to CCS determined by performances at a combined SCVAL final or separate division finals. IV Re-alignment of Schools a) As per the By-Laws, who goes up and who goes down is based solely upon performances at the league finals. (i) Did we intend the by-laws to say this or did we want the change to be determined based upon a combination of the dual meet season and the league finals. b) If we use just the league finals, then Milpitas and Los Altos tied for the worst record. c) If we use the combination of the league finals and the dual meet record, then Milpitas had the worst record. d) Does any DeAnza team volunteer to move to the El Camino division? e) Are there any other suggestions on how to re-align divisions? V Number of Qualifiers From the Divisions to the North Meet a) Presently, it is 6-3-1 for the girls and 5-3-1 for the boys. b) Should we change the allocation? VI Should We Allow Schools More Than Three Entrants Per Event at the Division Finals? a) Will this allow some schools to dominate the meet? b) This will allow the best athletes to compete at the varsity level. c) If yes, what should be the standard? i) Average of the 6th place finish for the last 3 years? ii) Should marks be only those recorded at invitationals? iii) Should sprint times be required to be FAT at invitationals? iv) Other suggestions. VII Honor Coaches Nominations VIII By-Law Change Suggestions IX CCS Evaluations Meeting a) It will be held at the CCS office on 6/6/00 b) Any suggestions for this meeting other than those discussed at II? X Other