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Notes from Doug Speck Thursday, December 20th, 2007 Some Indoor
Possibilities for the Winter "undercover" season Below is a bit of Golden State History
A fading history of Indoor Track and Field in the Golden State hopes to be reversed in Fresno. With the West Coast Relays outdoors each spring once one of a number of ‘high-interest’ competitions up and down the Golden State during the indoor or outdoor season in the past, it is hoped the activity will gain some momentum in the Central Valley Fresno area. Rich in tradition and history in the sport, the State High School Cross-Country Championships have been a real local success at Woodward Park in Fresno each Thanksgiving weekend, with the history in the area in the oval and field sport, and statewide driving distances that put Fresno in the center for Bay and Southern California fans, hoping to make the Run for the Dream affair an athletic, spectator, and financial success a bit later each Winter. As Track and Field has tried to hold its own against the growth of new sports and professional teams statewide over recent decades, the fate of a number of indoor competitions has been kind of a sad one. Colleges in other parts of the US, where winter weather is a huge concern, have committed to fine 200 meter (or larger) banked tracks right and left, and the indoor portion of our sport is thriving, as those schools are willing to turn their facilities over to the prep level athletes a number of times during the year for competitions. Civic minded groups in areas like New York City have taken a facility such as a broken down Armory dating from 1909 and done some serious fund raising into the tens of millions to turn the Fort Washington area facility into one where thousands compete each week and athletes can pick and choose from dozens of competitions each winter. Check Armory Track.com to gain a sense of what that facility means to the sport in the Big Apple area, it is amazing. We had the chance to travel there last January for the New Balance Games, and viewed thousands of athletes from prep beginners to elite Olympic level athletes compete during a fine day of competition on the track and in the field, with locals describing the meet date as far from the biggest on their facility during the winter.
Time has not been gentle to neighboring state facilities also, with the track at the University of Nevada/Reno being condemned a year ago, with that school hoping to resurrect the facility for meets in the next couple of years. The Albuquerque, New Mexico facility used by the University of New Mexico has seemed to fallen victim to a four month long American Bowling Congress tourney that will tie up that city’s Convention Center for a four month period early in 2008, with the Lobo Track and Field schedule showing no local indoor meets after a great start in 2007. City articles from Albquerque talk of attempting to secure a facility that would house the track and make its use possible each year.
A couple of options are open for those interested in Indoor competition, with the February 14-16, 2008 Simplot Games, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain agricultural chemical firm in Pocatello, Idaho, at the fine Holt Arena, which is big enough to double as an indoor football facility. The Idaho folks welcome all comers, with qualifying rounds in all events letting athletes sort it out on the track and in the field, with the huge number of participants required to wear flat soled shoes in the qualifying contests on the board track before switching to spikes in finals. It is a tremendously exciting competition with thousands in attendance in a fine setting. Flights into Salt Lake City are not too expensive, with a shuttle system from Salt Lake City north to Pocatello available through the Simplot meet site. There is usually some snow involved along the way that time of year in Utah and Idaho, and travel one way or the other might be affected a bit, so a bit of flexibility might be built into travel plans (translation, plan on a tad early arrival and heading back out through Salt Lake City the ski-crowd might get interesting and a bit tardy). In recent decades we have not heard of anyone who has not been able to get to and from the competition in a timely manner.
Boise State University in Boise, Idaho has a High School Indoor competition on February 2nd, 2008 that Coach Mike Maynard has invited "unattached" competition from California preps for. Info is available here.
Northern Arizona University has a series of indoor meets during the winter, with some closed to outside competition and for collegiate teams only it appears, but others welcome kind of "all-comers." The facility is an "over-sized" one and the Prescott faciltity is at a bit of altitude. The Walkup Skydome sits at 7000 feet, a factor in the distance running events, and an obvious aide in the hurdles, sprints, and jumps with the thinner air. The Northern Arizona schedule is here.
The University of Washington has a series of indoor meets that started back on December 1st, with almost something each weekend through early March, with airfare to the Seattle area usually tolerable if planned ahead. Some meets are open to all-comers, and others are a bit more restricted, so check the University web-site for information.
Mid-March is the big National Championship weekend in the sport, with the end of undercover competitions back east and the start of the outdoor competition nationally forcing the two big National Championship affairs to get “heads-up” on the same weekend, this year March 15-16. The National Scholastic Sports Foundation has their Nike Indoor Nationals at the Prince George County facility in Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, and the Armory in New York City has the National Scholastic Indoor Championships that same weekend in the Big Apple. Both are fine competitions, with national records having come from both competitions. They are "standards" based meets where entrants need to have achieved certain marks to secure entry. Obviously the mid-March dates put us into the California outdoor season, so one would probably have to miss something that weekend due to “unattached” competition in one of the back east affairs, should competition there be chosen. Anyway, we will see you in Fresno Monday January 21st, 2008 as the Golden State is back into indoor track and field. Any other indoor meets we should
include in our possibilities e-mail
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