The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Track seed time lunacy really needs to stop
In his weekly high school sports column, Chris Lillstrung laments when the system is abused on seed times in track and field, how blatantly inaccurate seeds can be and what can be done to fix the issue.
The Greek poet Hesiod once wrote in his classic works, translated, “Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”
The American sage Charles Barkley, after the Rockets and Clippers got into a postgame altercation in which police were reportedly called, went on “Inside The NBA” and said, “Come on, man ... Y’all better stop it, man.” They both have a point. It was about other subjects, of course, but I will gladly use both of those masterpieces of prose to amplify a point about a massive annoyance in high school track and field:
Astoundingly inaccurate seed times in running events. It really does need to stop.
Seed times, for those who may not be aware, are prior performances during a season or estimates used to cobble together who is placed in what heats for invitationals. So if, say, you’re a boys hurdler and you record a time of 15.10 in 110-meter hurdles as your season-to-date best, that will be the time used to place you in a heat. It can be a fine art. Because of weather, injury, new relay setups, etc. — there are a number of perfectly legitimate reasons a coach won’t use an actual prior performance when entering seeds.
But it gets to a point where the system is abused — times used are so absurd they put athletes in an unnecessary and embarrassing position.
Case in point: This past weekend at an invitational, a coach put in their boys 4x100-meter relay for a seed of 41.50 seconds. Come on, man. Perspective: The best time in boys 4x1 in NewsHerald coverage area history is a 42.48 by Euclid at the Division I state meet in 2008. Even by the high standards of that program, that 4x1 had four thoroughbreds — Jeffvon Gill, John Franklin, Devon Jennings and Travis Smith. Two played college football (Gill and Jennings), Franklin was briefly the area record holder in long jump and Smith is one of the premier sprint relay anchors in area track and field in the last 20 years.
No one in our area has come close to challenging that time since.
The state records in 4x1 are, in order by division, 40.79, 41.79 and 42.08. So why is this done? Is it to challenge athletes to fare better than they are? Is it to get them into ‘A’ heats against better competition?
If that’s the case, that supposed bonus to doing so is outweighed by athletes not being able to match those expectations. What good does it do? In mid-April, I was also set off by a seed time at an invitational and tweeted, “Coaches who put in ridiculously inaccurate seed times should have to go out and run that time themselves.”
The popularity of that tweet among athletes and coaches confirmed for me I was right to say it.
One of the biggest lessons of track and field is earning your way on merit. When you put up a performance, that’s how you compare yourself to others locally, regionally and around the state.
If you see someone doing better than you, it fuels you to get to work, match it and surpass it.
But you go out and you do it — you don’t get it based on an estimation.
Several years ago, there was an incident with seed times that became kind of an urban legend. A coach, seeking to prove a point about how others were abusing the system, turned in seed times that were silly. They weren’t rooted in reality and were never run at any meet — except, maybe, in the dreams of the athletes to whom they were attached.
That may not have been the most ideal way to make that point.
But, unfortunately, there is truth in the flaws of the system.
Coaches I trust inherently have said it to me for years — there is an easy solution to this problem:
Don’t even bring estimation into it. Take performances from a database and use those as the basis for seeds.
No guesswork. No wondering what an athlete may or may not run.
Let performances stand for what they are. If a performance is not as good for whatever legitimate reason, there’s work to do.
If it’s surpassed, then there’s work to do as well because athletes are constantly striving to improve.
But let these athletes go through that process on their own merit.
If you think an athlete can be the best in their premier event in Ohio, how about letting them build toward it? Don’t put athletes in a position in which they’re judged by something out of their control. Observe due measure. If you’re putting in times that are national or Olympic caliber and not remotely realistic, you’re not letting athletes build — and you’re not helping the sport. Come on, man. Y’all better stop it, man.
Lillstrung can be reached at CLillstrung@NewsHerald.com; @CLillstrungNH on Twitter