Winton Woods Meet was a mess

R

Rundad

Member
I was amazed last night at how poorly this meet was timed and run. If you are going to hand time an event, at least train your timers well and get people who pay attention to the actual timing. I walked past the timers table at one point and heard one timer say, "Oops, I missed that one", reffering to NOT pushing the plunger for the lane he was responsible for.
Coach's were complaining all night that the times and places posted for their runners were totally wrong.
And to top it all, they actually failed to time the final of the boys 300 hurdles! They scored it as a 7 way tie for 1st!
During the start of the girls 400, the starter was having trouble being heard, so the PA announcer "took over". The poor girls were called to set 4 times because the PA guy didn't know to watch the starter's hands.
It is too bad that a meet like this has become such a low tech fiasco.
If anyone else was there who saw it differently, please correct me, but I saw it as a total train wreck.
 
 
I did a double-take when I saw some of the times in the sprint results. I guess what you described explains it lol
 
I was wondering what Milesplit is going to do with some of these times. They recorded the boys 300 hurdles as .25 for each of them. Should be interesting.
 
I assume you're talking about the girls even though you say the boys. The boys had different times for every place and scoring for the top eight per normal. Now the winner of girls 300 hurdles, Celeste Bronson of Lakota East, is listed in today's Enquirer as winning in 49.78 which is not her best time. She ran 48.83 at Farifield Inv. If they called in a time for her to the newspaper, they must have times on some of them, perhaps just the winner.
 
Thanks Lancermania, you are correct and I meant the girls. As of the end of the meet last night, they were announcing no times. I am someone got a time for the winner, but still feel bad about the scoring and the lack of times for the other runners. I know we got our own times for all our runners, so we are good.
 
I get home delivery of the print edition of the Enquirer which listed the winners and their marks of about three different meets.
 
Rundad said:
I was amazed last night at how poorly this meet was timed and run. If you are going to hand time an event, at least train your timers well and get people who pay attention to the actual timing. I walked past the timers table at one point and heard one timer say, "Oops, I missed that one", reffering to NOT pushing the plunger for the lane he was responsible for.
Coach's were complaining all night that the times and places posted for their runners were totally wrong.
And to top it all, they actually failed to time the final of the boys 300 hurdles! They scored it as a 7 way tie for 1st!
During the start of the girls 400, the starter was having trouble being heard, so the PA announcer "took over". The poor girls were called to set 4 times because the PA guy didn't know to watch the starter's hands.
It is too bad that a meet like this has become such a low tech fiasco.
If anyone else was there who saw it differently, please correct me, but I saw it as a total train wreck.
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Wow! You are very harsh. The WW meet was done by 8:15. The meet was ran good as said by many of the coaches. Visiting coaches already know that the meet is hand held and they decide to bring there teams anyway. Actually, more teams would like to come to this meet but WW only has 8 teams because it is manual timed. With that being said WW could benefit from a FAT. There was a few "snags" here or there. It's just very expensive for WW to purchase the FAT system. As far as the PA guy, he did a great job. He never was asked to start a race before. That was his first time. They sprung it on him in the middle of the meet and he did it incorrectly, Im sure it won't happen again. Fiasco? If you have time why don't you volunteer to help? Besides the correct results were in the paper and the times look pretty close to being correct as I seen many of the runners at this meet perform at other meets.
 
warriorblue said:
It's just very expensive for WW to purchase the FAT system.
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You dont have to buy your own system to have FAT. Most teams are willing to pay a few extra bucks on an entry fee to attend a meet with a professional timing company like ghgtiming handling results.


...the times look pretty close to being correct as I seen many of the runners at this meet perform at other meets.
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Aaron Murray of Withrow, who was credited with a 10.46 100m prelim, then 10.51 final, has a FAT personal best is 11.30. Aaron Kemper of Winton Woods had a pre-meet FAT PR of 11.31, but is listed as running 10.54 last night. Even after rounding and converting, those are huge personal bests. And I'm not picking on the boys 100 as there are several other events with similar results.
 
lane4 said:
You dont have to buy your own system to have FAT. Most teams are willing to pay a few extra bucks on an entry fee to attend a meet with a professional timing company like ghgtiming handling results.





Aaron Murray of Withrow, who was credited with a 10.46 100m prelim, then 10.51 final. His FAT personal best is 11.30. Aaron Kemper of Winton Woods had a pre-meet FAT PR of 11.31, but is listed as running 10.54 last night.
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Yea, I know you don't have to buy it but GHG is about 800 to 900 bucks to rent. Still pretty expensive. If they make the meet bigger maybe they could do it. Aaron Kemper has recently ran an 11.1 FAT and his "official time last nite was 10.8. Times were off esp. prelims but the times in the paper are close esp. when there was a slight tail wind. Aaron Murray PB was 11.30 but that was last year. This is his first meet this year.
 
warriorblue said:
Aaron Kemper has recently ran an 11.1 FAT and his "official time last nite was 10.8.
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The 11.1 at Harrison was hand-timed, and 10.8 may have been his time in the finals last night, but Milesplit will still pick up the 10.5 and list it in the stats as his best performance.


Aaron Murray PB was 11.30 but that was last year. This is his first meet this year
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Murray ran that 11.30 PR down in Georgia on March 31 of this season.
 
warriorblue said:
Yea, I know you don't have to buy it but GHG is about 800 to 900 bucks to rent. Still pretty expensive.
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As you said earlier, there are more teams that are interested in attending than WW can accomodate. $50 per team is not going to discourage them, especially if they know they're getting FAT results for the extra fee.
 
lane4 said:
The 11.1 at Harrison was hand-timed, and 10.8 may have been his time in the finals last night, but Milesplit will still pick up the 10.5 and list it in the stats as his best performance.





Murray ran that 11.30 PR down in Georgia on March 31 of this season.
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Ok. But I know he has been out of school for a couple of weeks. He said it last nite. I thought mysplits wouldn't pick that up because its not FAT, guess I was wrong.
 
Lasalle used GHG at their meet this past week which had a total of 8 teams without B teams. If you take out Lasalle paying and add less than full cost for our B team you had 7.5 teams basically moneywise at the meet. They used GHG and still made money. This meet should be a big meet, because it is a District site and has the facility to run a great meet, just like it does for Coaches Classic finals. Charge a bit more and get GHG and this meet could double in size, which would only make more money for WW.
 
warriorblue said:
Wow! You are very harsh. The WW meet was done by 8:15. The meet was ran good as said by many of the coaches. Visiting coaches already know that the meet is hand held and they decide to bring there teams anyway. Actually, more teams would like to come to this meet but WW only has 8 teams because it is manual timed. With that being said WW could benefit from a FAT. There was a few "snags" here or there. It's just very expensive for WW to purchase the FAT system. As far as the PA guy, he did a great job. He never was asked to start a race before. That was his first time. They sprung it on him in the middle of the meet and he did it incorrectly, Im sure it won't happen again. Fiasco? If you have time why don't you volunteer to help? Besides the correct results were in the paper and the times look pretty close to being correct as I seen many of the runners at this meet perform at other meets.
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Sorry if you see it as harshness, but I heard plenty of fellow coaches who were quite upset about how the meet was timed. As already stated, using a professional company like ghgtiming does pay for itself by bringing more teams who want a pro timer there. And as to the "why don't you volunteer" comment, that is a little harsh as I volunteer EVERY day to be an assistant coach. I have volunteered at every meet I have gone to. Thank you for explaining the PA guy situation for me. I do apologize for giving him a hard time, but it was more than a little tough on the girls to have to set and reset and reset and then reset again.
All that being said, this meet needs to go FAT. If you FAT it, they will come.;)
 
Rundad said:
Sorry if you see it as harshness, but I heard plenty of fellow coaches who were quite upset about how the meet was timed. As already stated, using a professional company like ghgtiming does pay for itself by bringing more teams who want a pro timer there. And as to the "why don't you volunteer" comment, that is a little harsh as I volunteer EVERY day to be an assistant coach. I have volunteered at every meet I have gone to. Thank you for explaining the PA guy situation for me. I do apologize for giving him a hard time, but it was more than a little tough on the girls to have to set and reset and reset and then reset again.
All that being said, this meet needs to go FAT. If you FAT it, they will come.;)
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I know the track coaches at WW have approached the AD at WW about using FAT but I guess he seemed it wasn't that important. Maybe he will change his mind now. Sorry about the volunteer comment. I know the PA guy personally and I know that he is a great guy who spends countless hours volunteering WW athletic events, so I got personal.
 
After reading the comments here, particularly that of TheRealOHRunners not including anything except the field events, that tells me it was a real "Charley-Foxtrot" in the hand-timing department, even more so than usual.

As the host of the district meet, Winton Woods admin may wish to revisit their decision to do hand-timing in the future. Charley-Foxtrots like this affair do serious damage to reputations, and the district meet may be a short-lived memory at WW if this were to continue. There are other facilities to host the meet, and Mason isn't the only school with FAT is this part of the world.
 
warriorblue said:
Ok. But I know he has been out of school for a couple of weeks. He said it last nite. I thought mysplits wouldn't pick that up because its not FAT, guess I was wrong.
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Looks like OH MileSplit WON'T be doing ANYTHING with the times. WW running results just got made it to the circular file. I feel sorry for the WW coaches on this one. They should show this thread to their AD.
 
I feel sorry for any kids who got legit PR's last night. I know a couple of our kids did, and now they won't be seeing their accomplishments(nor will ANY college coaches) on Milesplit. I know this isn't Milesplits fault, they have to assure legit times on their site.
And thanks and no hard feelings Warriorblue.
 
As an aside, problems like these just don't happen in the timed events. I'm aware of a major meet in the area (this year) that had discus marks as much as 10 feet short due to only one volunteer marking in the field with no back-up, with the discii sailing over his head and missing the some of the marks big-time.

I've also seen a district meet official (an OHSAA-approved one :Ohno: ) measure the 1st flight of the district meet shot put by pulling the tape measure to the center front of the inside of the toeboard instead of allowing the tape to be drawn through the concentric center of the ring. This was fine for the marks going straight down the center of the sector, but the ones going down either the right or left-hand sectors picked up as much as 4-6" on their efforts. This did get resolved for the final, but should never have happened to begin with. I won't mention the district.
 
Rundad said:
I feel sorry for any kids who got legit PR's last night. I know a couple of our kids did, and now they won't be seeing their accomplishments(nor will ANY college coaches) on Milesplit. I know this isn't Milesplits fault, they have to assure legit times on their site.
And thanks and no hard feelings Warriorblue.
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I find it somewhat disturbing that there are some who see it as their duty to play God and mess with kids lives.
 
honorsports said:
I find it somewhat disturbing that there are some who see it as their duty to play God and mess with kids lives.
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There will be another meet next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. And the week...


If they're as fast as their "results" from Friday, they'll do it again, FAT, before the end of the season.
 
Rundad said:
I feel sorry for any kids who got legit PR's last night. I know a couple of our kids did, and now they won't be seeing their accomplishments(nor will ANY college coaches) on Milesplit. I know this isn't Milesplits fault, they have to assure legit times on their site.
And thanks and no hard feelings Warriorblue.
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First off, if these kids have good coaches, they will be told what their times were and can easily be converted to FAT. Secondly, seeing a name on the internet isnt what these kids should be going for.

I would rather be fast and have nobody see it till its too late
 
ccrunner609 said:
First off, if these kids have good coaches, they will be told what their times were and can easily be converted to FAT.
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The problem is when the times are converted, and they're still a half-second faster, or more, than a kid has ever run before for a short sprint like the 100
 
Another example would be the 200. While I don't have the time to break down every athlete in both races, let's look at just the winners.


Boys - Vince Turnage wins with a 21.0. Now Turnage is a TERRIFIC sprinter, no doubt about it. But his 200 PR is 21.48 from STATE last year, and his pre-WW 2012 season best was 22.17. I think both Turnage and his outstanding coach would be the first to say he did not run a PR by almost a quarter-second Friday night.

Girls - Jessica Miles, another unquestioned top-notch sprinter, is credited with a 24.8. PR coming into the meet? 25.46. 2012 season best? 26.54


It's always dicey business to throw out stats, but Milesplit made the right call on this one.
 
not that tough

Timing is not that tough. The problem in my mind with hand times is the parents are not "coached" up enough. So many meets that have parent timers have bogus times. If you really follow the smoke and don't get too anxious at the line you can get pretty good times.

In swim, there are meetings for the timers, they coach them on how to time correctly, and really encourage doing it correctly, and even have backup timers to replace one of the three if a problem occurs. 3 timers per lane are used to backup the system. They take the middle time of the 3.

I don't think some track people are committed enough to the details or to running a great meet that they take the time or energy to get parents, officials or helpers who are equipped to run the finish line adequately.
 
XCFan98 said:
Timing is not that tough. The problem in my mind with hand times is the parents are not "coached" up enough. So many meets that have parent timers have bogus times. If you really follow the smoke and don't get too anxious at the line you can get pretty good times.

In swim, there are meetings for the timers, they coach them on how to time correctly, and really encourage doing it correctly, and even have backup timers to replace one of the three if a problem occurs. 3 timers per lane are used to backup the system. They take the middle time of the 3.

I don't think some track people are committed enough to the details or to running a great meet that they take the time or energy to get parents, officials or helpers who are equipped to run the finish line adequately.
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For the reasons you've laid out here, and more, the three individuals who have put together stats for the SWOTCCCA website and have done the historical research for that site decided, in coordination with the local coaches, to separate manual (hand/semi-auto) timing from FAT when it comes to races 400m and shorter. We don't do conversions as there is too much variability in most HS meets hand timing capabilities. This is in keeping with ATFS (Association of T&F Statisticians - worldwide body of statisticians) methodologies. Also, we've decided NOT to convert yards marks to metric, but instead list them on separate lists, only offering an "approx." conversion of what those marks would be for comparison purposes only, not for records.

As one of those 3 individuals aforementioned, I've known for a long time the problems associated with hand timing by your average joe and how badly that can differ from FAT. For example, a winner last year at a major Cincinnati meet was hand timed in 10.4 MT in the 100m, whereas his FAT was 11.11. Now, are all hand timers assumed to be bad? No, but I give a great deal more credence to hand timing in past major meets (districts, regionals, state, major invites) than I do run-of-the-mill local meets where mom & pop are timing. The major meets of the past have typically involved at least 2 or 3 timers on one lane or place for the 400m on down.

We also scrutinize performances based on the presence of wind gauges and whether a legal wind was present (<= 2.0 mps) for the 100/200/100H/110H and long jump and place the marks in appropriate categories when it comes to our all-time lists. That is the proper way to categorize marks of note...wind-legal and those marks that are either wind-aided or have no wind gauge or reading at all. Is it tedious, yes; however, it is the proper way to look at each and every mark when trying to make historical comparisons.

Unfortunately, not enough information is disseminated to parents and the lay person, and unfortunately too many coaches are either unaware themselves or don't take the time to educate those within their spheres of influence.
 
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