Junior High Track Scheduling Question

[Coach_B]

Here's the background.
I'm an enthusiastic track dad here. Covered HS track and field for more than 25 years. Loved it. Been around state champs, NCAA and Olympic trials qualifiers and Hall of Fame coaches while I was in the newspaper biz before getting out while the getting was good.
Daughter is a thrower in JH. Second year in the program at a Division I school with 2 middle schools. They combined MS teams last year and had a Red Team and a White Team instead of the two MS teams with probably about 75-100 boys and the same amount of girls.
Last year, the White team competed in 2 home meets and 2 invitationals along with the Red Team, who also competed in three away duals/triangulars. Essentially, its 4 meets for the white and 7 for the red. I think schools are allowed as many as 12 meets plus the conference championship.
This year there are seven meets on the schedule again. I hate it because there is limited participation in competitions for the White Team. I know you want to see kids learn the sport, but being able to compete is an important part of sports too.
We even have a 16-day stretch of the season with no meets for either team.
Here's my question to coaches out there is 7 meets too few? How, or should I even, address it with the AD/coaches? Personally, I think they are driving kids away from the track and field and I hate to see that because it's a great sport.

 

[JAVMAN83]

In looking back at my 7th grade schedule back in the good old 20th century (1978 to be specific), I see we had 9 official meets on our Jr High schedule. I competed in only 4 of those meets, but I went on to supplement that season with another 4 meets during the summer. My 8th grade season saw me competing in 9 meets during the scholastic season, and another 10 during the summer ('79).

I do feel your concern regarding the # of meets. I think a 10-meet schedule would be more than adequate for the junior high schoolers in order to facilitate participation of the kids. However, I would caution against too many meets as that interferes with any chance at making gains through adequate training sessions, particularly in those events requiring skill development. I know that the only way I learned how to spin in the discus was taking home a discus during the summer/fall of '78 and then going out and teaching myself how to spin by trial and error through THOUSANDS of throws that I could never had gotten in as part of a team environment. However, by an adequate amount of training time during the spring of '78, I did learn how to do standing throws reasonably well, and I also learned how to pole vault (straight pole) that same spring season, all due to the fact that I had lots of practice attempts without worrying about competition.

So, for whatever that's worth, I wish you well.

 

[Runningfast]

Scheduling is really hard. It is hard to find good meets that accomodate a big team with many entries. It's hard to find meets that have appropriate amount of competition for JV/beginning level athletes. And once you build a schedule that accomodates both of those things, it's hard to be gone at a track meet three nights a week as a coach.

In our area, I see a wide range of scheduling - some schools have kids competing many times throughout the season - some limit meet participation for everyone but the best kids.

In my opinion, one of the coolest things about our sport is that everyone can compete and find success. There are no third-string quarterbacks that have to hold a clipboard all game. With that in mind, we work hard to create a schedule in which every athlete on our team will compete at least once a week during the regular season (comes out to about 7-8 meets for each athlete). At least that's the plan until Mother Nature cancels a couple every year.

 

[psycho_dad]

Looking at our MS schedule. There are 4 dual / triangular meets where every kid on the team will compete. Then there are 3 invites and the Conference meet and the coaches are looking for another meet. Three used to be at least 2 more meets for all the kids to participate in when the league meets were duals. Going to the triangular meets takes 2-3 meets off the schedule. The problem is you have to get all the meets completed in 1 month. Once you get into May, there is not much for MS. I'm a big proponent of dual meets where everyone can compete.