Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: West Virginia State Meet featuring James Dalton from Morgantown HS

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BONUS: West Virginia State Meet featuring James Dalton from Morgantown HS · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
It's bonus time here on the Gill Connections podcast.
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In an effort to increase communication, empathy and
0:06
understanding around the country, we're going to be
0:08
running a new episode every day interviewing a coach, a high
0:12
school coach from every state, and yes, even you, Washington,
0:16
DC with explaining how the state qualifying system works in their
0:21
state. We'll be talking with a local
0:23
state expert on how many classes, private versus public
0:27
schools, what events and what is the process?
0:30
Is it areas, districts, regionals, state meet?
0:34
Is it a descending order list? Are there fun things that you do
0:38
a little differently? Like maybe you, I don't know.
0:41
Maybe you do double points for relays looking at you Texas.
0:45
And then we're also going to get to the bottom of is it the state
0:48
meet or do you qualify for states?
0:50
So check us out every day here in April and May of 2024 as we
0:54
run through each state with a local state expert.
0:57
So let's get. Started right now.
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All right. As we continue to March around
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the country, you know, all good things must come to an end.
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And obviously we're here in the West.
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So we're getting closer here to the last of all 51 outdoor state
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championships, even even you Washington, DC we just had you
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guys on. So I'm super excited to learn
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today about West Virginia. Help me welcome from Morgantown
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High School. Mr. Jamie Dalton.
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Jamie, thanks for being with us today.
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Oh, it'll be fun being here. This will.
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This will be a fun time. Absolutely, man.
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Hey, and I tell you what, you know, especially as we're
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getting close to the end here, you know, this type of project
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doesn't happen without servant leaders like yourself.
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I needed 51 people to step up and step out and, you know, put
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yourself out there for me to do that.
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And you know, Jamie, you were so kind of for West Virginia.
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So I'm so grateful. All of us at Gil Authentics,
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we're just so grateful for you, you know, being here and helping
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us to learn about this great state today.
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So thank you my friend for being.
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Here. Well, thank you.
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I appreciate it. Absolutely, man.
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Why don't we start with maybe give us like a 32nd 30,000 foot
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level. Tell us who you are.
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You know why? Why should someone from Oregon
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be listening to you about West Virginia?
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Give us some St. cred here. OK, I started out in the game of
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football like most people, and when you get hired for jobs,
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they say, hey, coach this, coach that.
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And I started coaching track, you know, football and speed,
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and then football and track go hand in hand to me.
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So I automatically wanted to go do that and it got to a point
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where I gave up the football to coach track.
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I enjoy track. It became a passion for me.
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I love athlete development as both people and as athletes.
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And you know the track dynamic, I always say it's it's very
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different. You get people from all walks of
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life on a track team, not just one kind, you know, it's it's a
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big family. Been at Morgantown for 10 years.
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I coached at a smaller school called Clay Battelle for five
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years and been in been in the game for about 16 years
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altogether. Had a couple years in DC at
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Lackey High School in Southern Maryland.
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Did a couple years there, learned a lot, evolved a lot.
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I think we've got three team state championships in
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Morgantown. We've had a handful of runner
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OPS, usually in the top three. I hang my hat on.
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My 4 by 1 is almost always in the top five year in and year
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out. In 10 years, I think I only
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missed it once. So, man, Well, it sounds like we
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got the right guy from West Virginia then.
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Oh, I I love the Sprint game. The Sprint game is and hurdles
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are my, my thing. Awesome, man.
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Love it. Well, let's get into West
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Virginia. You know, as we've gone through,
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you know, getting closer to 50 states here, some, not many, but
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some states will have a separate Athletic Association for private
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schools. They go and have their own state
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meet and the public schools will go over here and they'll have
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their own state meet. And most common public and
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private schools are together fighting it out to go towards
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one state title. What are we doing in West
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Virginia Public and private schools?
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Well, in West Virginia we have three classes.
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We have a single A which is small school, AA mid school and
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AAA which is the bigger schools and.
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The private schools, which usually are smaller in
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enrollment, they're in single eye.
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They are fighting it out with the public schools for the state
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titles. And it's a point of contention
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in this state a lot, especially with the sport basketball for
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example, because you know you get the well they can recruit
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they can do this that and the other.
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But when it comes to track the single A, small schools are
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fighting it out with the private schools, like when I was at Clay
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Battelle, we our relay teams ended up beating Wheeling
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Central Catholic. And that was a big deal.
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I like to hang my hat on that with the smaller schools, you
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know, like, hey, I don't, I don't care where they're from,
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you know, I don't care who they are.
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I take my kids to Ohio. We'd we'd run the Steubenville's
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and people like that. And I'm like, we're going to,
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we're going after them, you know, nobody.
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Nobody's born. And they say you are a private
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school kid, You are a public school.
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It just happens. And you can work as hard as
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them. You can catch them.
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And we got them a few times for a state title.
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That was a fun time. But the the privates are right
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there with the Publix in West Virginia, man, it's so private
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and public both going towards you already hit our next
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question here. So we have three classes A, AA,
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AAA, AAA, SB in our largest enrollments, single AB in our
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small enrollment. So we've got in the spring,
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we're going to award three teams titles to boys teams and three
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team titles for girls teams. Yes, Sir.
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So let's talk about how we do that all around the country.
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The first round can be, you know, they call it divisionals,
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area sectionals, all these different names.
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What's the first round we've got here in West Virginia?
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We have basically one round, it's regionals, we have a
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regional meet states broken up into four regions.
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Anywhere between, you know, 8 to probably 10 teams in a region
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and AAA single A. We have a lot of small schools
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in a small state. There's.
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There could be thirteen 1415 teams at a single a regional
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meet. So you go to the regional meet
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first, and Regional qualifies you for state.
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Perfect. All right, so let's talk about
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Regionals first. So how do I enter into
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Regionals? And what I mean by that is, do
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can I only enter two per event? Do I get 2 + a qualifying
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standard? How am I getting kids into
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regionals for that first round? There, it's, you know, the point
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of contention in this state where some coaches aren't happy.
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It is. You get 3 entries per event.
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And that's it. You know and we've we've had
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issues at Morgantown High. We have had at one point I think
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in the 16132 we had five of the top times in the state.
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So coming the regional we're only allowed to enter 3.
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And you know that happened at a neighboring school, University
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High also with the boys team. So you get 3 entries per event,
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one relay. 4th and 5th runners got to figure out the two mile
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or the 8800. They got to figure something
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out. Three is our hard cap into
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regions, OK. All right, so I get into
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Regionals. The next one is the Big Daddy,
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the state meet. What do I got to do at regionals
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to get to the next round to the state meet?
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OK, so 16 people make it the state.
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So you get 3 regional qualifiers, your top three
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finishers, you know that'll give you 12 for four regions.
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You have 4, you know, hot times, distances, heights, whatever,
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and those are spread out across all four regions, so usually the
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night of regionals. If you don't automatically
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qualify and you're sitting there maybe at 4th, you're up till
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1:00 in the morning checking websites to see if you were one
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of those top four times after the the the automatic
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qualifiers. Got it.
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So I'm in the shot put I get top three, I get first, second or
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third. I'm automatically going to I'm
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going to call it the next week. We'll find out here in a second.
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But to the state meet for the next meet.
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And then all of the rest of the times in those regions get in
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marks, get all put together and kind of call it a descending
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order list and the next four, the top four from that
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descending order list. They also, regardless of what
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region, it could be all the same region.
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In in the Sprint sometimes region, I think it's region
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three took all four hot times last year got it and and is that
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what you guys call it, West Virginia hot times.
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Hot times or hot seed, that kind of very cool, like that.
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Hot times. Love it.
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All right, so we've got our top three per event and this goes
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for relays as well, right? Top three relays.
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And then the next 4 fast, it's all mixed together.
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All right, perfect. So we've got that.
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And we're going to state, let's talk about the state meet.
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Are we doing all three, or actually at all six of these
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state championships at the same venue?
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You say weekend. Is it the venue, a college or
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high school? Does it rotate?
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Is it traditionally in one place?
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And how many days is the meet? It's it's two days we do them
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all at the same time. I mean you will have single
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A-100 qualifier girls, single A boys, then you go AA girls, AA
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boys. And you know, for as a coach,
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when you got that sprinter who might be in the 100 and also in
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the four by two, you really like it because it's a nice long
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break in between to give them some rest.
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It's at University of Charleston's Laidley Field.
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That's a shared field between Charleston and Capitol High
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School, I believe uses it too for their football games.
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It's been there as long as I can remember.
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And we've got a new track at at in Morgantown, Mylan Park.
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We know we made a brand new track, very nice facility.
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We've been trying to get it up there, hoping to get there.
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Nice mondo surface, You know, new all the new things.
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You know, some of the guys, Jerry Hawkins.
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Ran his PR at our track, not at the state meet at our track.
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You know, the Mondo surface is a bit faster and we'd like to see
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it come to Morgantown at some point.
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I I remember when that facility came in and I'm actually now
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that you're reminding me of it, I am surprised that the state
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meet is not there. That's a first class facility
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very well. Done what a few people are It's
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seating. We're trying to work out the
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seating details of course, of course, right.
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So we got a two day meet, so we're running all six meets and
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to your point, it's the 100 girls, 100 girls, 100 girls and
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then hundred boys, hundred boys, hundred boys.
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So we're not doing like all the A's together and then all the
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AA's. It's.
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It goes by event all the way through.
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Yeah, we go by like go boy girl A, boy girl B, boy girl 2A.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
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Perfect. We know track and field.
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You actually kind of mentioned this in your introduction.
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Is the most inclusive sport in the world right.
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Big Tall St. There's a place for you to have
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success somewhere inside the sport of track and field.
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We've learned throughout the series that a lot of states have
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added or or are going to add adaptive unified wheelchair type
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events, anything like that going on in West Virginia.
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We don't. And and hearing that other
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states have, is that's a really good thing to look into, like
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our head coach, Coach Blinko, he's on the Rules Committee and
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stuff. Hearing that, I think that'd be
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something he meets with them after the after the years over.
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It might be something to take down there and say, hey, can we
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think about, you know, adding some, some adaptive events, you
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know, open up the door for some more people?
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That'd be great. That is great to hear.
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That was one of the goals, Not specifically with Adaptive, but
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one of the goals of this series was to create communication
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amongst different states. So if was Virginia was like,
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hey, why don't we have this figured out?
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Wait a minute, such and such state does.
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Well, let's give them a call then and let's see how they do
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it. Let's figure how they do it.
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Yeah, exactly. Right.
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Awesome. Love that.
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All right, so since we have three classes, we have three
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pole vault state champions, an A, A, AA and A AAA.
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And some states, whether it's officially through the Athletic
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Association or unofficially through maybe a coach's
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association will bring those champions together, maybe have
11:38
like a meet of champion. So we get the air quotes here,
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True state champion. Anything like that going on?
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No. And that's, you know, I I saw
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that question that's a little intriguing too, you know, a lot
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of times. Like I remember when I was at
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Clay Battelle, the thing I hang my hat on was my four by one and
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four by two. The only teams faster at that
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time ended up being Morgantown High, who I coach at now and
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they broke the state record to get those times.
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So the AAA state record holder was the only teams faster than
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my single leg Clay Battelle. I always wanted to run against
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them. We never really crossed paths
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with full orders with our full orders in there and.
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I don't know. I like the I like the David and
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Goliath tale sometimes. I always, always wanted to go
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after him. I 100% agree with that.
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Absolutely. All right.
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Let's take a look at some of the events you got going on there.
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We can assume you're doing the one, the two, the four and the
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eight in the next two events. Are you doing the 1632 or the
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mile? Two mile, the fifteen 3000.
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What are you doing in those next two?
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We do 16 and 32 perfect. That's the most common.
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We're doing the 110 highs and the 100 highs for boys and
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girls. Yes, we're doing the 300
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hurdles. Yes, we do 300 hurdles.
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Oh, you almost said 400 hurdles. But almost said four, because
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I'd like to see if you and my kids, there you go.
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But it is the three 300 hurdles officially.
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It is the Great. Alright, perfect.
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Let's talk about relays. We know you're doing 4 by 1 and
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4 by 4 because if you weren't, you wouldn't be doing track and
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you wouldn't be at this podcast. Yeah, I think I heard you say a
13:01
four by two. We do do a four by two.
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We're one of the states that do a four by two and in our order
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something drives me crazy. We will go 100 hurdles, 1110
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hurdles. Into the four by two, you know,
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no, we'll do one hundred 110 hurdles into the 100, into the
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four by two. I had a very good runner in 2017
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and she did the back-to-back with the with the hurdle to the
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100. You know she got, she got second
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in one in the state, she got third in the other in the state,
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Never could. I wouldn't put her in a four by
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two. There's no way you can do that,
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and sometimes I wish we could break that up a little bit.
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So for sure, 4 by 1, four by two 4x4.
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Any other relays? We have what's called, and I
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think we're one of only two states to have it, the shuttle
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hurdles. Oh my God, do you really?
13:49
Yes, we have shuttle hurdles. We actually, I had a team.
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Our boys got third breaking the school record in the shuttle
13:54
hurdles last year. I am A and you said you're a
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Sprint hurdles coach. So you mean you're the same
13:59
geeks here now? I love the shuttle hurdle.
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Really. Oh, it's it's a blast.
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This should be in every state and, and to your point, unless
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we hear from our last two states here, Wash, Wisconsin and
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Wyoming, you are correct, West Virginia.
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And I'm gonna, I'm gonna play a little trivia game.
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What is that other state? Is it is it Rhode Island?
14:21
Oh man. Or is it Idaho?
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You can start with the eye. Maybe.
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I say you got the eye corrected. It's Iowa.
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Iowa is your Iowa State. Yes.
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And if you've been following along amongst all these states,
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you already knew that because you listened to Iowa.
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So, yeah, good job. We made the joke that if our
14:37
shuttle hurdle team won the state title and our time was
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faster than Iowa's time, we could say we were national
14:44
champions. National champions, baby.
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That was the joke we had going into the The State meet last
14:49
year. I am so excited.
14:51
I was getting a little worried here, Jamie.
14:53
That was like, well, West Virginia seems to be just kind
14:55
of straight and narrow, No surprises.
14:57
Bam, here we are with a shuttle hurdle relay.
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Thank you to every coach in West Virginia because it is my all
15:03
time favorite event. It should be an NCAA
15:06
championship event. It should be an every state meet
15:08
event. It is literally the best relay
15:11
in the world. What do the kids say?
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Don't at me. It doesn't matter.
15:14
That is exactly true. All right, so but when?
15:16
You said pen relays, right? They they still run at Penn
15:19
Relays Pen Drake. At your college level, yeah, all
15:21
your big relay meets will maybe Mount Sack, but for sure Drake
15:25
and Penn have those meets have those events for sure.
15:28
All right, so we know 4 by 1, four by two 4x4 and Sprint
15:31
shuttle hurdle relay. No, no other medleys.
15:33
No 4 by 8. We have a four by eight, yes.
15:36
OK, you do have 4 by 8, so you've got 5 relays at your
15:40
Yeah, that's good. Iowa beats you there as well.
15:43
They have 7 relays. Really.
15:45
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, they do Every relay under the sun.
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OK, let's go to some field events.
15:49
We have long jump and triple jump for boys and girls.
15:51
No triple jump for both or one for both.
15:56
And my our head coach is like as much as you love the shuttle
15:59
relays. He does not like the shuttle
16:01
relays he would like. He goes every year to the Rules
16:04
Committee meeting and says can we drop shuttles and add triple
16:07
jump? As a huge advocate of the
16:10
shuttle hurdle, I might agree with that only because the next
16:13
level these kids get on to the next level, there are a few.
16:17
Unfortunately, you're not the. I wish you were the only state
16:20
who didn't do triple jump. But as we've learned, you are
16:22
one of a few states, a handful of states that doesn't have
16:25
triple jump. And it's a literally a little
16:27
bit like, oh come on, let's go. We got opportunities here for
16:30
boys and girls on the next. Level.
16:31
It gets a chance. As long jump for sure.
16:33
No triple jump. Let's go shop putting discus for
16:35
boys and girls. Yes, pole vault and high jump
16:38
for boys and girls. Yes.
16:40
And any other things, any other hammer javelin 5000?
16:43
One of those multis. Nope, none of those.
16:46
Now we go to, we have a rule where we go sometimes to
16:50
Pittsburgh or Ohio for meats and then they have the Jav.
16:54
And by our rules, if we don't have it in our state, we're not
16:58
allowed to compete in it out of state either.
17:00
Interesting. So there's.
17:01
Kids I'd love to see throw a Jav or a hammer who just legally
17:05
aren't allowed to. That's interesting because we've
17:08
heard of a few states who also didn't have these events, but
17:10
when they cross the border, they're allowed to do that.
17:12
But in West Virginia, they say, hey, it's not in your state
17:14
meet, you're not doing it. Can't do it.
17:16
Nope. All right, all right.
17:17
Makes sense. Makes sense.
17:18
Now, some states we've learned after the state meet, kind of
17:21
like this, meet a champs, they'll do an unofficial state
17:24
meet in the multis or the Javelin.
17:26
These events that are not at state anything like that that
17:28
you're aware of? Nothing.
17:30
I mean, we have, we have your typical, you know, like AAU
17:34
style meets, you know, a couple weeks later and they'll do some
17:37
of those events, but nothing school affiliated or or WSS A/C
17:41
affiliated. Got it?
17:42
OK, before we move on to a couple of fun questions here,
17:45
Jamie, anything that we missed, anything that makes that you can
17:49
think of that is unique to West Virginia, You double up your
17:53
relay points. You only score 6 in each event.
17:55
You run the four. By 4 score 8.
17:57
Yeah, yeah, good. That means you're you mean
17:58
you're normal. That's good That started.
18:00
Last year, though, that's new for us.
18:02
We used the score six, last year's first one with eight.
18:05
Is that right? Was there a reasoning behind
18:07
moving from 6 to 8? Giving more kids, as you know,
18:10
awards. Giving, you know, recognize more
18:12
kids. Now, to be honest, we tied for
18:15
the state championship with another team.
18:17
I've never gone back to do the math with six to see if we'd
18:20
want it outright. It's one of those things that
18:22
don't know don't it is what it is, Can't fix it.
18:25
I'll never go back and look, you can't do anything about it.
18:27
So what you tell your kids, you can't do anything about it.
18:29
So move forward, right. Perfect.
18:31
So now you're scoring 8, which is most common.
18:33
That's probably 99% of our states are doing top eight.
18:36
Anything else before we move on that we should know about West
18:38
Virginia that makes you a unique?
18:40
One of the bigger complaints is the the regional meet being the
18:44
only way to qualify 'cause I know a lot of states, and you
18:46
probably know doing this podcast more so than me.
18:49
A lot of states will do automatic qualifiers and a lot
18:52
of our distance kids. You know, if if push, they might
18:56
have to run 4 events in one day, you know you're 4 by 8, you're
19:00
age 16 and 32. That's a nice haul and it would
19:03
be a lot nicer if they could hit that qualifying time a couple
19:06
weeks before. And not have to run as much.
19:09
So you sound more like you're answering my magic wand question
19:12
and less of what currently today is maybe unique in West Virginia
19:16
that you do, that we should know about.
19:19
Yeah, what's that? I'm sorry.
19:21
So you're you're answering two questions in the future here,
19:24
you're answering my magic wand question.
19:25
You know, as we get closer to the end of 51, it just all goes
19:28
off the rails. It's quite OK, right?
19:31
That's my life. That's exactly.
19:33
I'm wondering before we get into a couple of fun questions, is
19:35
there anything else that we should know that West Virginia
19:38
does do that's unique? Anything that you can think of,
19:42
You have to you have a holiday meet that you run at midnight
19:44
because that's a West Virginia tradition and I don't know
19:46
anything that's unique before we move on.
19:48
I mean we have one, we have you know the Morgantown Invitational
19:51
which we do here at the at the Mylan facility and then we do a
19:55
it's called the Mountaineer Showcase and it's done in
19:58
conjunction with WVU. It'll be a college meet slash
20:02
high school meet. So a lot of times we'll get to
20:04
see some of those college events we don't always see and.
20:08
And they'll get to see some of the high school kids.
20:10
It's a great time for a lot of those coaches who are already
20:13
there to meet to look over and say my kids running 100 and
20:15
saying, oh, that looks all right, that could be fun, you
20:19
know, And that's usually a two day meet.
20:21
It's a, you know, a local guy who used to run W puts it on and
20:26
does a great job and it's, you know, very community oriented.
20:29
And I mean that's and that's something I think of you know
20:32
our head coach does a great job putting those things out there
20:35
like that and just trying to build the sport of track.
20:38
You know it's it's it's probably in West Virginia.
20:41
I would say it's our most participated in sport which you
20:44
know is I don't know nationally where that is.
20:46
I would like to think it's somewhere around there, but like
20:49
our team will end up having between 100 and 120 kids on it.
20:54
And I know all the way down the single leg Doddridge County,
20:57
they'll have 100 kids on their team at a small school.
21:00
So in the state of West Virginia, we have, I think, more
21:02
people participating in track than most other sports.
21:05
The state, the health of track and field in West Virginia is
21:08
doing really well. Awesome.
21:10
Love to hear that. All right, let's have some fun
21:12
here. Jamie help us.
21:13
Settle a debate, at least on your bus rides to meet your
21:17
culture, your area. When we're talking about this
21:20
state meet, are we qualifying for the state meet?
21:22
Are we qualifying for states? Are we qualifying for the state
21:25
meet? What?
21:26
What are we saying here? Help us, we just say going to
21:28
states, we're going to states with an S.
21:31
OK I'm hearing an S there states now.
21:34
It's funny though we had a guy on the staff a few years ago who
21:37
is from a county a little bit West and he tried to correct us.
21:41
He said it's going to state. It's just state and I'm like are
21:45
we we only running one event because states to me says more
21:49
than one event and then you know that's we debated by that.
21:52
He had spent some time in Texas, told me Texas it was state going
21:56
to state. Well, again, if you're following
21:58
along all 51, you already know what Texas does.
22:00
So we, we've had people draw lines in the sand on both sides,
22:05
States and states. So we wanted to try to figure
22:08
out what is it systematically throughout the country.
22:11
Love it. Thank you so much for that.
22:13
Now, Jamie, you've been awesome for us.
22:14
You've taught us a lot. This is amazing.
22:16
Love what West Virginia is doing, especially the shuttle
22:18
hurdle relay. So you win the prize, you win
22:21
the magic wand. Now you can have already gave me
22:24
a magic wand, so I'm going to allow you.
22:25
I'm going to give you a. Freebie, you're going to get
22:26
another one here because we're at the end.
22:28
Who cares anymore? We're at 51.
22:31
We're again off the rails here. So long time ago.
22:34
Exactly. If you could change one thing
22:35
and now only one thing that you think would help make the sport
22:39
of track and field better for high school there in West
22:42
Virginia, what might that be? I mean, the thing that kind of
22:45
drives me crazy is, and I don't know how other meets do it, it's
22:49
time constraints. Like if the 100 qualifiers to be
22:53
run at six O 5, it's six O 5. You know, if we have weather
22:58
coming in and and it's like, hey, can we speed this up a
23:02
little bit? You know, we might want to get
23:03
this in underweather. Nope.
23:04
We are holding the six O 5, you know, which sometimes that's
23:08
good, sometimes that's bad. We had a weather delay a few
23:11
years ago where I had a girl running a 200 at about 10:50 at
23:16
night, then had to get up and run the 400 at 9:15 the next
23:20
day. I mean, I wish our schedule was
23:22
a little more flexible for some things.
23:24
I had a kid he he ended up going to Oregon.
23:27
Josh Edwards, great athlete. He had to run the 32 that night
23:32
under the lights and be up for the 1600 at like 10 the next day
23:35
and he he did not finish that race.
23:37
You know a lot of it I think was sleep and some dietary things
23:41
and and I wish we were more flexible with the schedule and
23:45
and the little, I don't know, how do I say it, a little little
23:49
looser and a little fun. You know we don't have to be so
23:51
strict and and and bound up all the time smile.
23:56
Kids like to see people smile. Well, a lot of the things that
23:59
make us the greatest sport in the world certainly make some
24:02
hard times with scheduling and lengths of meet and things like
24:05
that. But I love That's a great second
24:07
use of your magic wand there, my friend.
24:10
Jamie, man, hey, thank you so much.
24:11
Again, this series doesn't happen without men and women
24:14
like yourself stepping up and you know, putting yourself out
24:16
there, you know, there's everybody in West Virginia is
24:18
going to be listening going, what did Jamie get wrong?
24:20
Let me let me say, what do you say?
24:21
I'm hoping it'll get calls the next.
24:22
Exactly. Exactly.
24:23
But you did an awesome job. You know, as we continue to, you
24:27
know, close out this series with a few more states here, it just
24:30
has been awesome. If this is your first one
24:31
listening, I highly recommend we started back on April 2nd with
24:35
Alabama. We're going all the way through
24:37
to Wyoming. I I recommend you listen to
24:39
them. Because it's been absolutely
24:41
mind blowing how different the states are, and we learned that
24:43
today. Very educational.
24:44
Man, the shuttle hurdle relay in West Virginia.
24:46
So Jamie, thank you so much, man.
24:48
Grateful for you again for being here.
24:50
You did an awesome job and thank you so much.
24:52
Well, thanks for having me. It was fun.
24:54
It was a lot of fun.