Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Vermont State Meet featuring Dennis Akey from South Burlington HS

Transcript

BONUS: Vermont State Meet featuring Dennis Akey from South Burlington HS · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  It's bonus time here on the Gill Connections podcast.
• 0:03
  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 at 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. OK.
• 1:10
  We are continuing to motor around the country and you know
• 1:13
  we're at the VS. So we're getting close to all 51
• 1:17
  championships, state championships, even you,
• 1:19
  Washington, DC And so I'm super excited today to bring to you
• 1:22
  and help learn right alongside with you about the great state
• 1:25
  of Vermont. So help me welcome from South
• 1:27
  Burlington High School Mr. Dennis Akee Dennis.
• 1:29
  How are you Sir? Good.
• 1:31
  Thanks so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.
• 1:33
  Hey, you know this project, I'm kind of getting a little
• 1:35
  emotional as we get to the end of 51 different bonus episodes
• 1:39
  here. You know, this doesn't happen
• 1:42
  without 51 servant leaders like yourself.
• 1:44
  So all of us here, Gil, myself, we're just extremely grateful
• 1:47
  for you stepping up for this great state and, you know,
• 1:49
  really kind of putting yourself out there, You know, everybody's
• 1:51
  going to be like, you know, what did Dennis say about Vermont?
• 1:53
  And, you know, you slip up one word, You know, you're going to
• 1:56
  have a lot of explanation to do. But I'm just so grateful for you
• 1:59
  today, man. So thank thank you so much.
• 2:01
  Oh my gosh, thank you so much for doing this.
• 2:02
  Honestly, I'm genuinely curious to listen to the whole thing,
• 2:05
  what it's done myself, it'll it's going to blow your mind.
• 2:07
  I'm, I'm the only guy today that has you know, listened to all of
• 2:10
  them. So it it's amazing.
• 2:13
  If this is your first time listening here on Vermont, I
• 2:16
  really highly encourage you go back.
• 2:18
  We started with Alabama. We're going all the way through
• 2:20
  Wyoming. So all 50 states including
• 2:22
  Washington, DC trust me, they're all about you know 15 to 30
• 2:25
  minutes depending on the state. You can kind of tell the states
• 2:28
  that are maybe more complicated than others based on how long
• 2:31
  the the IT is. But go back and check them out
• 2:33
  because it's been for me, you know who's been intimately
• 2:36
  involved in track and field and all levels for decades now.
• 2:39
  It was eye opening completely. So yeah, I highly recommend you
• 2:43
  if you're listening for the first time, go check those out.
• 2:45
  Well, Dennis, let's get here to Vermont, man.
• 2:47
  We're going to make people think this is complicated because
• 2:49
  we're going to keep talking bantering back and forth.
• 2:51
  Let's start with why don't you give us like a 32nd, 30,000 foot
• 2:55
  level introduction of yourself? Why should someone in Georgia be
• 2:59
  listening to Dennis in Vermont about Vermont?
• 3:02
  Give yourself a little bit of St. cred here.
• 3:04
  All right, well, so my name is Dennis Aki.
• 3:07
  I've been coaching here in South Burlington for 14 years at the
• 3:13
  same high school, South Burlington High School, that
• 3:15
  whole my whole career. I did take a little quick two
• 3:18
  year hiatus when I moved somewhere else.
• 3:20
  But I've been at the same high school for those whole 14 years.
• 3:24
  I have been able to win 10 state championships with our school,
• 3:28
  which I was pretty fortunate. I Let's see.
• 3:34
  Ran track myself in college, you know, I was a hurdler and a
• 3:36
  jumper when I was in high school.
• 3:37
  I got recruited for that and then got converted into a
• 3:39
  decathlete when I was in school. I ran both at Ithaca College
• 3:43
  Division Three level for my first two years, but then
• 3:45
  transferred to be an education major and was at the University
• 3:49
  of Vermont which is AT1 school. And so I kind of saw track in
• 3:52
  like a lot of different realms. Got my USTFCCCA JUMP
• 3:56
  certification because. I just had so many talented kids
• 3:59
  on my team and I was like, I got to step my game up.
• 4:01
  So been super fortunate with really talented teams.
• 4:05
  And Vermont's a small state, but it's no small feat to try to win
• 4:09
  a state title and we've got some real dominant teams around here,
• 4:12
  so taking down those Titans is always satisfying.
• 4:16
  I I, I want to make a quick aside here.
• 4:18
  I like how you said that because sometimes it's easy for us
• 4:21
  whether we're in a small school in a state or we're in a state
• 4:24
  like Vermont to say, well, you know, we're a small state, we're
• 4:26
  not Texas and whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 4:28
  What you just said is really important.
• 4:29
  This is an aside has nothing to do with the state series titles.
• 4:31
  But this is really important and passionate about this.
• 4:33
  Winning is hard with you are with you are winning the mile
• 4:38
  Class A in Texas small school or whether you're winning a state
• 4:43
  title in Vermont. Winning is hard and we need to
• 4:46
  celebrate those wins and not put them down.
• 4:48
  I want I'm I want a crusade to get rid of the words of just or
• 4:52
  only you know I'm I I just won the small state title at those
• 4:56
  things like that those belittle the accomplishments.
• 4:58
  You and your athletes and the many many other people that work
• 5:02
  hard for you to win those titles and championship.
• 5:04
  So celebrate your wins. I'm so glad you said it that way
• 5:07
  Dennis. I'm super excited now for the
• 5:08
  next few minutes to learn about Vermont because obviously being
• 5:11
  you vibe and have a lot of good and you're hurdler.
• 5:13
  Come on, man, I love hurdlers. That was where my.
• 5:15
  Game was like the hurdle. The hurdler, like brother and
• 5:17
  sisterhood is absolutely, let's get into it.
• 5:20
  Here we go, Dennis. So let's start with some states,
• 5:24
  and we're learning not many, but some states have a separate
• 5:27
  association that takes care of private schools.
• 5:30
  They go on their own track, pun intended to win a state title.
• 5:33
  And public schools go on a whole different route.
• 5:35
  They don't mix at all. And then most commonly, public
• 5:38
  schools and private schools are together in the same
• 5:40
  association, fighting it out for the same titles.
• 5:42
  What are we doing in Vermont? Private and public schools.
• 5:46
  They are all mixed together. So I personally work at one of
• 5:49
  the public schools in Vermont. There are far more public
• 5:52
  schools than there are private schools.
• 5:54
  And so our divisions, our four divisions that were spliced into
• 6:00
  are all based on school size regardless of public or private,
• 6:03
  got it. So we're all going towards the
• 6:05
  same state championship titles there and you mentioned.
• 6:08
  So the next question is how many classes you mentioned, there's
• 6:10
  four. What do we call those and which
• 6:12
  one's the big enrollments and which ones are the smaller
• 6:14
  enrollments? We've got 4 divisions.
• 6:17
  Division One is for the largest schools.
• 6:20
  Division Four is for the smallest schools.
• 6:23
  So I'm looking in my notes right here quickly.
• 6:26
  Division One of the big schools has about 12 schools in it.
• 6:31
  And give or take, you know, some schools move up or down every
• 6:34
  year, but about 12 schools in it.
• 6:36
  And that is honestly, the vast majority of the the population
• 6:40
  here in Vermont are those 12 schools.
• 6:42
  They're all concentrated up in the area that I live in, in
• 6:44
  Burlington in what we call Chittenden County, plus some
• 6:48
  others down South with other bigger populations.
• 6:50
  Division two is a little bit bigger.
• 6:53
  It's about 15 to 16 schools, give or take.
• 6:57
  Those schools are a little bit smaller, but still honestly just
• 7:01
  as competitive. Division Three is then a lot of
• 7:04
  much smaller schools, somewhere around 20 in that division.
• 7:08
  And then Divisions 4 is like the remaining really small schools
• 7:13
  that like legitimately only have about 20 kids per class.
• 7:17
  So we're looking at less than 100 in the entire school, and
• 7:21
  there are somewhere between 15 and 20 of those schools as well.
• 7:25
  Awesome. So D1D2D3 we call them divisions
• 7:28
  not a AA, not classes Division One, division two, Division
• 7:32
  Three, Division Four. Division One is our bigger
• 7:34
  school enrollments, Division Four are our smaller school
• 7:37
  enrollment. So we're there are four boys
• 7:39
  teams that are working towards earning a state team title every
• 7:42
  year and four girls team titles that are working towards teams
• 7:46
  that are working towards state titles on the girl side.
• 7:49
  Correct. All right, let's talk about how
• 7:51
  we get there. All around the country we have
• 7:54
  the first round. We call it area divisionals,
• 7:56
  Regionals, Sectionals, all these different names for the first
• 7:59
  round as we're working towards the state meet.
• 8:01
  What's the first round in Vermont called?
• 8:04
  Our first round is our last round.
• 8:07
  We have one single qualifying standard that a kid can hit at
• 8:11
  any point during the season, up until one week before our state
• 8:16
  championships, and so long as they hit that mark.
• 8:19
  They have qualified for the state championships in their
• 8:21
  division, so how is that mark calculated?
• 8:25
  Great question. I honestly couldn't tell you.
• 8:29
  I know that the Division One marks has, like I personally
• 8:33
  also am from Vermont and have been competing in these since
• 8:37
  the early 2000s. The Division One marks.
• 8:41
  More or less only fluctuate based on like when the the field
• 8:45
  gets too big. So the marks have been more or
• 8:48
  less the same for about the last at least 30 years.
• 8:52
  I can. I can confidently tell you and I
• 8:55
  just know that once the once the fields are too large and there
• 8:59
  are you know more than like 4 heats at the state championship
• 9:02
  of anyone given thing on the next year when the committee
• 9:06
  gets together somebody brings that up and we talk about how
• 9:09
  can we move the standard to. Make it a little bit harder, I
• 9:13
  guess, if you will, OK, because that's, well, that's what.
• 9:16
  No, that's what I was going to ask.
• 9:17
  So you're using a qualifying standard with no cut off.
• 9:21
  Meaning if 100 kids meet that standard, they're going to be at
• 9:25
  state and we'll evaluate it next year on what we do.
• 9:28
  But there's no, like the top 24 that meet the qualifying
• 9:31
  standard. It is You meet the qualifying
• 9:32
  standard. You go to the state meet.
• 9:35
  Correct. Yeah.
• 9:35
  And so, like you just said, sometimes.
• 9:37
  Like I can remember in recent history where we had somewhere
• 9:42
  around 50 or 60 kids qualify for the 1500 and legitimately 8 kids
• 9:49
  qualify for the triple jump final.
• 9:50
  So it was like you get a mark and you get 6 jumps.
• 9:54
  That's the that's the concern that you have with a an
• 9:57
  automatic qualifying system. It it could be the dearth.
• 10:00
  It could be 8 kids and it could be 800 kids.
• 10:03
  You don't have that control, right?
• 10:04
  OK, cool. So.
• 10:05
  And so then to finish your question, division 2-3 and four,
• 10:10
  because those schools are traditionally smaller schools,
• 10:13
  less kids, less available coaching or not as experienced
• 10:17
  of coaches those those qualifying servers are just
• 10:20
  easier. So I.
• 10:22
  I couldn't tell you exactly what the like metric is to make them
• 10:25
  easier, but the Division Four state records if you will, those
• 10:30
  are significantly slower or longer than the Division One
• 10:34
  records and that also that division is relatively new.
• 10:38
  For most of my lifetime there have been 3 divisions and the
• 10:41
  4th one was added because of all of the small schools feeling
• 10:45
  like there was none. Fair massive Division Three that
• 10:48
  there was at the time to be honest with you and so anyway.
• 10:52
  The point being, I'm not quite sure exactly how they determined
• 10:55
  the other standards, but a kid that so happens to go to a
• 11:00
  Division Two school that is a Division One caliber kid would
• 11:03
  just like destroy everybody. How long ago did they add that
• 11:08
  4th division roughly? Roughly it was like 2000 and
• 11:14
  11:00-ish, so 10:00-ish years ago.
• 11:16
  Yeah that's good for know as states think about that's that's
• 11:19
  a, I'll call it a hot topic is how many classes a state has,
• 11:23
  whether they have too many and these are all subjective ways of
• 11:28
  describing it or not enough. So that's good to know that
• 11:31
  roughly 10 or so years ago, Vermont decided to add a fourth
• 11:35
  division there. Yeah, it's definitely a popular
• 11:38
  sport in our state. For our season, being as short
• 11:40
  as it is because of the snow, it's a lot.
• 11:43
  A lot of kids in our state love track, so I can hit that
• 11:46
  qualifying standard at any point during the regular season and
• 11:49
  then I am going to the state meet.
• 11:50
  So let's talk about that state meet.
• 11:52
  Are we doing all you know there's eight state
• 11:54
  championships, right? Four divisions, boys and girls,
• 11:57
  so there's eight actual track meets going on.
• 11:59
  Are we doing all of them on the same weekend in the same venue?
• 12:02
  Is that venue always the same place or do we rotate and move
• 12:06
  it around? Is it at a college, high school?
• 12:09
  And how many days? That's a lot of questions all in
• 12:11
  a row. How many days are we doing this?
• 12:14
  So. All four of them happen in the
• 12:17
  same weekend. All four of them are one day
• 12:20
  meets only, and. All four of them stay at the
• 12:26
  same one or two locations every single year.
• 12:29
  So Division One, I can confidently tell you, since
• 12:31
  that's the division that I coach in, is always at a local high
• 12:36
  school, Burlington High School. They just very clearly have one
• 12:39
  of the better facilities. They're one of the few in
• 12:42
  Vermont that have eight lanes all the way around 400 meters.
• 12:45
  They're one of the few that have long enough triple jump boards
• 12:48
  for, like, anybody to jump at and.
• 12:52
  It's central enough in the state that it's easy for everybody to
• 12:56
  get to, so Burlington always hosts Division One.
• 12:59
  Division two bounces between either one of the schools in the
• 13:02
  middle of the state U 32 or actually our school, even though
• 13:06
  we're a Division One school, South Burlington High School
• 13:08
  will host the Division Two meet. Those are almost always on
• 13:12
  Saturday. And then Division Three and four
• 13:15
  also bounce between two schools there.
• 13:17
  Most of their schools are down in the southern part of our
• 13:20
  state, so they're usually one of them is in Chester, Vt at Green
• 13:24
  Mountain Union High School. And the other one I can't
• 13:28
  remember, I saw, man, I want to say it's at Proctor High School.
• 13:31
  And there have been times that Division Three and four were
• 13:34
  combined because they're their school, their stuff is just
• 13:39
  smaller. They just even though they can
• 13:40
  like split the results. And they'll have the 2 divisions
• 13:44
  run with each other. But recently more recently, it's
• 13:49
  been 2 separate locations, usually one on a Friday night
• 13:52
  and one on a Saturday at the same location.
• 13:54
  For those the the like like last year was one of the first times
• 14:00
  that Division Four had their own meet on their own day.
• 14:04
  And I believe that they went on Friday night and then Division
• 14:06
  Three, which was bigger, went on Saturday during the day.
• 14:10
  I'll have to double check that one, but I'm 95% sure it might
• 14:13
  have been flip flop division through.
• 14:14
  It's Friday night and if, but either way one day four
• 14:19
  different locations and for the most part they're in the exact
• 14:23
  same place every year. It doesn't really rotate around
• 14:25
  there at local high schools. They're not at like a next level
• 14:28
  stadium. Now you gave me a little bit of
• 14:30
  a hint about the state meet before we actually hit the
• 14:33
  record button here. Typically I would move on to a
• 14:36
  couple other questions, but the state meet is not necessarily
• 14:40
  the last meet of the year in Vermont.
• 14:42
  Tell us a little bit more about that.
• 14:44
  Yeah, it's true. So we the only time that all
• 14:48
  four divisions will actually compete against each other are
• 14:52
  way early in the season at just like an open Invitational and
• 14:55
  then the week before our divisional championships at the
• 14:59
  Essex Invitational which which is the double S as our New
• 15:02
  England qualifier. And so all four divisions go to
• 15:05
  that meet that is not a team scored meet.
• 15:08
  But it is the only time in the season, at peak end of the
• 15:12
  season, where all four divisions get to go head to head, trying
• 15:16
  to take the top six in each event that qualify for the New
• 15:19
  England Championships. And that's happening after the
• 15:22
  state meet. That is before the state meet.
• 15:25
  OK. So that's before.
• 15:26
  So like during Memorial Day weekend, traditionally every
• 15:29
  year is when our Essex Invitational and New England
• 15:33
  Qualifier happens. And then the weekend after the
• 15:36
  first weekend in June, each of the four divisions host their
• 15:39
  own individual state championship.
• 15:41
  So technically, Vermont crowns 4 state champions in each event,
• 15:47
  in each gender, every season, right?
• 15:51
  But there's nothing after the state meet.
• 15:53
  Correct. The only thing after the state
• 15:54
  meet would be the New England Championships.
• 15:55
  That has nothing to do with the art.
• 15:57
  Art. It has no bearing on our
• 15:59
  championships at all. Got it.
• 16:00
  And we've talked to you know, obviously several other New
• 16:02
  England states that New England championships is a pretty unique
• 16:06
  cultural thing for that area and that's a kind of a big deal.
• 16:09
  It's but it's kind of sounds like it's swung a little bit
• 16:11
  culturally as far as how important that meet is.
• 16:13
  But it's certainly it is typically on everyone's
• 16:16
  schedule. Oh yeah.
• 16:17
  It's it's like it's something that kids strive for.
• 16:20
  It feels like that next level of competition that's not national
• 16:24
  caliber, but that you could see kids national caliber at.
• 16:27
  You know that that really tests you to see what the next level
• 16:30
  of competition is like. Especially kids that go on to
• 16:33
  run collegiately, they they go and get their eyes opened really
• 16:37
  wide. Absolutely.
• 16:39
  We all do at times. So we do know that track and
• 16:42
  field is the most inclusive sport in the world.
• 16:46
  You know, tall, short, big, small.
• 16:48
  There is some event on the track and field schedule that you can
• 16:51
  achieve some form of success. We've learned that a lot of
• 16:55
  states actually are adding some type of adaptive unified
• 16:59
  wheelchair events to their state meet series, anything like that
• 17:02
  going on in Vermont. Not at our championship series,
• 17:06
  but we have started, we have a couple of relay meets that
• 17:09
  happen and we've started doing some mix 4 by fours, some mix 4
• 17:12
  by ones, trying to just put in shuttle hurdles and events that
• 17:17
  are rarer that would happen more like a Pen Relays or Drake
• 17:21
  Relays or you know, mimicking what kids see the next level.
• 17:25
  But like I said, there's one or two meets that are relay meets
• 17:29
  that happened mid season for that.
• 17:31
  Championship wise, we've stuck to the same 18 events since I
• 17:35
  can remember any talk about wheelchair adaptive events at
• 17:40
  all that you've heard. Not, not in that sense.
• 17:44
  However, last year was the first year that we crowned a non
• 17:50
  binary division and so it mostly ended up actually happening
• 17:55
  during our indoor season. There was an athlete that.
• 17:58
  Ended up winning the first ever non binary state championship.
• 18:02
  So we gave out a boys or girls and a non binary champion and
• 18:05
  then that athlete decided outdoor to run against the boys
• 18:09
  and declared to be in that division.
• 18:12
  So there were only two genders. But we have started seeing more
• 18:17
  and more kids in our state that either want to compete for a
• 18:22
  different gender or try to compete in a non binary
• 18:24
  category. Yeah, my next question, I think
• 18:26
  you've already kind of answered it because of the New England
• 18:29
  championships. Let's make sure because you're
• 18:31
  doing 4 different class state champions you you brought this
• 18:35
  up earlier. There's four 200 meter state
• 18:38
  champions boys and there's 4200 meter state champion girls.
• 18:42
  Some states, whether it's officially through the
• 18:45
  association or typically unofficially through like a
• 18:47
  coaches association, will host a meet of champions.
• 18:51
  So maybe they take the top two or three from each division, put
• 18:54
  them all together and we go out and find air quotes here, the
• 18:57
  true state champion, anything like that.
• 19:00
  I don't know where you could even fit that in the schedule
• 19:02
  because of the New England's. Unfortunately, no.
• 19:05
  So the New England qualifier, which is the weekend before our
• 19:08
  state championships, is more or less now that feeling because
• 19:12
  that's all of the divisions, right?
• 19:14
  And that's a good. Point like, to be honest with
• 19:16
  you, it's funny training wise. A lot of kids want to be at
• 19:18
  their peak at that meet because they want to beat all four
• 19:21
  divisions. And then for me as a coach, I
• 19:23
  have to be like, well, we have one more week.
• 19:25
  Where it? Really counts for our team and
• 19:27
  so that that New England qualifier has kind of taken that
• 19:32
  spot. Years ago, like literally 2003 I
• 19:36
  believe was the last one. We had an actual meet of
• 19:39
  champions and the weekends were reversed.
• 19:42
  So the divisional championships would happen at the end of May.
• 19:46
  There would then be a meet of champions and the top six from
• 19:49
  that meet would be the New England qualifiers.
• 19:52
  But that, like I said, literally stopped. 2004, which is my
• 19:55
  sophomore year of high school, was the last time that that meet
• 19:58
  happened, and since then they reversed the weekends.
• 20:02
  And kids, like I said, now don't have a team score associated
• 20:05
  with it, but it's it's their only chance to go up against all
• 20:08
  the other divisions. See, that's what's so
• 20:09
  interesting that all these different states typically, not
• 20:12
  typically 100% of the time when we think of meet a champs, we're
• 20:15
  thinking post state meet and here we are, we're doing it.
• 20:18
  And you say effectively you're right, we are doing a meet of
• 20:20
  champions before the state Championship to get to this New
• 20:23
  England qualifier real quick, before I go to my next question.
• 20:26
  You keep saying divisionals, but not divisionals.
• 20:31
  In the context that we've had in previous states, so divisionals
• 20:35
  is the same as areas, regional sectionals in other states where
• 20:38
  I enter my team and if they get top four, they go to the next
• 20:41
  round or state or something like that.
• 20:43
  But that's not what we're doing. Divisionals in Vermont, what So
• 20:45
  what is this divisional meet? Is this more like a conference
• 20:48
  meet or what's divisionals? Yeah that's probably a better
• 20:50
  way to think of it. Like for us our the Division One
• 20:55
  state meet, my kids just call states.
• 20:58
  They just call it the state meet because we we we crown our
• 21:03
  state, our individual state champions and our team state
• 21:05
  champions from each division. So the the the divisional
• 21:12
  championships, I'm kind of calling it more because I know
• 21:14
  that there's there's other ways to do it out there in the
• 21:17
  country. If you were to talk to one of
• 21:19
  the high school kids here in Vermont, when they talk about
• 21:22
  the state meet, they're talking about the Division One state
• 21:25
  meet or the division two state meet, and it just depends on
• 21:27
  what school they go to. Does, does that make sense?
• 21:31
  Yeah. 100% so. So divisionals division meet
• 21:35
  doesn't has nothing to do with that state meet.
• 21:36
  That state meet is only by the the qualifying standard.
• 21:42
  All is really me just knowing that that's confusing for the
• 21:45
  rest. Of no, no, that's that's great.
• 21:47
  It's not. It's not like a round that
• 21:49
  qualifies you for anything else. That's why I want to make sure
• 21:51
  to clarify because someone is now listening to, you know,
• 21:53
  Vermont's going to be roughly state #48 here.
• 21:56
  Someone has listened to 40. Plus other ones are like, wait,
• 21:58
  every time I've heard divisionals, that's a
• 22:00
  qualifying. Not here in Vermont, we're all
• 22:03
  qualifying standard. All right, perfect.
• 22:04
  Let's talk about the events that you're doing there.
• 22:07
  Let's do them group by group here so we can assume you're
• 22:09
  doing the 102 hundred, 400 and 800 for boys and girls.
• 22:13
  Got it? Yep.
• 22:14
  So in the next two events, you kind of alluded to this already.
• 22:17
  Are you doing the fifteen 3000, The Mile, Mile two mile, the
• 22:21
  1632? What are we doing in those next
• 22:23
  two events? We do the 15 and the 3K.
• 22:27
  Awesome. That's unique.
• 22:29
  Not not many states are doing that.
• 22:31
  The 1632 is most popular, but we're doing 15 and 3000.
• 22:34
  Love that. We're doing the 110 high
• 22:37
  hurdles. 100 high hurdles for both boys and girls, correct?
• 22:40
  You got it. We're doing the 300 hurdles. 300
• 22:44
  hurdles. Yep.
• 22:45
  Awesome. For relays, we know you're doing
• 22:47
  the four by one and the four by four because I'm I've said this
• 22:49
  joke on every single episode that we've done.
• 22:52
  If you're not doing those two relays, you're not doing track
• 22:54
  and field, which means you wouldn't be on this podcast.
• 22:56
  What other relays might you be doing besides 4 by 1 and 4 by 4?
• 23:00
  The only other one at the state championship is the 4 by 800.
• 23:04
  So, no four by two, no Sprint Medleys, no shuttle hurdles, no
• 23:07
  nothing, correct. Those are contested at a couple
• 23:11
  of other season meets, but not at the state championships.
• 23:13
  Perfect. Let's go over to our field
• 23:14
  events. You're doing long jump and
• 23:15
  triple jump for boys and girls, Correct?
• 23:19
  Awesome shot put and discus, boys and girls.
• 23:22
  Yep. Pole vault and high jump for
• 23:23
  boys and girls? Yep.
• 23:26
  Awesome. Anything else?
• 23:27
  The Javelin Hammer Steeple 5000 Multis and we do contest.
• 23:35
  Did you say javelins and girls? Sorry, we're being a little
• 23:39
  choppy right here. Did you say javelin?
• 23:40
  Yes, javelin for both boys and girls.
• 23:43
  Perfect. Awesome.
• 23:44
  Now kind of like that meat of Champions ideas, some states are
• 23:47
  running Unofficial State Meets events for these events that
• 23:51
  we're not doing in the regular series, we're doing Javelin here
• 23:54
  in Vermont. But do you know of any
• 23:56
  Unofficial Hammer State champions after the state meet?
• 23:58
  Multis, anything like that that you're aware of?
• 24:02
  Yep. The only other ones that we
• 24:03
  definitely host is a multi meet and so about two weeks after the
• 24:11
  New England championships. So it's typically at our high
• 24:14
  school graduations which are in the second week of June.
• 24:19
  So in that third week of June, over the course of two days, we
• 24:23
  host a men's and women's decathlon.
• 24:26
  And so yeah, it's kind of cool. We.
• 24:27
  Hold on now. We've been, our internet's been
• 24:30
  a little bit of weird here, so obviously you started out here.
• 24:32
  I heard decathlon. That makes sense because that's
• 24:34
  what we do here. But it didn't sound like you
• 24:36
  said heptathlon. It sounded like you said
• 24:38
  decathlon for the girls as well. That's correct.
• 24:41
  That is that is correct. Yeah.
• 24:43
  So our our multi state championship is boys and girls
• 24:47
  doing a decathlon for the we've had up to 70 kids do each gender
• 24:53
  each year and so the way we do it is kind of cool.
• 24:56
  So they have the boys do the traditional decathlon order and
• 25:03
  running events correct on each day, but the field events
• 25:06
  switch. So the girls do on day one the
• 25:10
  100 and the 400, but then they also do the pole vault and and
• 25:17
  then on day two they do the high jump, long jump and the pole
• 25:20
  vault. I'm gonna say it back the way I
• 25:22
  heard it again, we're getting a little choppy here and this is
• 25:24
  really mind breaking stuff here. Nobody is doing this Cool.
• 25:29
  That's that unique to us. Sorry that it keeps breaking up.
• 25:31
  I It's all right. We have about three or four more
• 25:33
  states left, so maybe someone else is gonna blow my mind here,
• 25:36
  but. We're doing a host of double
• 25:38
  decathlon that is itself at his own event.
• 25:40
  We're doing decathlons for boys and girls.
• 25:42
  You've had up to 70 kids do this.
• 25:44
  That's quite amazing right there alone.
• 25:46
  The boys are doing decathlon in the traditional order.
• 25:49
  The girls, I think I heard you say we're doing the running
• 25:52
  vents in the traditional order but because of facility, you
• 25:55
  know needs and things like that, we're flipping the field events
• 25:59
  for day one and day 2 for girls. That's correct.
• 26:02
  That's exactly. We've been doing it that way
• 26:04
  since 2013 ish 2013 or 2014. We used to host for the women
• 26:11
  back in the 70s with the pentathlon, then it went to the
• 26:14
  heptathlon and in the early 2000 tens we changed it over to a
• 26:19
  decathlon for all. So all the T-shirts they get
• 26:21
  that day say decathlon for all, which is kind of fun.
• 26:23
  What? First of all, I love this
• 26:26
  because I know there are several.
• 26:29
  Coaches out there, you know several 100 maybe coaches out
• 26:32
  there that would love to have some type.
• 26:35
  I mean just some type of multi event in their state meet or an
• 26:38
  unofficial state meet a week or two weeks later.
• 26:41
  So I love hearing this because this is you were going to get a
• 26:44
  phone call by the way you know some state right now.
• 26:46
  So we're like oh I got to call Dennis.
• 26:47
  How do you guys do this because that's amazing.
• 26:49
  I am. I am curious though, what do you
• 26:52
  know? Any of the history and you're
• 26:54
  completely forgiven for not. I'm asking this off.
• 26:56
  Script here if you will. You know the the the decathlon
• 27:00
  for women is its own controversial take.
• 27:04
  You know we had Clifford Velto on the Guild Athletics
• 27:06
  Clinicians podcast, one of the top multi coaches in the world
• 27:09
  and we talked about that topic about switching the hip Taplon
• 27:12
  to the decathlon. Do you know why, how it came
• 27:16
  about? That Vermont high schoolers by
• 27:19
  the way went from the seven event hiptathlon for the girls
• 27:23
  to the 10 event decathlon. What was the thinking maybe
• 27:26
  behind that that you might be aware of?
• 27:29
  So that is an awesome question and there are a couple people
• 27:32
  that I could probably direct you to.
• 27:33
  I I know like 2 little tidbits that are not necessarily the
• 27:38
  exact thing 'cause this, this started.
• 27:41
  They changed over like right at the beginning of my coaching
• 27:43
  career when I was in high school here it was heptathlon and
• 27:47
  decathlon. One of the things that I have
• 27:49
  heard mentioned is that the facilities were a massive reason
• 27:54
  for why so pulling off. Like last year it was 70 girls
• 28:00
  and 70 boys. Two years ago it was 90 boys and
• 28:04
  80 girls that were doing it. So like, it's such a popular
• 28:07
  thing in our state that trying to pull off a decathlon and a
• 28:10
  heptathlon for that many kids at the same time, we truly did not
• 28:16
  have enough officials and couldn't do it.
• 28:18
  And so one of the ideas was just like, well, why not have the
• 28:22
  girls do the whole thing? And I think that the other
• 28:26
  little tidbit that I've heard is that that question had no
• 28:30
  answer. Why not have the girls do the
• 28:31
  whole thing? So it was just a natural like,
• 28:34
  hey, there's no reason that we have to do this.
• 28:36
  It's actually probably more impressive for college coaches
• 28:40
  and girls that are looking to continue and do that in the
• 28:42
  future. And sure, they don't get a
• 28:44
  heptathlon score, but if they're looking to qualify for
• 28:47
  nationals, they've done enough of the events.
• 28:49
  Most of them that look to do that can combine points to end
• 28:52
  up going to that either New Balance or Nike meet if they
• 28:54
  want. Did you say 2 points?
• 28:56
  Was that one or did I miss? Because I'm just in awe right
• 28:58
  now. I might have miscounted.
• 29:00
  Those are, yeah, those are the only two that I There are a
• 29:02
  couple people I could ask, but those are the two I've heard.
• 29:04
  I'm sure there are other reasons, but they also know that
• 29:08
  like a lot of the girls are really proud to say, they've
• 29:09
  done a decathlon at this point, which is kind of the culture has
• 29:12
  has become its own thing. Yeah, at the.
• 29:15
  Risk of this could be an hour podcast just on this topic.
• 29:18
  I'm going to move on but Oh my goodness.
• 29:20
  And by the way, I do want to point out, make sure if you're
• 29:22
  listening, you heard a really interesting stat there.
• 29:25
  One of the anti moving hip Teflon decathlon arguments is
• 29:31
  women and girls will drop out because they have to learn how
• 29:34
  to pole vault and all this kind of stuff.
• 29:35
  I heard the numbers are going up.
• 29:38
  We moved to the. Harder air quotes there,
• 29:40
  Decathlon and still. We're talking about high school.
• 29:44
  So these are girls. These are 1415.
• 29:45
  Sixteen 1718 year old girls are still banging at the door to get
• 29:49
  into this meet. So, OK, we're going to move on.
• 29:50
  But this, this is one of those facts that just blew my mind.
• 29:55
  Dennis, thank you so much. That's awesome.
• 29:56
  All right, here's a risky question.
• 29:59
  So before we get into a couple of fun questions, is there
• 30:01
  anything else that we didn't discuss?
• 30:03
  About Vermont that I should have and I should have asked.
• 30:06
  So I'm thinking like, you know, you only score 6 places at the
• 30:10
  state meet, you double your relay points at state you you
• 30:13
  run the four by four at midnight because that's a Vermont
• 30:15
  tradition. I don't know anything else
• 30:17
  unique that we need to make sure we know in today's podcast.
• 30:22
  No I think that you know we we you did mention the the number
• 30:29
  of places we only score 6 out at our meet.
• 30:31
  So because I think I I don't think there's been any talk
• 30:37
  about why we need to move to 8. I think that it's mostly because
• 30:40
  of tradition at this point, but we score 6 out at that meet 11.
• 30:47
  Just really fascinating aspect about our, you know I mentioned
• 30:50
  facility issues with all of the the change over to the women's
• 30:55
  decathlon, our indoor system is completely different.
• 31:00
  We actually during our indoor system our taking the top 12 in
• 31:04
  every event in each gender. So at the end we just look at
• 31:07
  the full ranking list and that is purely a facility issue.
• 31:10
  The University of Vermont is the only indoor track in Vermont
• 31:14
  that will host high school events and they only host us
• 31:18
  during their winter break. We have to like do our state
• 31:21
  meet on a Sunday. Sneak in?
• 31:22
  Yeah, exactly. There are two.
• 31:24
  There are only three total indoor tracks in our entire
• 31:27
  state and one of them is at one of the military colleges, so
• 31:30
  they don't have any equipment to host us, they just have the
• 31:33
  track itself. And then the other one just
• 31:35
  refuses to host us at Middlebury College.
• 31:37
  So anyway that. So that's just like a really
• 31:39
  unique weird thing is that we only have two divisions indoor.
• 31:43
  A lot of kids that do outdoor track are actually massively
• 31:46
  talented skiers in the winter. So indoor track is still
• 31:49
  massive. There's two divisions, but it's
• 31:51
  much smaller and because of facility issues, it's just very
• 31:55
  wacky with how to qualify. You know, after everything
• 31:58
  you've taught us about the outdoor dentist, when you said
• 32:00
  you do things way different, crazier and indoor.
• 32:02
  And I was like, if he tells me they do a double decathlon, I'm
• 32:05
  going to lose it. Absolutely lose it.
• 32:07
  So can I tell you a quick little tidbit which is wild though,
• 32:10
  please. We had, we had a kid this past
• 32:11
  year qualify for the Nike Outdoor National Decathlon.
• 32:16
  Went and did that on a Friday and Saturday.
• 32:19
  He then had two days rest and came back and won the Vermont
• 32:23
  decathlon and still scored over 6000 points in both meets.
• 32:26
  It was absolute insanity. Never seen anything like that
• 32:28
  before. That's amazing.
• 32:30
  All right, let's get to a couple of fun questions here.
• 32:32
  Dennis, help us settle a a debate and argument, if you
• 32:35
  will, at least in your culture. Your bus ride to the to the meet
• 32:40
  when you're talking about the kids and and you actually kind
• 32:43
  of said it already. So we're going to see if you
• 32:44
  stay consistent here. How?
• 32:46
  How do you refer to it? Did you qualify for the state
• 32:48
  meet? Did you?
• 32:49
  Did you qualify for states? Did you qualify for state?
• 32:52
  How do you say it? Help us with this debate.
• 32:54
  We definitely refer to it as. States OK good.
• 32:58
  I was I was checking anytime someone has said it during the
• 33:00
  conversation I'm like all right mental note you better say the
• 33:02
  states yeah I'll re roll the tape states we're going to
• 33:05
  states in yeah. When I talk to kids, I'm saying
• 33:08
  all right, the big goal here, everybody's wanting to qualify
• 33:11
  for States. And then when we lead up to it,
• 33:13
  as we're getting closer and closer to states, we talk about
• 33:15
  the state meet. But it's like and we're
• 33:17
  referring to it, it's like, you know, the big deal is getting
• 33:19
  the states. Love it.
• 33:20
  Thank you for that. All right, Dennis, you have been
• 33:22
  awesome for us, man. This is really been awesome,
• 33:25
  man. Unbelievable.
• 33:26
  You win the magic wand. If you could change one thing
• 33:30
  and only one thing in the state of Vermont for outdoor or high
• 33:33
  school track and field that you think would make it better, a
• 33:35
  better experience for the coaches, better experience for
• 33:37
  the athletes, It could be adding event, taking away event.
• 33:40
  Maybe the meet needs to go to a four day meet.
• 33:42
  I don't know. You tell me, what do you think
• 33:44
  would help improve the athlete experience there?
• 33:48
  My my magic wand would be to switch our New England qualifier
• 33:54
  and our divisional state championships.
• 33:58
  You know, I especially having competed at the next level and
• 34:02
  watching how much our sport has grown in the 14 years that I've
• 34:05
  been coaching. We I think are ready very
• 34:10
  exclusive state meet. You know, I think that our, our
• 34:13
  current system is, as you mentioned a while ago, very
• 34:16
  inclusive and our sport in general is one of the best in
• 34:19
  that way around the world. And I think that in the spirit
• 34:23
  of competition and the spirit of what others went from what I've
• 34:28
  heard other states doing, it just would be awesome to have.
• 34:33
  Those are what we call our state meet actually be a qualifier to
• 34:38
  the next round where you would then have all four divisions
• 34:41
  going head to head and actually qualifying for that, not with a
• 34:45
  qualifying standard but based on a placement at a previous meet.
• 34:48
  I just think that's something we haven't ever had in Vermont.
• 34:51
  That would be a really cool element.
• 34:53
  You know, we had it at the meet of Champions in the in the 90s
• 34:56
  and the 80s. But this current generation has
• 34:59
  never experienced anything like that.
• 35:00
  And I think that the caliber of our competition has gone up so
• 35:04
  much we it used to be, it used to be so rare that a kid from
• 35:08
  Vermont qualifies for nationals. And now it feels like every year
• 35:11
  you've got three or four kids that we're rooting for and
• 35:13
  reading, reading about in the papers that are not only going
• 35:16
  but you know trying to crack the top 10 or make a final.
• 35:20
  And so I just think we're ready to to do that And that would be
• 35:23
  what I that'd be my wish. That'd be I just want to switch
• 35:25
  those. So after all the.
• 35:27
  Uniqueness of Vermont. The 15 to 3000.
• 35:29
  The javelin, the decathlon, that alone, but the decathlon for
• 35:34
  boys and girls. You want to go now more
• 35:36
  traditional. You want to move to more of a
• 35:38
  traditional meet of champs after our four Class 4 division state
• 35:42
  meet. And that'd be the qualifier for
• 35:44
  New England's. Yeah, and I'm sure there's a
• 35:46
  bunch of people in Vermont that would disagree with me, but like
• 35:48
  I, you know, keep all that other stuff, all the other stuff is so
• 35:50
  cool, but just switch those weekends because it would just
• 35:52
  up that that next level of competition.
• 35:54
  I think it would be so cool if we crowned one single because
• 35:57
  there have been so many years here.
• 35:59
  We used to our indoor used to be both divisions together.
• 36:02
  So it really was a true state championship.
• 36:05
  Every year we held an indoor title and this school, Fair
• 36:09
  Haven Union High School, which is a division two school, one
• 36:13
  maybe seven or eight in a row. And so, like it proves right
• 36:16
  there that the size of your school isn't necessarily going
• 36:21
  to predict whether you have the best track athletes in the state
• 36:23
  or not. And always remember Vermont.
• 36:26
  Coaches, if that's just a ludicrous idea, e-mail Dennis.
• 36:30
  Not, not Dennis, my man. Thank you so much.
• 36:33
  This has been amazing again as we're going through all 51
• 36:37
  championships here, including you do see.
• 36:40
  I'm just blown away and Vermont did it.
• 36:42
  You blew me away. You know when people with this
• 36:45
  series I hope is going to do is create conversation and when
• 36:49
  someone in some state says, well we can't do that because dot dot
• 36:54
  dot that there is some evidence that someone else.
• 36:57
  Has figured out. So when someone from Florida
• 37:00
  says well we can't ever do the girls decathlon here that's not
• 37:03
  even a real event Air quotes there.
• 37:05
  Please don't e-mail me about that either.
• 37:07
  I'm with you on this. OK And we get to go.
• 37:10
  Hey, you know what you want to figure it out.
• 37:11
  Go talk to Vermont because they have figured it out.
• 37:13
  So so grateful and humbled by Vermont coaches that get the job
• 37:17
  done and that's amazing to me. So thank you so much man.
• 37:20
  Thank you for being here and representing Vermont and helping
• 37:23
  us learn about this great state. Thank you.
• 37:25
  And of course, if anybody like, knows how to build an indoor
• 37:28
  facility, that's the other thing that we need.
• 37:30
  That's my other magic wand. Anybody got friends?
• 37:32
  We need, we need more facilities.
• 37:34
  Absolutely. That's always my magic wand.
• 37:36
  So thank you guys for being here.
• 37:38
  Thank you for listening. You know we're continuing to go
• 37:40
  through all 51 championships here.
• 37:41
  If you've missed any, I highly recommend go back, check it out
• 37:45
  Alabama through Wyoming. It's been amazing and very eye
• 37:48
  opening. So thanks for being here today
• 37:49
  and join us tomorrow we'll go, we'll go to another state and
• 37:51
  figure it all out. Thanks everybody.