Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Florida State Meet featuring Gary Dixon (42 years as coach, now retired)

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BONUS: Florida State Meet featuring Gary Dixon (42 years as coach, now retired) · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  It's bonus time here on the Gill Connections podcast.
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  In an effort to increase communication, empathy and
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  understanding around the country, we're going to be
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  running a new episode every day interviewing a coach, a high
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  school coach from every state, and yes, even you, Washington,
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  DC with explaining how the state qualifying system works in their
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  state. We'll be talking with a local
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  state expert on how many classes, private versus public
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  schools, what events and what is the process?
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  Is it areas, districts, regionals, state meet?
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  Is it a descending order list? Are there fun things that you do
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  a little differently? Like maybe you, I don't know,
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  maybe you do double points for relays looking at you Texas.
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  And then we're also going to get to the bottom of is it the state
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  meet or do you qualify for states?
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  So check us out every day here in April and May of 2024 as we
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  run through each state with a local state expert.
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  So let's get started right now Okay today let's head down to
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  the Sunshine State and it's actually, you know state of
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  Florida is better known for the birth place of two very, very
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  famous people, Mickey Mouse and your host Mike Cunningham.
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  I'm actually an Orange County, Orlando born individual.
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  So I have a big heart for this state.
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  So help me welcome representing Florida Mr. Gary Dixon.
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  Gary, thanks for joining us. First of all, very grateful for
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  you here. Why don't you start?
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  Let's get an introduction of your history in the state of
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  Florida coaching high school, track and field.
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  Okay. Currently I'm I'm retired 42
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  years coaching. Originally from northern New
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  Jersey. Came down in 88.
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  Started coaching with my daughter.
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  Secured a teaching position. Has been coaching since mostly
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  middle school. All all events.
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  But quite for the last 20 years, it's been in throws coaching
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  shot as low as our 6th grade students in our middle school.
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  And I continue to follow these students and coach them up
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  through high school and try to get them into college.
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  Awesome. But we appreciate you doing
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  that. You know, we live and die on
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  coaches. And so we're very, very grateful
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  for your service there with our young people.
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  All right, So let's start with the state of Florida.
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  Some states have public versus private, a separate sector, path
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  to a state meet. What is it like in Florida?
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  Public and private schools altogether separate.
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  What are we doing there? Altogether there's four
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  divisions 18283 A M4A. They compete based on population
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  of in their school. The only kind of a difference is
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  is with I MG Academy. They have not been in our state
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  series since they've been in Bradenton.
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  I do believe this year might be the first year that non Pg's can
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  compete in the state series non Pg's.
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  Postgraduates, because they can do a PG year there, I believe.
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  Gotcha. Postgraduate, okay, perfect.
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  So next question was how many divisions?
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  So we've got four classes or divisions, one through 4A, which
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  is is 1A small, 4A big. One, a small 4A is big.
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  All right, perfect. So we got four state
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  championship teams for boys and for for girls.
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  How do we qualify? What's our first round?
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  Area Divisionals. Sectionals.
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  What do we call it in Florida? What's the first round of the
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  state series? District meet it's a district
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  meet goes district regionals and then.
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  State championships or states depends on on who you're talking
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  to, what they call it. So district is first.
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  How do kids qualify for district?
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  Is that a it all comers meet anybody can enter or is there
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  any kind of standard for that? For per event they do have some
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  qualifying standards I think for 4th but it's four per event one
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  relay team per school. So any school can pretty much
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  put in 400 meter kids for long jumpers.
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  For two milers 1 relay per event okay and we have we hosted
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  district meet. How many qualify from the
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  districts Districts to go onto regionals 4.
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  Let. Me.
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  Just make sure I got my notes here.
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  So excuse me. Top three.
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  All right. So top three go to regionals.
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  All right. So out of districts in our
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  triple jump, we've got the top three from each one of these
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  classes, 12348 go to a regional meet.
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  Correct, Okay. Now we're at regionals.
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  So we've taken it from districts down to regionals.
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  Do we know how many regionals we have?
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  Yeah, it's tough. Because there's there's a lot of
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  district mates. I off the top of my head, I
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  didn't research that. Yeah, no problem.
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  But we know it's small, right? There's more districts and
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  there's regionals because it comes down to regionals and now
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  we're at regionals, which is right before our state meet.
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  How many out of regional go to the state meet?
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  Is this is where it gets a little tricky.
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  Top two plus up to 10 at large. There's four regional meets.
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  So you have your, you had next best throws that, then the top
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  throws. So let's say that again cuz that
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  that's interesting. It's a little different and it's
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  important. So top two, so automatically
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  first place and 2nd place each event you're going to the state
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  meet. Okay.
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  And then say it again. There's so out of regions,
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  there's two per region and then once they get that, those those
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  eight places that with up to 10 at large bits out of all the
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  regions, I'd say there's there four regions don't pick the top,
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  they'll pick the top at large guys after that and all events
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  and up to 10. Up to 10.
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  I think it depends on the size how many lanes in the track.
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  At the state final meet and then we go to state and so where do
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  states happen? Either I don't know if they're a
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  permanent side or do they rotate where we typically host in State
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  Meeting and are all four at the same venue or do they split that
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  up? All four at the same venue.
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  It is in North Florida, which last year was at University of
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  North Florida. It was originally the bid was
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  University of Florida, but they're having they had some
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  construction issues, so it was moved from UF to University of
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  North Florida. It has been at IMG Academy,
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  which is kind of ideal because it's in the middle of the state.
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  If you're a Key West Miami kid, you're going a long way to go to
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  UNF, so let me make sure I heard what you just said right there
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  then. So it's been held at IMG, but
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  IMG couldn't qualify for the meet.
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  Correct. Now there is uniqueness.
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  We can do an episode on that, yeah.
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  Yeah. As I say, it feels like there's
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  way more to unpack on that one. Awesome, Okay.
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  So we start with districts, 4 per event, go on to a regional
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  meet, top three from regionals goes on, no, no, top three from
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  districts goes on to regionals And then out of regionals, you
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  got to be in the top two up and then up to 10 at large to make
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  it to the state meet, which is kind of bounced between
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  University of Florida and University of North Florida
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  these past few years. That sound right?
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  Yeah, it hasn't been. It hasn't been with the Gators
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  in a while. It's been at I MG IMG and OK and
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  then North Florida. It's a fantastic facility.
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  Yeah. Yeah, we did, incidentally,
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  division twos down there. Twice, yeah.
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  Yeah, that was great. Really good.
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  Yeah. So the state meet, what kind of
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  format you got four classes. You got boys teams, girls teams.
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  Is this a hesitate to say a one day meet, a one day meet, three
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  day meet. How do we actually run the
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  series there? The state?
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  In the past it was a two day meet, let's say 1A and 3A.
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  And then 2A and 4A. But in recent years, it's been a
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  separate meet for each division. So it's at A1A.
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  Meet like Thursday, Fridays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
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  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
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  Oh, wow. So Wednesday would be all 1A?
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  Thursday would be all 2A. Yes.
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  Wow, that's interesting. That's cool.
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  I like that. OK.
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  In Florida if we think of the standard events, the 1248 long
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  jump, triple jump, maybe relays 4 by 1, 4x4, 4 by 8.
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  Anything different or special there in Florida that we do
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  event wise or maybe don't do? They're moving to 4400
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  intermediate hurdles. Oh, right 3I.
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  Think they made that move last year.
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  There is there took a while. There's a.
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  Gentleman at RAN ran with the baton as far as getting javelin
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  back in Florida. So this year is an option year
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  for point, no point for the for the plug.
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  So it's an optional year. I think it will continue to be
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  optional. I think in dual meets
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  invitationals and stuff based on the facility going to go in real
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  deal on the job and 400 hurdles. That's so in Javelin we have
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  about, I want to say we're up to probably about 2520 sixish
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  states now we're about half of states that have Javelin, but
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  the 400 hurdles I can only think of two other states.
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  So that's a a pretty unique event to move from the 300 to
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  the 400 hurdles. Yeah.
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  Makes sense, though. It does.
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  Yeah, I think so. That's going to be tough,
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  though. I mean, that's it.
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  That's it's a different event, as many, many people who've gone
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  from high school to college can attest to.
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  I could, I could say that I love it.
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  In Florida after we have the state meet, is there anything
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  some states do a call it an unofficial state meet for
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  heptathlon and decathlon or hammer, anything like that that
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  you know of going on in Florida? Well, I'm a I'm from New Jersey
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  and with how New Jersey ended their season was at me, called
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  the Meet the Champions, right? I don't know if it was top two
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  or top three from each of the each of divisions, including the
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  and parochial A and parochial BI.
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  Don't know how they do it now but it's been a long time since
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  I've been there. But haven't have a true meet of
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  champions, have a true meet of champions bring all those kids
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  together And so that's that's eight, maybe a couple at large
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  bids, one from each division. Bring me up to 12, fill the
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  field out and let it go. That's what you remember.
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  What, That's what you would do to change?
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  Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
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  I am a big proponent of meet a champion type meats.
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  Absolutely. I agree with that.
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  That's what I would do, yeah, 100%.
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  Last couple questions here, Gary, do we do anything special
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  after the state meet in regards to like do currently, do we do a
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  heptathlon, decathlon meat or a hammer meat or anything like
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  that? Yeah.
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  No, not for Happen Decathlon. Twice a month and we were open
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  hammered weight, superweight all the way.
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  Well, nuts, we don't let the little kids sort of superweight,
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  but we do hammer and weight. We train hammer and weight here
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  in Sarasota and there's a group in Fort Lauderdale also.
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  So I think getting them, getting kids that exposure free college
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  has an added value is is terrific.
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  And recruiting process, yeah, 100% I agree with that and you
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  touched on it earlier but in this out today here settle the
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  argument, do you what's the culture there?
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  Do you qualify for the state meet or do you qualify for
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  states? My guy I'm coaching says I'm
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  going to states, Coach going to states.
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  I like it. That's what I do too.
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  I like states, just one easy word.
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  I'm from Alabama, so I got to keep it.
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  Easy words here. Gary, thank you so much.
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  This is a great insight into Florida.
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  You know, we did this to start conversation and for other
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  states to see what other people do.
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  And so I love the uniqueness of moving to the foreigner hurdles,
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  Big proponent of adding the javelin, of course.
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  So super excited to see Florida leading the way in high school
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  track and field. Well, there's one thing I need,
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  I need to add. I don't know how the other
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  states do it, but we have a ambulatory and and wheelchair
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  divisions, yes. And they've added more events
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  this year. They've added what's my little
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  CHEAT SHEET, the basically it's a full event 1248 shot put Jeff
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  now is that is that a separate scoring system or does that add
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  to the points of the school of that athlete?
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  No, it does not add to the points.
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  There's not a separate division. There's just not a separate
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  state championship for like like they're so does Sarasota won the
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  boys wheelchair division or the boys?
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  That's not in the books. Got it?
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  That's awesome. Yeah, I know some states are
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  doing that. Wisconsin has a long history,
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  but that's that's encouraging to see those athletes get the
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  chance to. Yeah, it's nice.
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  They they've added in the past. I think it was just the, the
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  one, the eight and the. Shot in jab now they've added
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  more events and at least one meet while I was coaching the
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  young lady from Booker High. They had an abilities 4 by 1
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  where it was 2 special needs athletes in two non special
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  needs athletes running running in four by one.
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  That was all, and I don't know if you're.
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  Doing it anymore, but it might have might have been 15 or 20, I
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  have not heard that. I think that's super and I'm,
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  I'm, I'm a retired special Ed teacher.
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  So it's it's terrific. I have not heard that and I do
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  think that's super. I I agree with that.
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  It'd be way cool to see that experience.
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  Yeah, it's a mixed relay. It was good.
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  Awesome. Well, thanks for bringing that
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  up, Gary, and thank you for representing Florida.
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  Very grateful for you.