Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Massachusetts State Meet featuring Tanner Williams from Longmeadow HS

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BONUS: Massachusetts State Meet featuring Tanner Williams from Longmeadow 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
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  schools, what events and what is the process?
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  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
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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. All right, Welcome back as we
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  travel the country. Heading out to the East Coast
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  today to check out the Massachusetts outdoor state meet
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  qualifying process. Help me welcome from Longmeadow
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  High School. Mr. Tanner Williams.
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  Tanner, thank you for being here today, my friend.
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  Appreciate it. Thanks for having me Mike.
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  Absolutely. I'm just so you know I want to
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  make sure I get this on recording.
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  Just want to say thank you. You know you're stepping up and
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  representing the state that's not necessarily an easy thing to
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  do. And so I'm just so grateful that
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  you you volunteered for us here for the great set of
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  Massachusetts and we're we're really excited to learn more
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  about the how we do things here on the East Coast out in
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  Massachusetts. So let's start with how about
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  introducing yourself. Give us a 32nd kind of 30,000
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  foot level who you are. How long you been coaching?
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  Give yourself some some St. cred there, Tanner.
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  Sure. So I I started track and field
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  2002 as an athlete, my only year in high school doing it.
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  And then I went to Syracuse and threw javelin at Syracuse for
• 2:08
  two years until I hurt my shoulder.
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  Started volunteering and working with the coaching staff and
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  recruiting strength and conditioning event specific
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  stuff. And then after that, I went to
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  Springfield College, coached at Springfield College for two
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  years. I was coaching back at my high
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  school at the same time and primarily worked with throwers,
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  but basically and everybody had a had a number of different good
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  athletes. At Springfield College I coached
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  with Pete Comwellis, who's down at Villanova and a good friend
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  of mine, and we had had some good times and some good people.
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  I went back to coaching high school for another year, and
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  then I went to the AIC American International College in
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  Springfield, MA, Division Two school.
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  I won a Track and Field Coaches Association award for the East
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  Region Assistant Female Assistant Coach of the Year.
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  I had a hammer thrower and a javelin thrower that went to
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  Nationals and they're both seeded top five nationally for
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  the following 2-3 years. Then I got off the college
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  coaching path. I I had a teaching job in
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  Longmeadow and wanted to start a family.
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  So I stopped coaching college and started coaching high school
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  again. My athletes have done set number
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  of school records. The state record in the shop put
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  is my my old shop putter Abbey Maqua, who went to Holy Cross
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  and Sacred Heart. And now I'm I'm actually
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  coaching sprinters, jumpers, hurdlers, relays, basically
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  everything else. I had 100 girls on the track
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  team last year. We're a school of about 900 so
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  it's a lot it's it's the largest team on campus by far and we
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  came in second in our in our area meet last year been
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  building up since you know the COVID pandemic and now I've been
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  been loving it ever since but Massachusetts is a strange
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  place. Strange place, coach, track and
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  field. And I've I've lived through it
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  as an athlete for one year and then.
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  You know, coaching on and off until I, until I stuck with it
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  and became that girl's coach. So well.
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  It's a long, strange journey. Bravo to you. 100 kids on a
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  team. That's amazing.
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  No matter how big your school is.
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  To have a school that's 900, which means, you know, I'm not
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  great at math, but better than one out of every 10 kids walk in
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  that hallway or on the track and field team?
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  Man, that is awesome. Awesome, Awesome.
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  Congratulations to you and your staff and the whole school.
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  That's that's awesome, man. Love hearing that?
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  100 a hundred girls and 80 guys. Oh oh jeez.
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  Oh, just girls. Oh yeah.
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  And about 60 sprinters. 60 sprinters.
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  Jumpers. Riddlers.
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  That is awesome. I love that.
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  I love that. Well, let's get into
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  Massachusetts and let's find out what's going on there.
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  Let's start with some states. We're finding out not many, but
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  some states, they have a separate organizing body for
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  private schools and a separate one for public schools.
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  Others, more commonly, everybody's competing against
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  each other, competing for the same state title.
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  What are we doing? Private and public schools in
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  the state of Massachusetts. So unless you're a specifically
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  preparatory school where you have like PGS and fifth years
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  and whatever, unless you're that, everybody's in the same in
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  the same thing. So like last year we were at
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  Notre Dame Academy in Hingham, which was a private school for
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  our public school Division Four, Division Four or five meet.
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  Got it. So we're all.
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  So they're they're all together, they're all can beat towards the
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  same title. Great.
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  So let's now move into how many classes.
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  Massachusetts not a big state, so I don't expect a lot, but
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  what are we doing? How many classes are we there
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  for track and field? So we go all the way, I believe.
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  Let me just double check. It's six.
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  Yeah, we go all the way down to Division six and it's based on
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  school size. So Longmeadow, we were Division
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  Four last year and you call them division, so Division One,
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  Division two, Division Four, Division five, Division 6,
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  correct. Which ones is Division One?
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  The bigger schools or the smaller schools biggest?
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  Schools biggest OK, all right. So we're going to as as we go
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  through the state beat series, there are six boys teams winning
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  a state team title and six girls schools that are winning a state
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  team title in Massachusetts. So for the divisions, yes, and
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  then we have a meet of champions, but that's a newer
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  thing within the last couple years like that that wasn't.
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  They just started calling it the meet of Champions and they
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  actually don't crown A-Team champion at that meet.
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  It's all the individual division meets.
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  All right, we'll get, we'll get to that.
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  Let's let's work towards our Division One through 6 state
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  meet. All across the country we have
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  regional sectionals, areas, divisionals, we have all these
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  different names. What's the first round that we
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  are working towards getting towards the state championship?
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  What's the first one called and how do we get into that meeting?
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  So there is no. There used to be a Regional
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  Qualifier back in 2002 all the way up through.
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  I want to say like 2018 or 2019. There used to be a, you know,
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  area divisional thing. So you'd have like the Western
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  Mass, Division One meet, Division Two meet, and they'd
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  have people from that meet go on to the next meet.
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  And then they changed it to Central Mass and Western Mass
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  combined. And then the Eastern Mass was
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  its own thing 'cause Eastern Mass out by Boston has a lot
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  more schools, a lot bigger schools, whereas Western and
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  even Central Mass by Worcester. Not as many schools and
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  certainly not as populated, but there are a few schools.
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  When you go West of the 495, you know where basically the eastern
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  part of the state ends that has a few schools that are really
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  large. You know the Worcester area, the
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  Springfield area, but. By and large the majority of the
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  of the schools that are in Massachusetts are are east of
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  there because you have the Boston, you have all the private
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  schools and you have you know the larger areas, you know down
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  towards the Cape and like that. So the number of schools is
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  bigger out there. So when they changed it so that
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  way you didn't get representation based on your
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  area. Now it's just straight a number.
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  You get this number. You're in so so it's a a time
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  qualifier or or distance qualifier.
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  Correct. So at any time during the
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  outdoor state meet, if I run the 100 meter qualifying time, I'm
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  going to the state meet. There's no area regionals
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  districts, it's just all time based to the state meet.
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  Yeah, and it's and it's anything during the regular season,
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  because there is no. I mean there are, there are
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  regional meets, like we have our Western Mass Championships, but
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  it has no bearing besides the performance on getting into the
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  state meet. And it's not like the first or
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  second place goes on to the state.
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  That's just a a really good meet 'cause we're bringing teams
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  together, but it's all still based on the time or distance
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  qualifying. Yes.
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  And it seemed like that the eastern part of the state felt
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  that. They were.
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  They had more people like you'd have the Western mass people
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  that got in we're not better than the next best person from
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  Eastern Mass. So they started making it so
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  that way it was just the top 32 in certain events, 24 and
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  others. So they made it so that way.
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  It wasn't, It was just the best people.
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  OK, so I was going to ask that how many are we getting to the
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  state meet? So did you say 24 or 36
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  depending on the the event? So the field events were the
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  they have a standard and they have a minimum standard, but by
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  and large they they had actually a bigger problem and having too
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  many people make the minimum standard.
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  Oh, last year at the meet of championship and meet of
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  champions in the boys, 100 meters, it was 100 boys.
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  Well, don't go to the meet of champs.
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  Yeah 'cause that's after the state meet, right?
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  Yeah. It had the same problem in other
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  ways. Yeah, so, so they have.
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  So like for instance, the boys and girls pentathlon is limited
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  to the top 12 entrance, so that's in the divisional meet.
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  That's every meet. And then they have a minimum
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  standard. For instance, I'll just pull out
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  an event just for the heck of it.
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  The boys discus the qualifying standard or division.
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  Four was a 20 feet 6 inches with a minimum number of participants
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  at 24. So.
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  So let's stay. There, if not enough people,
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  let's stay there. That's a good one.
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  So you said on Division Four discus, did you say 124 feet 6
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  inches a? 120 feet, 6 inches was the
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  minimum. So if 100 boys in Division Four,
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  let's just use some outlandish thing so we we make sure we
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  understand this. If 100 boys through in Division,
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  Four through greater than 120 feet 6 inches, 100 would go to
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  the state meet. Correct.
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  And what would happen if only 12 boys in Division Four through
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  over 120 feet, 6 inches? They would take the next 12
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  entries put in by coaches. Gotcha.
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  OK, so it's it's a descending order list that guarantees we're
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  going to have a minimum number going, but we don't know what
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  the maximum is going to be because they could all the bunch
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  of kids can qualify better than the the the qualifying time or
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  distance. Absolutely.
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  How? How do we garner what that time
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  or distance is going to be on a yearly basis?
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  So they list on their their format page that it's based on
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  the average of the last three years, 20th place performance at
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  the meet. So like the the the issue was
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  with this one was because the last average three years was
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  COVID and coming out of COVID. So a lot of the training had
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  stepped down and then all of a sudden everybody's got back into
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  training again And now it's like oh you know the for instance the
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  and and they've been there's I'll get into they've been.
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  So that's one of the problems they had was that everybody got
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  better again and that drop in the curve.
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  Came back up after COVID, so that was one problem.
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  The other problem was that Massachusetts has been trying to
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  get away from hand times entirely, which is fine, except
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  the western part of the state and much of the central part of
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  the state does not have a lot of fully automatic timing
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  capabilities. So there are a number of teams
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  that don't have the money, schools that have the money.
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  For an outside agent to come in and do fully automatic time
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  meets and a lot of schools don't have the funding to go to Penn
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  Relays or go to even just local meets, you know, on the side and
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  you know the track and field in Massachusetts is not a top tier
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  sport like it is in other places.
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  And in Massachusetts, you have baseball and lacrosse and
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  basketball and. You know, those sports are much
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  more higher tier. Like we lose people to boys
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  volleyball, which is a spring sport.
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  We lose people to people playing AAU basketball, even though it's
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  like most of the kids at our school aren't playing Division
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  One, college basketball. So it's like, come to track.
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  You'll get more exposure, you'll get more opportunity and you
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  know, you probably have a better shot of going, you know, to go
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  to college and play track than you are to actually go and play
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  basketball. But.
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  So when when not a lot of money is put into it, it makes it
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  hard. So we've had issues where you
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  know they accept hand times if they don't fill the field with
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  automatic times. So, and there's a handful of
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  meets out here what in Western Mass that they make it so that
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  you know all the teams can go to like our Western Mass
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  championship is a fully automatic time meet.
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  But there's so few that it that if a person just has a bad day
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  or has graduation or has you know any number of different
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  things happening during spring, which is always a mess.
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  You know, especially for us, we start in, you know, mid March
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  and go all the way through June. A lot of things happen then.
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  And you know, you having one meet to go to, to hit an
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  automatic qualifying standard is tough.
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  Yeah, yeah. Well, let's, let's talk about
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  the state meet. We're doing 6, actually 12 state
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  meets, right? Six boys and six girls.
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  Do we do this in the same venue, the same weekend?
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  Is it typically a college or a high school facility?
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  How's where? And tell tell us about the venue
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  for the state meet. So this changed during COVID.
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  It used to be a one day meet. You'd have one day.
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  You do all the events. You start at 9:00.
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  You go. 8:00 PM Oh, it was awful.
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  All All classes, one venue, one day.
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  No, no, no. It would be like Division One
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  would be here, division two would be there, Division Three
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  would be here. I was gonna say that has to be
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  the most well run meet, actually, to make all of those
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  happen. Oh yeah, no.
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  OK, all different venues, but it's changed.
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  All different venues but they one would happen like you know.
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  Division One would happen on Friday.
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  Division two, you know, Division One, three and five would happen
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  on Friday, and two, four and six would be on Saturday or
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  something. And then it depended a lot on
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  the venue and you'd have some of the bigger high schools that
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  would host it and you'd have colleges.
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  It basically came down to whoever, you know, our governing
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  bodies, the MIAA, is, whoever they've got to say they wanted
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  to host. And not a lot of schools want to
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  host. Not a lot of high schools.
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  Not a lot of colleges. So we usually get to the state
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  Scott State, the state schools like Westfield State usually
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  host. We went out to Notre Dame
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  Academy in Hingham, which is a private girls school, which was
• 16:35
  a little bizarre 'cause you have, you know, you bring to,
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  you know you bring a guys team and a girls team to a venue
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  wasn't very big. It's kind of tough with that
• 16:44
  many athletes, but so it so that that's usually what it is.
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  It's a different venue for each division.
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  And it used to be a one day meet and then the pandemic happened
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  and they had an excuse to break the meet in half because before
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  they would do like the pentathlon and one of the sexes
• 17:03
  of the pole vault on a different day.
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  So that way they could fit everything in on this on the
• 17:08
  next day. And they said, well, you know,
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  we want to split into two days. So they split up half the
• 17:14
  events. Half the events happen on
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  Thursday and the second-half happen on Saturday.
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  So it's either Thursday, Saturday or Friday, Sunday.
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  So now it's 6/2 day meets at six different venues using four
• 17:29
  different people's timing systems.
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  Like they bounce back and forth between venues.
• 17:33
  I don't even know how they do it, but it's weird.
• 17:37
  It's weird we have a limitation on events.
• 17:41
  Yeah we have a limitation on events but like like doesn't
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  make any sense. You know it it always used to be
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  like you can only compete in three events, entire
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  championship and it's like well now you're building into two
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  days. So why are we just doing 3
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  events when you can do a dual meet and do 4 and that's one day
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  in the span of three hours. So they're they're still not
• 18:06
  caught up with all they're trying to be forward thinking
• 18:09
  and they. Changed that part, but they
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  haven't gotten the rest of it caught up.
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  What would they change it to? You used to be able to do 3 at
• 18:17
  the state meet and what can you do now?
• 18:19
  No, you can only do 3. Still only three, Still three.
• 18:21
  Wow. But but you can do four and dual
• 18:23
  meet. Four and a dual meet in one day,
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  but you can only do three including relays.
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  So if you were the 100 meter, the long jump, and the four by
• 18:33
  one, that was it. Wow.
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  And it was. It was really bad.
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  A number of years ago. There was an athlete.
• 18:40
  From a western math school, he was the number one seed in his
• 18:45
  division in the long jump, the triple jump, the high jump in
• 18:48
  the 100 hurdles. And at that point there was a
• 18:51
  rule that said you could only do two track in one field, or two
• 18:55
  field in one track, or one track 1 field in one relay.
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  And he had, even though he was the number one seed in all
• 19:01
  these, he couldn't compete in them.
• 19:03
  Wow. Yeah.
• 19:04
  OK, That's interesting that this is what this whole series going
• 19:08
  through all 51 state needs is designed to do, is to help us
• 19:11
  understand the intricacies of each state.
• 19:14
  And certainly Massachusetts has some intricacies.
• 19:17
  That's a good way of putting it, I think.
• 19:19
  Right, just intricacies. Well.
• 19:21
  It gets stranger too, Mike. Oh, OK, well, OK, before I ask
• 19:24
  my next question, then you tell me how does it get stranger in
• 19:27
  the state need? Because we still got to go
• 19:28
  through a couple other things, but the state need What else
• 19:30
  gets stranger there? So they changed it to you had,
• 19:35
  so they had it. Not this year, but the past.
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  The previous year they encouraged fully automatic time,
• 19:40
  but they allowed hand times. But there's no verification
• 19:44
  process because you have direct athletics that had like results,
• 19:52
  but they were put in by coaches because we don't do enough meats
• 19:55
  that are through direct athletics like none of the rest
• 19:57
  of our meats, none of our regional meats.
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  They're all done through a different system in the western
• 20:03
  part of the state. So none of them are like
• 20:05
  verifiable. So last year, they had to
• 20:09
  accept, not this past season. The year before, they had to
• 20:12
  accept 90 girls in the 100 meters, even though none of them
• 20:16
  had made the qualifying standard in the 100 meters because they
• 20:22
  had so many people enter in hand times that couldn't be verified.
• 20:29
  It was, yeah. So instead of them trying to go
• 20:33
  back and check, you know you had one meet director who's running
• 20:38
  the timing system and he's like I can't go and verify 100
• 20:43
  different just girls in the 100 meters one event.
• 20:47
  And we have, we have a few more events that then we do, we do
• 20:53
  the 400 hurdles instead of the 300 hurdles.
• 20:55
  We do long, triple, high and pole vault.
• 20:57
  We do shot disc and javelin and we don't do hammer, but we do
• 21:01
  javelin. We only do the four by one, the
• 21:04
  4x4, the four by eight. We don't do any other relays at
• 21:08
  the championship meets. Any other relays or any other
• 21:13
  events have to be done at smaller things.
• 21:15
  We do the pentathlon, not the hap, not the decathlon, and the
• 21:20
  pentathlon is long jump high, jump shop, put high hurdles.
• 21:28
  The girls run the eight, the boys run the 1500 so long high
• 21:34
  hurdles. That's five, Yeah shot.
• 21:38
  I think I got it. So yeah, it's.
• 21:40
  Let's talk about this pentathlon real quick because that is
• 21:43
  certainly unique. We've had a couple of states
• 21:46
  that do unofficial multi state meets after the after you know a
• 21:50
  week or so after the state meet they'll do a hep or a deck.
• 21:53
  You actually do the pentathlon for boys and girls as a state
• 21:57
  meet scored event. Correct.
• 22:02
  Yeah. And actually they still do the
• 22:04
  the hep and the decathlon. They do it the same weekend as
• 22:10
  the Meet of Champions, which is weird for me because that means
• 22:13
  the kids in the Meet of Champions can't go and do that.
• 22:15
  But we do the pent as a state thing.
• 22:19
  So what you do is because there aren't a lot of pence or multi
• 22:23
  meats especially out in this part of state, if you do the
• 22:26
  pent as a meet as a regular thing in the meet, you put your
• 22:29
  score in and if you're one of the top 12 in your division, you
• 22:32
  move on to the state meeting. But they also take, if you did
• 22:36
  these five events over the course of the year, put in your
• 22:38
  best and then that that goes into a formula for your points.
• 22:42
  And then if you're one of the top 12, you get it.
• 22:43
  And there's been some years where they've only had six
• 22:46
  entrance and there's some years where they have 20 entrance but
• 22:49
  they only take the top 12. So I'm curious, with your three
• 22:53
  events at a state meet rule, can I do the pentathlon, the 100,
• 22:59
  and the four by one? Correct.
• 23:01
  Did a pentathlon counts as one event?
• 23:04
  But I but if I'm that other young man I think you said was
• 23:09
  the high hurdles long triple and high jump only three.
• 23:16
  Correct. So we had.
• 23:20
  Massachusetts coaches I do love that we have to give all props
• 23:26
  to the state of Massachusetts and Massachusetts coaches for
• 23:29
  having the pentathlon though that is that is super unique and
• 23:33
  super valuable for our young people to get that experience I
• 23:37
  am so has there been talk about with the pentathlon first of all
• 23:40
  now that you have a two day meet has there been talk about moving
• 23:43
  to 1/2 and or deck and two you're a unique state that has
• 23:48
  the. Javelin, we're about half, about
• 23:50
  25 states roughly. Have the javelin, has there been
• 23:54
  talk about adding the javelin into the multi for you at all?
• 23:59
  I don't think so and I think part of the reason was the
• 24:01
  already event restrictions because if you only can do three
• 24:06
  you know and and they were the pentathlon used to be on a
• 24:10
  separate day where no other events besides pole vault were
• 24:12
  being were happening. And I think that's one thing
• 24:15
  that hasn't caught up. Because like you said, if a
• 24:17
  person's running the 100, the long jump and the four by one
• 24:21
  there, they could only be doing 3 jumps, one run and one other
• 24:25
  run versus the pent where you have to long jump three times,
• 24:29
  run the hurdles, high jump at least three attempts if not
• 24:34
  more. And then you have to, you know,
• 24:37
  throw shot, put three times and run the 8:00.
• 24:39
  That's a lot more for one person and that only counted as one
• 24:42
  event so they could come back. So the the one girl I coached
• 24:46
  this year, we went in the pent and I made sure because the pent
• 24:50
  was on Thursday and she didn't compete again until Saturday,
• 24:54
  that her other two events were on Saturday.
• 24:56
  So she did the pent and then she high jumped and then I put her
• 24:59
  in the four by four because our 4x4 team had a good shot.
• 25:04
  So those are the only three, three events that she went in,
• 25:08
  even though the pent was five, Yeah.
• 25:13
  You warned me before we hit record.
• 25:17
  It's, yeah, I love it. I love it.
• 25:21
  I love it. All right, let's, let's go
• 25:22
  through a couple more questions here.
• 25:24
  We're we're learning a lot of states are adding some kind of
• 25:28
  adaptive unified wheelchair events to the state meet or
• 25:31
  state meet series, anything like that.
• 25:33
  In Massachusetts. Yeah.
• 25:35
  So what they do is anybody that has one of one of those many
• 25:40
  exceptions. So we've had people in
• 25:42
  wheelchairs, we've had people with, you know, dwarfism and
• 25:44
  things like that compete and they just compete and they just
• 25:47
  keep on going as long as they want and they compete.
• 25:49
  We've only had a handful with of people that have had you know,
• 25:54
  those physical. I'm trying to think of a better
• 25:59
  way to say than. Yeah.
• 25:59
  Disabilities. Sure, but but they compete in
• 26:03
  the meet and they keep competing.
• 26:04
  It's almost like they have their own separate division.
• 26:06
  So a number of years ago when my shop putter was throwing at the
• 26:11
  state meet and the New England meet and all this other stuff,
• 26:14
  she was throwing against the girl that had dwarfism.
• 26:17
  And that girl threw at every regional meet and every state
• 26:21
  meet because that's when it was regional meet and she threw at
• 26:25
  all the meats and she would win her her division.
• 26:28
  It didn't count for the the scoring for the team champion,
• 26:33
  but it was like they still had the ability to do that.
• 26:38
  They don't really have a unified track and field and that's with
• 26:42
  people with like mental disabilities and like that as
• 26:47
  much we we have a number of people that compete, but they
• 26:50
  don't have the opportunity to move on in the same way as those
• 26:53
  people do. So it's almost like they go into
• 26:56
  a set. They would go to, you know,
• 26:57
  Special Olympics and stuff like that.
• 26:58
  But we haven't heard of those people.
• 27:00
  Those people pee our dual meets and stuff like that.
• 27:03
  Hey, that's great. Where there seems like there is
• 27:05
  an Ave. for someone in that category of for track and field
• 27:08
  specifically that can compete and compete along with our able
• 27:12
  bodied. Again, I'm not real great on the
• 27:14
  naming as well here, but I'm glad that there's inclusivity
• 27:16
  with that. So very good.
• 27:18
  Love that for Massachusetts. OK.
• 27:20
  You talked about a meet of champs.
• 27:22
  So meet of champs happens a week after the state.
• 27:25
  Meets and you you take the top two or three.
• 27:28
  How do how do we get this meet of champs And then you also said
• 27:31
  on the same weekend you're doing a hep and deck invite site sort
• 27:35
  of thing. Tell us more about these two
• 27:37
  events there. So the the hep and deck that
• 27:41
  they do is you sign up for it and they do the same thing.
• 27:44
  And most of them it's regional. So like there's a Western Mass
• 27:47
  Decathlon and Central Mass and an Eastern Mass.
• 27:51
  They may even do a South Shore and and and like that, but it's
• 27:54
  as has little to do or any bearing to what happens with the
• 28:00
  with all the rest of the with all the rest of the meets.
• 28:06
  Like it doesn't count. Like points to the to to any of
• 28:09
  the other stuff and they'd actually changed it so that the
• 28:11
  meet of champions isn't actually a team scored event.
• 28:14
  It's just meant for individual stuff and it used to be that if
• 28:19
  you were top four in your division or in your region or
• 28:23
  top three or top two, whatever it was, you made it on to the
• 28:26
  next meet. They actually have limited it
• 28:28
  now to 1. So if you win your division, you
• 28:32
  continue on minimally and then everybody else is based on a on
• 28:37
  on a qualifying standard. That's it.
• 28:40
  And this meet achieved. How is it traditionally?
• 28:43
  What I mean by that is. Is it well attended in regards
• 28:46
  to like does the state champ always, all six of them always
• 28:49
  go to the meet of champs or is it kind of loosely like, yeah,
• 28:52
  we have to do a lot of fill insurance and it's just another
• 28:54
  track meet. I would say that for the meet of
• 28:57
  champions, everybody goes unless so like this past year the meet
• 29:03
  of. So they try and move the meet of
• 29:06
  champions from area. They go Western Mass, Central
• 29:09
  Mass, Eastern Mass because those are basically the three chunks
• 29:13
  that the state gets broken into. So it's either hosted by
• 29:15
  Westfield State, Fitchburg State or somebody out east hosts it.
• 29:19
  It's usually a high school out east because the high schools
• 29:21
  are bigger with bigger tracks and like that.
• 29:24
  So most of the time everybody goes.
• 29:29
  Last year they had the issue where they had too many people
• 29:34
  entered in some events. So like I'm pulling up the entry
• 29:38
  list for the boys 100 meter dash last year and there were 188
• 29:44
  people who qualified in the 100 meter dash for the Meet of
• 29:46
  Champions. The Meet of Champions qualifying
• 29:50
  standard was 1135 and they had 88 people registered with that
• 29:57
  time and pretty sure not 88 people showed up.
• 30:02
  It was cold and raining and not a nice day and a lot of team.
• 30:06
  The Meet of Champions is usually the most well attended because
• 30:10
  after when you go from meet of Champions in Massachusetts we do
• 30:14
  a New England Regional Championship and that is hosted
• 30:17
  by each state on a rotating Manor.
• 30:20
  And last year it was in the middle of nowhere up in Maine
• 30:24
  like a four hour trip if you were anywhere but like Boston
• 30:28
  area. So a lot of people didn't go to
• 30:30
  New England meet and usually they fill in like you get the
• 30:33
  New England meets different because you get 6 people from
• 30:37
  your state that go to that meet but they fill in.
• 30:42
  So if like 4-5 and six say yeah I'm not going, they take 789 and
• 30:46
  they go so the but, so that one's not as well attended.
• 30:50
  But the meet of champions is usually all the Champs from each
• 30:54
  usually go and this is part of the reason they changed the I'm
• 30:59
  a regional qualifier to a divisional fire because so in
• 31:05
  the division two Central Western meet would probably be the 40th
• 31:09
  seed if they were out East. So they changed it to school
• 31:12
  size and then they just said just one winner from each
• 31:15
  division. So if you don't win your
• 31:17
  division it's based on your your you know your time or your and
• 31:21
  and it was your best time. It wasn't.
• 31:23
  It was what you did all season. It wasn't what you did at the.
• 31:27
  So if you came out in, you know, end of March, early April, and
• 31:31
  you dropped a good time, you didn't have to compete again
• 31:35
  until the meat of champions if you didn't want.
• 31:38
  To interesting so that was that was a new thing that past these
• 31:41
  past two years. Let's let's make sure we're you
• 31:44
  told us some of the events. Let's make sure we're talking
• 31:47
  about all those events that you do there in Massachusetts.
• 31:48
  We know you're doing the 124 and the eight and the 1632.
• 31:53
  Are you doing 1632 mile, two mile fifteen 3000?
• 31:56
  What are you doing there in the the 16232 area, a mile and two
• 32:01
  mile? Doing mile and two mile.
• 32:03
  OK, very cool. Mile and two mile.
• 32:05
  Yeah. And for the you're doing the 110
• 32:08
  high hurdles and the 100 high hurdles?
• 32:10
  Correct. I heard you say you're doing the
• 32:12
  400 hurdles. Is that new or is that been
• 32:14
  tradition in Massachusetts? We've been doing it for about,
• 32:20
  oh jeez, 10 years. OK.
• 32:24
  I'd call that new. Yeah, that's cool.
• 32:26
  Yeah, because I have to think about it because the because we
• 32:29
  we still have the 300 hurdle record on our record record
• 32:33
  board and I call both people that had that because when I
• 32:37
  went to school with one of them said your records never going to
• 32:39
  be broken because we don't do it anymore.
• 32:41
  That's right. That's right.
• 32:42
  But really, interestingly, we go to the New England meet.
• 32:46
  New England still competes in the 300 hurdles.
• 32:49
  So if the meet is in Massachusetts, it's a 400 hurdle
• 32:52
  event, but if it's in any other state, it's a 300 hurdle event.
• 32:56
  Oh, that's interesting. I did not know that.
• 32:59
  That's way interesting, huh? So Massachusetts wanted to be
• 33:02
  ahead of the curve and go 400 hurdles, but nobody else
• 33:05
  followed. Very good.
• 33:07
  Very good relays. I heard four by 1/4 by 4 and 4
• 33:10
  by 8. That's it.
• 33:12
  Long jumping triple jump for boys and girls.
• 33:15
  Correct. Shot put in discus for boys and
• 33:17
  girls. Correct.
• 33:19
  Pole vault and high jump for boys and girls.
• 33:21
  Correct. I heard you say javelin correct
• 33:24
  and pentathlon. Fantastic.
• 33:27
  Anything we're missing there in the State Meet series, not in
• 33:30
  the state meet as an official scoring event.
• 33:33
  They'll do like they do a hammer weight throw but it's
• 33:39
  unofficial. But one of there's always a
• 33:42
  coach out east. Usually you know a former
• 33:44
  college coach or somebody that that'll that'll coach somebody
• 33:47
  in hammer and have an unofficial you know state champion and the
• 33:51
  hammer and in the which is great it it's I I really wish 'cause I
• 33:57
  I I coached Hammer in in college like my my hammer thrower was on
• 34:01
  you know 190 almost 200 foot hammer thrower and you know I
• 34:06
  went went and coached internationally went to Nigeria
• 34:09
  for for their championship to go and coach her there and I'm like
• 34:13
  I love coaching hammer. I love coaching weight and now I
• 34:16
  can't coach it because I mean the amount of time with 90, you
• 34:19
  know 100 girls you know, so, so like Abby, my shot putter, I
• 34:25
  said you're going to learn how to throw hammer and weight
• 34:27
  because college coaches want to see that you throw hammer and
• 34:29
  weight. Not just that you're shot in
• 34:32
  disk or shot and nothing else indoors.
• 34:35
  And if they see that you've at least started learning it then
• 34:38
  they like Oh well then we don't have to teach it completely from
• 34:41
  scratch And so so there's a a few like I brought her out East
• 34:47
  for the weight throw championship but she wasn't she
• 34:49
  wasn't a great hammer thrower. She was big and strong and there
• 34:53
  wasn't a lot of opportunity for her to compete.
• 34:55
  So it made it tough for her to go to those meets and you know,
• 34:58
  try and throw hammer ever, not having thrown it in a real meet.
• 35:02
  Yeah, very good. All right.
• 35:03
  Before we get to a couple of fun things here, Tanner, anything
• 35:06
  that we missed, Anything that I should have asked?
• 35:09
  Anything else we should know about?
• 35:10
  I mean, you've hit us up with some very unique things in
• 35:13
  Massachusetts. Anything else that we should be
• 35:15
  making sure everybody knows about Massachusetts track and
• 35:18
  field before we get to a couple of fun questions.
• 35:23
  I would say it changes the the, the thing about Massachusetts is
• 35:33
  it tries to change a lot like those changes that I've talked
• 35:39
  to you, those occurred since 2002 and it seems like every two
• 35:43
  or three years they change it. So when I was in high school,
• 35:47
  you had the Western Mass meet the Western Mass, So Division
• 35:50
  One, Western Mass, Division two Western Mass.
• 35:52
  You had at least two meats in Central Mass and I think 4 meats
• 35:58
  in Eastern Mass and the regional.
• 36:01
  If you finish top four at one point or top three at one point
• 36:05
  in any of those meets, that went to the state meet and had
• 36:08
  nothing to do with your mark or anything.
• 36:10
  It was just how you finished there.
• 36:11
  And then they changed it and made it so that was less auto
• 36:16
  qualifiers and then they encouraged people to be entered
• 36:21
  at their marks. So one year they had it so that,
• 36:28
  for instance, I had a couple of javelin throwers and if you
• 36:31
  finish top two at the meet, you would go, but then they would
• 36:34
  take the next six best qualifiers that threw on that
• 36:38
  day what they threw on that day. If you were the next six people
• 36:42
  in at any one of those meets, you would get in, but then you'd
• 36:48
  be competing at different places.
• 36:50
  So like we were at a high, small high school in Western Mass,
• 36:53
  competing that we weren't allowed to use a track runway
• 36:57
  for javelin. But a track runway for javelin
• 37:01
  is a huge advantage for blocking and planting.
• 37:04
  So we were throwing on grass and I had two javelin throwers that
• 37:07
  missed making the Allstate meet that year by 6 and 12 inches.
• 37:15
  And I'm like, well, they didn't compete in the same, you know,
• 37:18
  it's not the same standards. It's like you're running the
• 37:21
  100, You have fully automatic time.
• 37:23
  That's the same standard. But when you go and throw
• 37:25
  javelin and you're throwing off a grass versus track, there's a
• 37:29
  huge disparity there. And I always thought that they
• 37:33
  had the best intentions at heart, but the execution wasn't
• 37:36
  always there. And they're it's getting better
• 37:39
  and I understand why they want to try and get fully automatic
• 37:42
  time be the the norm. The issue is there isn't enough
• 37:45
  of it. And even then, so this past year
• 37:48
  I had a girl that had qualified and they refused to take fully
• 37:54
  automatic times or sorry hand times on unless they didn't fill
• 38:01
  the field with automatic times. But the automatic times were set
• 38:04
  so low that if you didn't make the automatic time, you had no
• 38:07
  shot because there was almost 100 people in each event.
• 38:09
  That's in some of the events. So I had accidentally entered a
• 38:13
  girl in with a hand time because before, if you had a hand time
• 38:19
  and if it was better than .24, then they're fully automatic
• 38:24
  time. You were told to enter their
• 38:26
  hand time because that would see them more appropriately because
• 38:31
  that that was the standard you would have.
• 38:33
  So if somebody ran 10-6 and then they FAT, but they ran 1070 hand
• 38:39
  time, you know, you would run the 10-6.
• 38:42
  But if you ran 10, nine hand fully automatic time in 10-7 or
• 38:48
  ten, yeah, 10, let's say 10, six hand time.
• 38:52
  It was better for you to enter them in at 10, six hand time
• 38:55
  because that would exceed them more appropriately.
• 38:58
  And it it became kind of a mess that way.
• 39:02
  And that was part of the reason they had trouble with, you know,
• 39:04
  one year and having so many entrants and then you have the
• 39:09
  fact that none of it is done verifiably.
• 39:13
  So there were a number of coaches, even our regional meet
• 39:16
  and our Western Mass meet, where they had entered people in at
• 39:19
  times that they had never run or competed in and it was.
• 39:27
  I could see where that would be a big mess.
• 39:30
  Speaking of messes, help us out here.
• 39:32
  Settle us a beat Tanner, at least in your area, your
• 39:36
  culture, your your part of the state.
• 39:39
  How do we say we're going to the state meet?
• 39:41
  Do we say we're qualifying for states?
• 39:44
  Do we qualify for the state meet?
• 39:45
  Do we qualify for state? How do you say it?
• 39:48
  Help us settle this argument So I usually say it versus the
• 39:54
  kids. So I because they've changed the
• 39:56
  name of it so many times I I have to like so we go, we had
• 40:00
  the Allstate meet and then we have now we have it called the
• 40:03
  meet of Champions. Before it was the state meet or
• 40:09
  all states. So I would say that most of the
• 40:12
  kids would just call it states. I tried to use the technical
• 40:18
  term for it because it was more descriptive of what actually it
• 40:22
  was. So when they changed it from me
• 40:25
  to from all states. To the meet of champions.
• 40:29
  I say meet of champions because it's not really representative
• 40:33
  of all the state if that makes sense.
• 40:36
  But and and the and when they changed it to.
• 40:40
  You know if I have my my 400 meter girl run whatever the
• 40:44
  qualifying standard is in April, then she doesn't have to run any
• 40:47
  meet until the meet of champions.
• 40:48
  If I don't, if she doesn't want to Or she could compete in the
• 40:51
  201 at any other meet and then just run the four at the meet of
• 40:55
  Champions. Got it.
• 40:58
  Well, Tanner, you have helped us to understand a very convoluted
• 41:03
  a whole bunch of spaghetti noodles mixed together.
• 41:07
  But. At the end of the year we
• 41:09
  produce some amazing champions out of Massachusetts.
• 41:12
  I'm always very impressed and proud of what this really you
• 41:15
  know, I know it's a very horizontal but a very small
• 41:18
  state populace. It's not a Florida, Texas,
• 41:20
  California so amazed at the coaches out of that state.
• 41:24
  So you've done so well and helped us out here.
• 41:27
  You win the magic wand, Tanner. If you could change one thing
• 41:30
  and and only one thing in the state qualifying series or the
• 41:34
  state meet there, what would that one thing be to help?
• 41:38
  Make it better in your opinion, I would say.
• 41:42
  Oh man one, OK. I knew that's where you were
• 41:48
  struggling. Yeah.
• 41:53
  I would say if they made it so that way when you put in times
• 41:58
  either the availability of fully automatic time was better for
• 42:01
  the whole state. So that way they could verify
• 42:04
  the times and not run into the problem of 88 people making it
• 42:07
  in and not sure if a coach could flat out just made-up the time
• 42:12
  or whatever. So I would say that the actual
• 42:18
  way they verify and availability of fully automatic time in those
• 42:23
  events because it's one of the few events you know the
• 42:27
  sprinting events that they have to have that whereas if you
• 42:31
  throw shot put it doesn't matter every single meet is is a is a
• 42:35
  potential chance. But if I have a girl running the
• 42:37
  100 and you know April or May in a dual meet, it's like yeah this
• 42:41
  is worthless. This doesn't count for anything
• 42:43
  like the dual meets out here became like for some part of the
• 42:49
  state it became like the only thing they shot for because they
• 42:52
  knew that their times wouldn't get them into the state meet.
• 42:55
  So they focus more on the dual meets, whereas I'm more of the
• 42:59
  if we take care of the state meet stuff, then all the dual
• 43:02
  meet will be fine. We don't have to worry about it.
• 43:03
  We got 100 girls. We can just out, you know, just
• 43:06
  put more people in events and just beat people that way,
• 43:09
  right? Yeah, that's what I was thinking
• 43:11
  listening to how you do it there in Massachusetts.
• 43:13
  That was the thing I was thinking too, is like we need
• 43:15
  more availability of. Fully automatic timing systems.
• 43:18
  I I like that. I think you're you're spot on
• 43:20
  there. Tanner, thank you so much man.
• 43:22
  We're so grateful that you'd spend some time with us and
• 43:24
  really share a unique you know we're we're about halfway
• 43:26
  through here. You know we're at the Ms. at
• 43:28
  Massachusetts and we've seen some very, I don't mean this in
• 43:33
  a negative way but very simplistic paths to the state
• 43:36
  meet and we've seen some very woven around.
• 43:38
  I thought it was going to be super simple.
• 43:40
  When you told me time based only, I was like oh.
• 43:42
  Short, easy peasy this is. We're done here.
• 43:46
  And then you started spinning the web of everything else.
• 43:48
  But I do want to again shout out to the coaches and to the Mia
• 43:52
  there in Massachusetts of the pentathlon.
• 43:55
  I am a huge component of javelin, forner, hurdles,
• 43:58
  pentathlon events like that that give our kids more of an
• 44:01
  opportunity to compete on the college level.
• 44:04
  So bravo to you guys and gals out there for that.
• 44:06
  So Tanner, thank you so much for being here with us today and
• 44:09
  helping us understand Massachusetts outdoor state
• 44:11
  track and field meet you guys. Guys, keep listening.
• 44:13
  If you haven't heard the A through M go back.
• 44:16
  We're doing this every day here in 2024.
• 44:18
  And then keep up because we're going on to the NS, the PS, the
• 44:21
  Q. Well, there's no QS, I guess,
• 44:22
  but we're going all the way to Wyoming and Washington, DC.
• 44:25
  So check us out tomorrow and we'll get right back at it.
• 44:27
  Tanner, thank you so much my friend.
• 44:29
  Thanks Mike. Appreciate having me.