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BONUS: Illinois State Meet featuring Jarrin Williams from Rock Island HS · 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
0:38
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. All right, now we're going to go
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to the state of Illinois, which you know, the state of Illinois
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is the most famous for being the home of Gill athletics.
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We've been here in Urbana and Champaign for over 100 years,
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1918. So I'm super excited to look at
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Illinois and the high school outdoor qualifying system that
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we have right here in our home state.
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So why don't we start with our representative from Illinois
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over in Rock Island, Mr. Jaron. Jaron, why don't you start by
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giving us kind of a 30,000 foot level introduction of yourself?
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Hello, my name is Jaron Williams.
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I'm the boys hit track and field coach as well as cross country
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coach at Rock Island High School, which is where I
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attended high school and have the opportunity to compete.
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And so I'm a lifelong rock. I have a very big place in my
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heart for alums who coach at their alma maters.
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That is way cool. I did not know that.
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I love that Jaron. All right, we're talking about
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Illinois. Let's start with in Illinois.
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Some states do a separate private school Athletic
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Association and separate public school.
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What do we do in Illinois? Are we all together?
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We separate? What are we doing?
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So based on enrollment, schools are assigned to 1, the class one
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of three classes, the 1A, the 2A, and the three A.
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The three. A class system is the largest of
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the three, and the 1A schools tend to be the smaller schools,
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so sometimes you get private schools that fall into 1A.
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I believe that there are handful of 2A schools.
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I'm not aware of any private schools that would be 3A just
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based on in a row, but they're all they're all going towards
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the same state championship. There's not a private school
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state championship. It's all Illinois High School
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state championships. Everybody competes.
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The girls compete the weekend before the boys do in Illinois.
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Perfect. All right.
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You said there's three classes, which that's relatively new,
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correct? We used to be two classes.
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That is correct. It was 2A.
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It was two classes on class 1A and class 2A until the year
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2009, and that was the first year of the three class system
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in First Say again. For track and field.
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For track for some states that may be thinking about
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consolidating classes or expanding classes.
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Do you know why we went from 2:00 to 3:00 here in Illinois?
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I honestly don't, because I wasn't in Illinois at the time
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that it happened, so. I can't speak to that.
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I'm just going to assume that there there were enough schools.
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You have Chicago, which by itself is a pretty large city.
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Just wanted to provide enough opportunities for people to
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qualify and compete at a competitive state meet.
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Yeah, got it. Okay.
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So we've got three state meet, so we're going to have three
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boys school state champions and three girls team state
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champions. How do we actually get there?
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Some states it's area districts, regional sectionals, there's all
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these different names. What's the first round for
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Illinois? So the first round for Illinois
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and I think the Chicago Public League, at least when I was in
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high school, I think they have their own sectional.
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But in the sectional meet you have to be in the top two.
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So if you finish first or second you will automatically qualify
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for the state meet. And if you don't finish in the
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top two but you meet a preestablished standard, then
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you would qualify for the state meet.
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So our first meet is the sectional top two from every
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event pole vault. 2 mile doesn't matter what event, 4 by 8.
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Whatever relays we don't have, they go on to state and then
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they're in each event there is a predetermined qualifying time or
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distance or height that if you hit or exceed you go on to state
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as well. So does that mean technically
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just using the 100 meters as an example, If however many
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sectionals there are and top 2GO on the state, if a hundred other
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kids beat that time 100 kids would go to the state meet in
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that event. How do we get to sectionals?
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Is that a all comers in the sense of like do you have you
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can enter three per event or do you qualify out of conference?
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How do you actually get the sectionals set up?
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So to compete in the section of meet, you don't necessarily have
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to qualify, but you should be one of the top two athletes on
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your team in a specific event. And then depending on what the
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coach is doing, depending on who's on the team, you know
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there are some individuals who could qualify individually for
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an event. But if there's a chance for the
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relay to go, sometimes the coach makes that decision and
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depending on where the relay falls in the order of the meet
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that made. Factor into the decision whether
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whether or not to enter somebody in an individual event, but
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there's no meet. You need to qualify.
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You just need to be at the top two.
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Then each coach enters his or her top two in each event, so
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you get 2 athletes per event. Yep, you get 2 athletes per
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event. Athletes can compete in up to
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four events. So there are athletes who can be
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entered as an alternate and not compete at the state meet.
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Cuz you have to list 8. You can list up to 8 names on a
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relay. But that way it's safe to do it
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that way because if somebody gets injured, the relay
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qualifies, but then that person wasn't listed before the meet.
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They can't compete on the relay at the state meet.
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It's interesting only two people from each school in the section,
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although that's I mean you know you could be.
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So a top 4 by 8 team probably has four very good 800 meter
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runners, but they can only put two of them in the actual open
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800. The rest I'm going to do a mile
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or a quarter or a two mile or 4 by 4 or something.
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Right, and depend on the size of the school, you might have 3
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athletes on your team who can meet a standard in an event, but
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you can still only run two. Oh yeah.
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Oh, that's a great point. Yeah, like I want to say, around
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the year 2004, Thornwood High School in the Chicago area had
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three athletes who could have meddled in the final and only
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two could run. So I don't recall because it's
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obviously several years ago, but I I don't remember if one of the
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athletes was then injured in 300 hurdles because they were the
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third best hire hurdler on the team which like I said, that
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person would have individually meddled in the 110 most likely
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estate. So but yeah, it's it's forever.
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It's been the top two on each team, so you've got to be pretty
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strategic if you whether you are a loaded team all the way
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through or maybe you're at Sprint's heavy school 124, 4x4,
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four by two, 4 by 1 jump, You got to be pretty strategic on
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who's actually going into the sectional meeting, hopefully
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qualifying because there's still no guarantees, right, even for
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that qualifying for the state meet.
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Wow, that's interesting. Okay.
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All right. So what venue as we take our top
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two from sectional meets and the qualifying time, does that
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qualifying time is that I assume that's like a an average of the
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third best time, I don't know every year, three years in a row
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or something like that. It is the average of the 15th
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place time at the state meet for five years or something like
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that, so. So it's really consistent, but
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it's interesting that you bring that up because I graduated high
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school in 1990, the four by 400 relay for the two way at the
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time was right around 324 and so since I've been back in Illinois
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it's roughly around three 24325 which won't necessarily make the
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final. But in 2021 or 2022, one of
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these past two years, the the standard was in fact, it was
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this past year because this was my first year's head coach.
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So the four by 4 qualifying time for 3A was 328.
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And the assistant coach, one of the assistant coaches of myself,
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couldn't believe that the time was that slow, but it was
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because of COVID. So yeah, so COVID had a impact
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on some of the events, but not all the events.
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The distance races were still pretty competitive.
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The standard. So pretty competitive to qualify
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for the meat, but there are a couple of races where it's like,
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oh man, there you're going to have lots of heats because the
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standard is relatively relaxed compared to the past.
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Yeah, it's kind of, I do like a qualifying time, but there is
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that danger of like oh man, any one year, you know, you don't
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have control over how many are going to actually then hit that
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mark and qualify for the state meet okay.
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So now we've got to top two plus our qualifying times that are
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going to state meet. What is our venue?
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Do all three go to the same venue?
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Do we split it up? Do we rotate?
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What do we do? So since 2009, on the Thursday
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of the state meet, so the girls run the week before the boys do.
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The 1A schools have their preliminaries and it's only 1A.
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And then on the Friday of the state meet for both genders, the
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2A competitors run prelims in the morning and then the three A
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schools run their prelims in the afternoon.
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And then on Saturday, all three finals have run together, so you
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have your 1A final, your two A final and then your 3A final.
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So Saturday is the day of champs.
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Yes. Yep.
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You can't. Oh, go ahead.
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I'm sorry. That's kind of cool.
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That's a fun day. Yeah.
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Obviously I didn't compete at A1A school, but if I did I'd
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want everybody or as many eyes to see me as possible.
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So for sure that's where everybody sees you as the 1A.
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Champ so or competitor so you if you meddle on Saturday, if you
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make it to Saturday, you usually meddle because they meddle 9 in
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every event. So the distance races take 12 to
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the finals. But there's nine lanes on the
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Eastern Illinois track, which is where the state meet is held in
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Charleston, IL. And so if you make it to the
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finals in the Sprint, if you line up, you usually meddle so
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the 9th place gets a medal. Do they get a point?
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Yep, they do get a point. They do score.
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We score 9 places in Illinois. Yes.
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Oh, that's that's unique. I haven't heard that.
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Yes, it was not like that when I was in high school, but it is
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like that now. So there are always 9 finalists,
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but eight used to be Allstate and eight with score.
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And yeah, but year I want it was like the mid to late 90s, but
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that changed in that time. And you mentioned we are at
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Illinois, we're at the Eastern Illinois University and it's a
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three day meet, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, always at
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Eastern Illinois or do we rotate?
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It's always at Eastern Illinois University.
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Very cool. All right.
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So in your state there of Illinois, sorry to say that our
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state of Illinois, I'm right here too.
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And this is kind of a hard question, right, because you're
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in it. So you don't necessarily know
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that it's unique. But are there any unique events
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that we're doing in Illinois that aren't in the air?
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Quotes here? Standard events around the
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country? Well, I don't recall, but I
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think there's some states that don't do the 4 by 200 meter
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relay. Yeah, which falls in the middle
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of our meet. I know that somebody who ran
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hurdles and coaches hurdles that some states are in the 400
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hurdles but I think more around the 300 hurdles and the heights
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different there. I have interested to know this
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like I think more states are picking up wheelchair events.
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So athletes who are in the wheelchair, I believe competing
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the shot put the 102 hundred. 400 maybe the 800.
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I don't think they do a mile, but I know there are several
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wheelchair events at the state need to, so that's pretty cool.
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That has to be relatively new. Based on my experience when I
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coach, that's new. That's awesome.
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Do they? If if a Rock Island wheelchair
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shot putter goes and scores, does that count for the Rock
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Island team? Are those separate events in
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their own state championship? So that's interesting.
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Currently the wheelchair division is this own division,
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so. I don't believe those.
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I'm pretty confident that those points don't impact the regular.
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I don't want to call it regular, but let's just call it vision.
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So you'll have like a Wilshire athlete who pretty much competes
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in like 2-3, maybe 4 events and they win or place in the top
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three. Those score highly and they'll
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be recognized as a team. I don't know that there's a
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trophy and I don't believe those points factor into the overall
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meet they do get. They do get metals.
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Oh, good. I love that we're doing it.
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That's so in cool. You know, track and field is one
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of the most inclusive sports. The most inclusive sports,
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right. No matter what color, no matter
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how height, no matter your weight, your body shape,
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disability ability. That is amazing, man.
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I love hearing that. We're hearing that.
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You know, we're doing this alphabetical.
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So we're at the eyes here with Illinois and we've heard that in
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a few states already. So I'm excited to see the rest
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of the States and maybe some states are thinking about doing
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that and maybe this project helps them to see like, hey,
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this is a growing phenomenon, if you will.
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And so maybe it needs to be added another state.
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It's very cool to hear that. Jaren, you mentioned four by
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two. You're right, that's not a
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quote, UN quote common. Not every state has the four by
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two. Interestingly, the four by 8 is
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not in every state, it's in most.
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But we do have the four by 8 here.
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We don't have any kind of a Sprint medley, distance medley,
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anything like that, correct? Yeah, Illinois does not have
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Sprint medley or distance medley relays in the state series and
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boys and girls both do. Long jump and triple jump shot.
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Put discus pole vault high. Jump.
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Perfect. All right, any so after the
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state meet, Some states do. Unofficial state meets in the
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heptathlon and decathlon or the hammer or the javelin.
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Anything like that here in Illinois?
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No. And I hope that at some point
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that the state does consider that because obviously it's
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another opportunity for young student athletes to get a look
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and potentially compete at the next level.
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It you know, I know Missouri recently.
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Went to Javelin. I don't know what went into the
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exploratory process, but I would imagine that that more than
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hammer or some other event would be something that could probably
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be worked in. You know again that's like above
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me, but I think that the I feel like the javelin could probably
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be more easily worked into the meet schedule if you will I
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think. I'm surprised that more noise
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hasn't been made about the Hammer.
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I ran track of SIU, so for a long, long time we had a really
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strong throws program there and then so John Smith and JC
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Lambert were both most recently coaching there.
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I know Geneva's down there coaching and she's doing really
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well, but for an event that we didn't have in our state, we've
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had really great athletes succeed in the in the Hammer.
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And actually, Tom Putzgas, who went to Florida was from the
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suburbs and he was pretty good in Javelin back in the 80s.
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So the same, yeah, I know Illinois, there's been
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underlying trimmers of adding the Javelin, but just can't get
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over that hump like Missouri and Florida and South Carolina and
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Alabama. I'm kind of letting you know,
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Illinois, we need to make this happen.
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Absolutely. I agree.
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Illinois needs to happen here or Javelin needs to happen here in
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Illinois. So no, none of those kind of
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events, no meet of Champs where the top three from each one of
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those 3 divisions goes and has a meet.
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Nothing like that. That used to happen back in my
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day after the state meet. So there was a meet of champions
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and I think it was Indiana, Ohio, Illinois.
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It was western kind of and you you saw the best, the best
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there. There used to be a meet in Iowa.
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I'm not sure if that meet still exists.
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It it was later. It came into play a little bit
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later and I want to say late 90s, early 2000s.
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It was Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin.
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So I don't know. It's like a senior All Star
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meet. I don't know if that means still
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exists anymore, but those would be the only two meets that come
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to mind. But not an inside of Illinois
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where we take the 1-2 and three and add the best together.
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We don't do any kind of media champs there.
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Nothing like that. All right?
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Help us settle a debate here, Jaron, at least in your culture
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or your school's culture in your area.
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Do you, how do you say when you're trying to, you know,
16:40
qualify for Charleston, you're going to state, Are you trying
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to go to states? Do you qualify for the state
16:45
meet? How do you say a state state
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state meet? Something else.
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What do we say? I think most people say I'm
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trying to qualify for state. I know some people might refer
16:55
to the state meet as the state meet, but nobody, I don't think
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I've ever heard anybody call the Illinois State meet states.
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So usually you're trying to qualify for state.
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I feel like the minority here. I say states all the time.
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I swear I've heard other people say that.
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But I'm hearing more state than anything else so far.
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Yeah. All right, Jaron to close us out
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today. If I gave you a magic wand and
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you could change one thing about the Illinois State track
17:21
qualifying system. Could be events could be meet a
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champs, could be maybe you want to move it to a seven day meet.
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I don't know. What would you do for that one
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change? Well, the one thing that came to
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mind when I was thinking about this question was the empty
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lanes that we have in the 200 at the in the prelims that the
17:38
state meet. But I'm not sure what that's
17:40
about. And maybe it's because people
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move their 200 guys to the four by four, but on a almost regular
17:47
basis you find more empty lanes in the prelims of the two of the
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200 meter and that's really hard.
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And so it'd be really nice if we could, like, always have lanes
17:56
filled up. And you know that again, that
17:59
would require some conversation, but I don't think it's
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impossible. I know that most high school
18:03
coaches want the participation you you want those lanes filled
18:07
at state meet. So I don't know how you go about
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making that change. That would be the biggest thing.
18:12
And I don't know that that's a direct cause of qualifying from
18:16
the section on me. But I do know that when you show
18:18
up at state meet, you've got several competitors top ten list
18:22
coming into the meet and you're excited to see them compete.
18:24
And then there I know. The year one of our runners,
18:28
Courtney Lindsay, who just finished his career Texas Tech
18:31
and made the World Team this year when he was a junior, there
18:34
was like almost nobody in his preliminary he he made to the
18:37
final as he should have. But it was just really weird
18:40
seeing that they were. It's on a nine lane track and
18:42
you've got four, maybe five kids competing in a heat.
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And that's just really, it's weird and it's unfortunate.
18:47
So it'd be nice to figure out how to do that better.
18:51
Illinois, let's fill up those lanes.
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I agree in the 200, you know, you rarely hear about this in
18:56
the 100 of the 100 hurdles or the 800.
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It's always the 200. Let's let's get that figured
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out. Jaren, thank you so much.
19:02
Thank you for stepping up and being the leader and
19:04
representing the state of Illinois in our great series
19:06
here where we're exploring each one of the states, including
19:08
Washington, DC, and how they qualify for the outdoor state
19:11
meet. So thank you so much, Jaren.
19:13
Thank you, Mike. I was happy to do it.