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BONUS: North Dakota State Meet featuring Jeff Bakke from Red River 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
• 0:12
  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
• 0:21
  state. We'll be talking with a local
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  state expert on how many classes, private versus public
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  schools, what events and what is the process?
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  Is it areas, districts, regionals, state meet?
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  Is it a descending order list? Are there fun things that you do
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  a little differently? Like maybe you, I don't know,
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  maybe you do double points for relays looking at you Texas.
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  And then we're also going to get to the bottom of is it the state
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  meet or do you qualify for states?
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  So check us out every day here in April and May of 2024 as we
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  run through each state with a local state expert.
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  So let's get started right now. All right, here we go.
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  Thanks for joining us back again.
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  As we continue to March through all 50 States and all 51 state
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  meets, including you Washington, DC we're going to head up to the
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  North and North Dakota today. Help me welcome Jeff Bakke from
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  Red River High School. Jeff, how are you today, Sir?
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  I'm doing well. Awesome, man.
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  Hey, thank you so much. Just want to publicly state, you
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  know, gratitude towards you stepping up here and
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  volunteering for the state. No pressure.
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  Just everybody's listening to you and what you say is going to
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  be gospel. Everybody's going to believe
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  whatever you say here about North Dakota, so.
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  Perfect. Well, let's start.
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  Why don't you give us an introduction of yourself, kind
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  of a 32nd, 30,000 foot level. How long you've been coaching in
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  the state, Maybe some accolades. Just give yourself some kind of
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  St. cred if you will, OK? So I have completed 8.
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  Years as the head boys coach here at Red River High School.
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  So yeah, this will be my 9th year coming up and all.
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  Yeah, I've previously coached some other places, but that's,
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  you know, eight years straight in North Dakota.
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  So have a fairly good perspective on what it's like
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  coaching here. And so yeah, it's it's a unique
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  place to be. But yeah, I enjoy it.
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  And I've been to your high school and you have like the
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  Field of Dreams when it comes to long jump, triple jump sand pit
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  forms. Tell me you have like a
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  bazillion jumpers. Like, you know, in some places
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  everybody runs the quarter mile and some places everybody runs
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  the mile. Tell me everybody does some kind
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  of jumping at your place. While we certainly would like
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  that, it it's not not exactly a bazillion, but yeah, we we do
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  have, we have a nice set up where we have a long jump, 3
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  long jump runways, but there's sand pits on either end.
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  So there's really six pits right there.
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  So that's that's been really useful depending on the wind or
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  just practice and training. And yeah, it's a pretty cool
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  setup. Well, I love it.
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  It's very unique as well. You know, I go to every facility
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  in the country and I have not seen that before.
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  So very cool what you guys going on, got going on there at Red
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  River. All right, let's talk about
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  North Dakota. Jeff, you know some states, not
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  many we're finding out, have a separate organizing body for
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  public schools and a separate one for private schools.
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  Others, more commonly both private and public, are all
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  working towards the same state meet championship.
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  What are we doing in North Dakota Public and private
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  schools? It's they're all together.
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  Yeah, we it's all all one perfect that's that's the most
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  common. That's good.
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  All right. So let's talk about classes.
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  How many classes do we have there, usually by enrollment?
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  And then what are they? What are we calling them?
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  A Division, One, AA, S, etcetera.
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  So in North Dakota there are just two classes A&B and yeah
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  pretty pretty simple obviously the the the largest schools are
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  in A and the everyone else is in B, so.
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  Keeps keeps it simple like that. I love that.
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  OK, so we have two boys teams that are going to go to earn A
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  state championship title and two girls teams that are going on to
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  win a state title. Love it.
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  Correct. Let's talk about how they go
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  about doing that. All around the country we have
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  areas, district, sectionals, regionals, all these different
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  names. What's the first round that we
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  have for North Dakota? So the while we we have in North
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  Dakota, really we just have a A region.
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  And then the state meet. But what's what's unique about
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  North Dakota, perhaps maybe the other different than other
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  states is that we have a set of qualifying standards that
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  athletes can hit at any point in the season as long as it's an
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  outdoor meet. And so you know, I I looked into
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  it a little bit. There was a coach here before me
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  and he coached for a long time starting in the late 70s.
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  He he didn't remember. Coaching without the qualifying
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  standards. So I'm not exactly sure the year
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  that they were created, but you know over 45 plus years ago they
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  were created. And for the most part there,
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  there are always, there's been a few tweaks, but for the most
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  part they've gone relatively unchanged in that time period.
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  And yeah, so we've got a region meeting.
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  We're going to talk about that in a second.
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  But before that, all through regular season, as long as it's
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  an outdoor meet, if there's a certain mark for the shot put if
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  any kid hits that mark or better, they're automatically
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  going to the state meet. Exactly so.
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  So that's do they do they even have to compete at regions?
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  No, they they wouldn't have to. They don't have to.
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  Straightforward to it. All right, cool.
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  All right, well, let's talk about regions.
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  That's pretty straightforward. On the automatic qualifying time
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  for state regions, talk to me about how many athletes per
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  event can I enter into the region meet.
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  Well, and that, that. So in each event you can enter
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  and this is, there's been some debate on this in recent years,
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  but where we're at right now is five per event, at least at the
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  Class A level. So.
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  So we yeah, every event you can have 5 so I can do 5 vaulters, 5
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  long jumpers, 1 relay team. And and then So if I have not
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  hit my automatic qualifying time throughout the season, what do I
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  need to do at regions to make it to the state?
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  At regions in at the Class A level, you have to place in the
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  top six in your event and if you haven't hit the qualifying
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  standard, but you place in the top six at regions, you also get
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  to go to the state meet. Now at the Class B level, where
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  there are four different regions as opposed to two at Class A,
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  you you have to place in the top two if you haven't hit the
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  standard, because we have more regions in the smaller one
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  because of travel, I might imagine.
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  Yeah, exactly. Perfect.
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  OK, so I have all season to hit a specific mark.
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  Does that count relays as well? If I hit a certain mark in the
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  relay, do I automatically go to state?
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  Yep, Yep. There's also standards for all
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  the relays. Perfect.
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  And then if for some reason I maybe I haven't hit that yet,
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  we're still going to go to regions and in regions in the
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  big school class top 6 are going on the state regardless of the
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  qualifying time is now out the door.
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  Well actually I shouldn't say that.
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  What if I get what if I haven't gotten the qualifying time all
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  season and I go to regions and I get 7th but I hit the qualifying
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  time? Then you also qualify, OK, so
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  that we go all the way through regions on that qualifying time.
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  Correct. Perfect or distance or height.
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  OK, perfect. All right.
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  I think that's pretty straightforward to go to state
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  meet here then I like that talk to me about.
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  The only other There's just one more caveat.
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  There are the Class A level. There are less than 18 athletes
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  that have qualified sometimes, sometimes with the standard,
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  sometimes you have strong years, sometimes you have weak years.
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  It comes and goes a little bit, you know.
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  So there is a provisional standard Class A if there's less
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  than 18. In the 400 or less or long jump,
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  triple jump and all the throws. Then they use a provisional
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  standard to try to reach 18, so they're they're going to have 18
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  at that state meet one way or the other.
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  Well, only they would have had the It's not just anybody that
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  had to have still hit the provisional standard.
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  Got it. OK, perfect.
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  So there's still a a mark to hit.
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  Yeah. To get considered that pool of
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  athletes to go. Yeah, got it.
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  OK. Perfect.
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  All right, we'll talk to you about the state meet.
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  Where are we hosting this? Is it at a college facility?
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  High school facility? Are both classes at the same
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  place, Different weekends, 2 day, three day, four day meet?
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  Tell me about the state meet. Yeah.
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  So the state meet for almost 20 years now has been held in
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  Bismarck at the Bismarck Community Bowl which is a it's a
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  city and a school district facility in Bismarck that.
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  All of their schools use the universities have used it for me
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  too so it's it's just pretty much a citywide facility and all
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  the classes are together boys and girls together and it's yeah
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  it's nice because it's the whole state is there all at the same
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  time so for a long time it was only two days but we've now the
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  past two years they actually extended it to a three day meet
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  and. The reason they did that was,
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  well, most teams were there the day before anyway and and that's
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  just kind of what what you did. So they decided to to add just a
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  handful of events. There's four running events and
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  a few different like a field event for each class that that
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  is held that that afternoon slash evening and otherwise the
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  rest finishes on on. Friday and then Saturday.
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  So kind of spread it out just a little bit.
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  Maybe you do the two mile or something like that.
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  Maybe one of the throwing events or something.
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  Yeah, yeah, there's a couple. I don't want to say get them out
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  of the way, 'cause that's terrible.
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  It's to help allow the meat to go a little bit smoother as we
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  continue Friday and Saturday. Yep.
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  And from what we understand that it actually has helped a lot
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  with volunteers, because when we have them all scrunched
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  together, we have some volunteers that end up, you
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  know, events are at the same time.
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  So it actually helped out a lot with volunteers, spreading them
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  out. So then the same people could
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  work some of the, you know, different events across
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  different days. That's cool.
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  I would, I would have thought the opposite.
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  So that's cool to hear that it actually helped.
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  Yeah, great. A lot of states we're learning
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  are including some kind of adaptive unified wheelchair
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  events, anything like that going on in North Dakota right now.
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  There has been some talk but as of now it hasn't yet, but I
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  think it will be coming. Sometime in the relative near
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  you know future hopefully. Yeah that that one has been as
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  we you know we're getting a little bit over the halfway mark
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  here in all 51 of our state meets.
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  That has been more common than I thought, which is a great thing.
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  You know track and field is the most inclusive sport.
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  So it's really great to hear and it's glad to hear that North
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  Dakota coaches are at least considering it talking about it
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  it's it's a it's a it's a discussion I like that.
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  That's great. So we've got two state champions
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  in the 100 in the pole vault and the shot put on each boys and
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  girls. Some states will do either an
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  unofficial or official meet of champions type of meet where we
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  bring all classes together and find out the air quotes here.
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  True 100 meter champion. True discus champion, etcetera.
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  Anything like that in North Dakota?
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  No, there isn't. That's that sounds great.
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  I wish we did. But but no, they're they they
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  have not. I think years ago they tried it
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  for a little bit, but it didn't last very long and it just found
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  it too hard to rally people back to do it again.
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  It is hard after you. I mean, we all point towards the
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  state championship, so it's hard to like try to get up again for
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  another meet there. Now get up.
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  All right, let's talk about events.
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  Let's see what you're doing there.
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  We can assume you're doing the 102 hundred, 400 and 800 in the
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  mile, two mile. Are you doing the 16, the 32,
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  the 15, the 3000, the mile, two mile?
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  What are we doing in that area? We we are doing this 16 and 32,
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  OK, that's the common we're doing the 110 high hurdles and
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  the 100 high hurdles for boys and girls.
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  Yep, we're doing the 300 hurdles correct relays.
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  We're definitely doing the four by one and four by four because
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  I know you're getting tired of hearing this joke because if
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  you're not doing those two relays, you're not doing track
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  and field and you wouldn't be on this podcast.
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  What other relays are we doing? We also have the four by two and
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  the four by 8. Awesome.
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  No medley relays, anything. Just.
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  No. And that's another thing that
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  some people have brought up about exploring and whatnot.
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  But as of now, just the just those four.
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  Very cool. Let's go to the field events.
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  We're doing long jump and triple jump for boys and girls.
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  Shot, put in discus, high jump hammer, high jump hammer.
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  That did not make any sense. High jump.
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  Pole vault? Correct.
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  OK, perfect. Are we doing Hammer javelin
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  multis? We we are a javelin state, so,
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  so we've always always had that and and we have that as well.
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  We do not have any. I love the multi events, I wish
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  we did but but no nothing else. Those would be all the events.
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  Now some states are doing unofficials that kind of like
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  this. Meet a champs.
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  They're doing an unofficial for some of these not so common
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  events. Hammer multis.
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  You already have the Javelin. Nothing like that though.
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  No, no. And you know, there's there's
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  always, again, talk of maybe people throwing some stuff
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  together, but nothing official or even really unofficial in
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  terms of those events. And before we move on to a
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  couple of fun things here, Jeff, anything that we missed,
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  anything unique, You score only the top four places at state
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  meet or I don't know, you allow a baton that's a pole, ball pole
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  that would. Be legal, but no, we missed.
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  As as far as our state meet, no, we you know we have those 19
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  events and regular scoring for all the events yeah the the the
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  schedule is. Changed a little bit after we
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  added the third day. So otherwise, it that's kind of
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  the same schedule had been used for forever.
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  And so otherwise, yeah, pretty standard, at least for us.
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  Yeah, I love it. It's really good.
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  All right. Well, help us settle a debate,
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  Jeff, at least in your area, your community, your culture.
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  When we're talking about going to the state championship there
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  in Bismarck, are we qualifying for state, Are we qualifying for
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  states is where we just qualified for the state meet.
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  How do we say it there? So definitely we say we
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  qualified for state, or some people might say they qualified
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  for the state meet. The only time I've ever heard
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  people say states is somebody from a different part of the
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  country. And it was very obvious right
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  away you're not familiar with this.
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  So I've never heard that we are singular in North Dakota.
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  State or state. You can add meat if you'd like.
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  State meat. Yeah, I love it.
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  Jeff, man, you've been such a good sport for us and
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  representing North Dakota, so grateful for you.
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  We'll give you a little bit of a prize here.
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  You're going to win the magic wand here.
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  So you get to change one thing and only one thing in the great
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  state of North Dakota for your outdoor state track and field
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  could be anything. I don't even put put words or
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  thoughts in your mind, but if you could change one thing for
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  the better, what might that be? Well, I think what.
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  Might do is and there's there's I know a lot of people that
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  agree with agree with me but it's not you know unanimous or
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  anything but our state meet is always held the you know the the
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  Friday Saturday before Memorial Day and we have in North Dakota
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  arguably you know Alaska might have us beat but we we probably
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  have the worst weather on average if you look at any other
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  state. So we it seems like we it's a
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  disservice to the kids that we so often have to run in poor
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  weather. You know it's just some years
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  we've had good springs but we sugared in last year and you
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  know so we've there's been a lot of talk and hope that can we can
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  we push this back let's start later and and you know start and
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  finish two weeks later and maybe actually have some some decent
• 16:27
  weather there because we think we.
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  We have some pretty impressive performances for what the kids
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  have to train with and and deal with.
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  So, jeez, what would it be like if if we could get a little bit
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  more of that nicer weather? So that that's maybe what I
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  would say. I think that's a good use of the
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  magic wand is what I say. Jeff, let's, let's let these
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  kids shine in some actual sunshine, not with their
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  snowshoes on, trying to do the, the four by four.
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  I get it. That makes a lot of sense.
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  A lot of sense. Jeff, thank you so much.
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  Man, this is a great journey that we're on every day looking
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  at a different state meet and how they're doing things.
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  And I like North Dakota. I love that you're a javelin
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  state. A lot of other states need to
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  get on board. We're about half about 5050
• 17:07
  right now. But I love that you guys are
• 17:09
  pioneers in that event and giving kids the opportunity for
• 17:12
  that, that great event, the javelin.
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  So thank you, Jeff, for being here, man.
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  So grateful for you. Join us tomorrow, we'll do it
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  all over again. We're going to figure out what
• 17:19
  the next state meet looks like. Thanks everybody.