Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Idaho State Meet featuring Bryan Stith from Capital HS
Transcript
- 0:00It's bonus time here on the Gill Connections podcast.
- 0:03In an effort to increase communication, empathy and
- 0:06understanding around the country, we're going to be
- 0:08running a new episode every day interviewing a coach, a high
- 0:12school coach from every state, and yes, even you, Washington,
- 0:16DC with explaining how the state qualifying system works in their
- 0:21state. We'll be talking with a local
- 0:23state expert on how many classes, private versus public
- 0:27schools, what events and what is the process?
- 0:30Is it areas, districts, regionals, state meet?
- 0:34Is it a descending order list? Are there fun things that you do
- 0:38a little differently? Like maybe you, I don't know,
- 0:41maybe you do double points for relays looking at you Texas.
- 0:45And then we're also going to get to the bottom of is it the state
- 0:48meet or do you qualify for states?
- 0:50So check us out every day here in April and May of 2024 as we
- 0:54run through each state with a local state expert.
- 0:57So let's get started right now, Okay.
- 1:10Today as we meander our way through this state project,
- 1:14we're looking at all the outdoor track and field state qualifying
- 1:18series. Today we're going to head to the
- 1:19gym state, the beautiful state of Idaho.
- 1:22We've got Brian from Capitol High School representing the
- 1:24great state of Idaho. Brian, why don't you start by
- 1:27introducing yourself for us? Yeah, my name is Brian Stiff.
- 1:31I'm the head. Coach at Capitol High School in
- 1:33Boise, ID. It is the only high school I've
- 1:36ever coached at. This is my 24th season at
- 1:39Capitol High and it'll be my 15th season as head coach.
- 1:45Wow. 24 years, man. That's that's something to be
- 1:47said. Very good.
- 1:48Very good. Okay.
- 1:50So in Idaho, in some states they have a separate governing body
- 1:56for private schools and state public schools.
- 1:59So they, you know, the private schools maybe go, they have
- 2:01their own route to a private school, state meet and publics
- 2:04do their other way. What do we do in Idaho?
- 2:06Private and public schools. We don't have any separation.
- 2:11Everything is just based on enrollment.
- 2:13And so all of our public and private, they compete against
- 2:15each other just strictly based on enrollment.
- 2:17We do have some private schools that actually compete up.
- 2:22Versus their enrollment, there's a there's a high school here in
- 2:25Boise that's called Bishop Kelly.
- 2:27They would traditionally be enrollment wise a 3A school, but
- 2:30they be due to their competitive nature, they actually compete up
- 2:34a level at the 4A level in Idaho.
- 2:36So, but across the state, No. Everybody's public and private,
- 2:39they all compete together. They're all going for the same
- 2:41trophy. Perfect, Okay.
- 2:42Great. And in Idaho, how many classes
- 2:46and what do you call your classes?
- 2:47A AA whatnot. So this year will be the last
- 2:52year where we have 5 classifications in the state of
- 2:54Idaho. Next year, we actually are
- 2:55adding a classification. So we've been 1A being the
- 3:00smallest category all the way up to five A, which is the category
- 3:05that the classification that my school capital competes in.
- 3:08Next year we are going to add a classification.
- 3:13We're adding the 6A and there will be a.
- 3:18Greater that they're they're getting a lot.
- 3:20They're allowing the smaller schools to kind of get
- 3:22separated. The two a category in Idaho is
- 3:26now shifting a little bit. It's the it's been the largest
- 3:29division in Idaho for very long time almost 60 schools which is
- 3:34a lot for Idaho. I feel like that if you compare
- 3:36ourselves to some of our neighboring states but now we're
- 3:39going to get a little bit more consistency across all six
- 3:44classifications. The lower ones are still going
- 3:46to have more. I think 1A is going to have 36
- 3:49schools in it, 2A will have 35 and then as you as it goes from
- 3:53there, I think it'll be like it's around 28 and 20 and then
- 3:5725 and 22, maybe 23 again though schools can petition up, they
- 4:04can also petition down based on their demographics, their what
- 4:10type of financial situation they have, competitive nature, State
- 4:14of Idaho does allow that. I don't think though anyone is
- 4:19going to petition to go down for track and field.
- 4:23I think everybody's going to try to try to stick to the
- 4:27classification that they're moving to based on their
- 4:28enrollment, All right. So currently we have five
- 4:31classes, 1A through five, one being the smaller schools
- 4:34enrollment, 5 being the larger. Next year we're going to move to
- 4:37six classes. So we're going to hand out six
- 4:40boys team titles and six girl team titles next year, five and
- 4:44five this year. All right, excellent.
- 4:46Love that. How about what is the process to
- 4:49make it to state where is the first of the series, whether
- 4:53it's sectionals, areas, divisional, there's all these
- 4:55different names for these meets. What's our first round in Idaho?
- 4:59I print really simple and I do. We have one track beat.
- 5:03They make it to state with a You have a district championship
- 5:06meet and you qualify for state through that track meet.
- 5:10The only other way you get in the state meet is if you have
- 5:12somehow become sick or injured and you get in on a hardship.
- 5:17That is the only other way to get to the state meet.
- 5:19We do not have any auto automatic qualifying times. 4
- 5:23distances. If you're healthy, you have to
- 5:26compete at the district meet, and that's how you get to the
- 5:28state meet. All right, so we have district.
- 5:30We call it district. How many athletes per event can
- 5:34you enter as a school? For Max, just your traditional,
- 5:39you know, if you want to do 4 individuals, that's fine.
- 5:42You want to do 2 and two with two relays.
- 5:44That's fine, but there's no more than you can enter is for.
- 5:47No, no. I'm sorry for you.
- 5:48At Capital, how many 100 meter runners can you enter into
- 5:50districts? How many miles?
- 5:52Yep. Oh automatic qualifying times
- 5:56for our district meet is based on the we we use an average of
- 6:03the last three years from our conference.
- 6:06This is how so we're I'm in the largest district in the state
- 6:09district three. We have what, 14 teams in my
- 6:13district to make up 14 of the 22 and 5A and.
- 6:20I'm actually in charge of the qualifying standards.
- 6:22We so we go back and we look at the 24th place average over the
- 6:26last three years prior to the district meet and we and we
- 6:30shift or keep the standard from there.
- 6:34So if you hit the auto qualifying to our district meet,
- 6:37you're in the district meet no matter what.
- 6:39So if I had 10 boys in the 100 meter dash qualify on the auto,
- 6:42they're all going to district if we don't fill the 24 automatic
- 6:46qualifying standards. For automatic qualifiers, we'll
- 6:50wild card from there. If you hit the standard though,
- 6:54we'll go above 24. So there's been a year, we had a
- 6:57crazy year two years ago in the 800 and the boys 800.
- 7:00We had 41 boys in the 800 meter. So yeah, we ran it.
- 7:04We ran two different, two different heats and cut it off
- 7:07at 20. I think we put 20 in the fast
- 7:10and 21 in the slower but that got a little hectic.
- 7:13So this is unique. So you're saying for the the
- 7:16first round before you go to states, the only round before
- 7:19states is district and to qualify for districts the more I
- 7:23would say common way is each team gets two or three or four
- 7:27entries per event. You're saying no, no.
- 7:29We calculate a qualifying time and any athlete during the
- 7:34school year during the the track season hits that qualifying time
- 7:38or distance or height you get to.
- 7:41If you choose, you can you can declare if you will for the
- 7:45district meeting, and if you have 40 something, 800 meter
- 7:49runners, then we're going to have 40 something distance 800
- 7:52meter runners in districts and we're going to pare it down.
- 7:54Absolutely awesome. How about Okay?
- 7:57That's awesome. I love that.
- 7:58I kind of. That's very interesting.
- 7:59It's very unique. I like that aspect.
- 8:01How many what places qualify from district to the state meet?
- 8:06So every different classification has a.
- 8:11Has a different amount of districts.
- 8:13So, so for like our track meet for 5A, we only have three
- 8:18district qualifying meets to go to the state track meet, other
- 8:22classifications because they have more schools, they might
- 8:26have four or five district track meets maybe and I think last
- 8:29year maybe 2A, I think 2A had five which is the most that
- 8:34would come and so their qualification, the amount of
- 8:36qualifiers they get to the state meet.
- 8:38Is different than ours, so. It definitely varies.
- 8:43Give us your example. You said you have 3 districts,
- 8:45so are they taking top four or what?
- 8:48What are they doing for three districts?
- 8:50So I'll give you the breakdown on ours because I know it's
- 8:52because I know it's so well. So there's 23 schools right now
- 8:57in five, 813 of them come from my district, and then there's a
- 9:03district up in northern Idaho. For Coeur d'Alene, Idaho is
- 9:07there's four schools in that district and then on the other
- 9:10side I think there's what's let's do the math run I think
- 9:15it's six on the east side of the state over near Wyoming.
- 9:20And so my district we get an automatic 5 relays to state and
- 9:28we get 10 kids to the state track meet out of our district
- 9:32which is 13 schools and the other districts have less got it
- 9:37okay. So it's even unique amongst the
- 9:39district. So not only do you have
- 9:41different number of districts per one a 2A3A etcetera based on
- 9:46the size of that district, they will prorate might be the right
- 9:50word, the number of qualifiers. So it's not like the top two of
- 9:53each district and then a list, it's like no, no, this is the
- 9:55bigger district. So 10 are going to come out of
- 9:57this one. We only have six schools and
- 9:59this one, so only two or whatever it might that number
- 10:02be. How many are they trying to get
- 10:03to the state meet? Are they trying to get 24?
- 10:06What? What number?
- 10:07I love your number. I wish it was 24.
- 10:10Unfortunately, in Idaho, we're stuck at 16 right now.
- 10:13That's probably the more better. That's probably the smarter
- 10:15number, actually. Well, yes and no.
- 10:19We've actually, for the last five years, pre COVID, we've
- 10:23actually proposed almost every single year to get the amount of
- 10:27state qualifiers to 24. There's a very strong,
- 10:32especially at the 5A level at the highest classification.
- 10:34There's a very strong amount of talent in our district and we've
- 10:40seen it in the past were the 11th, 12th, 13th ranked girl or
- 10:44boy in the mile or 800 gets left home.
- 10:48And we've even had it where the 32nd ranked kid in the state
- 10:52gets makes it to the state meet instead of, you know, the 11th
- 10:55or 12th ranked kid. Just just unfortunate from that
- 10:58perspective. So we're just trying to find a
- 11:01more more equivalency and an opportunity for kids to earn
- 11:06what they deserve, right and make it to the state meet.
- 11:09So we're working on that. So you're make you're trying to
- 11:13get 16 to the state so you can run 2 heats, 2 semis of the 100.
- 11:17Get your 8 finalists, things like that.
- 11:19And that's what we do right now. That's exactly what we have for
- 11:21State Meet. Right now there's 8 there's, you
- 11:23know, 2IN all the prelims, it's 8:00 and 8:00.
- 11:26On the sprints, Yep. Same with.
- 11:27Same with the jumps and the throws.
- 11:30That's just the way it goes right now.
- 11:31We'd love. We'd love to make it 24 sounds
- 11:33good. So where do let's talk about
- 11:35that state meet? Talking to us about the format,
- 11:37Do we do all five currently And maybe you give us a little bit
- 11:40of if you know what might look like next year with six classes.
- 11:44Do we do all five classes at 1 venue and it's been the same
- 11:48venue for 40 years. Do we move around?
- 11:51Do we do small schools at one place?
- 11:52What are we doing here for our State Meet Venue.
- 11:54Location? So for the longest period of
- 11:58time up until the emerging birth of Boise State football in the,
- 12:04you know, late 2000s, all 5 classifications held the state
- 12:09track meet at Boise State University at the Boise State
- 12:12track. It was awesome. 3 days of track
- 12:14and field. All 5 classifications 5A and 4A
- 12:18would compete on Thursday and Friday.
- 12:23We'd go Thursday for our prelims, Friday for all the
- 12:26finals, Friday morning 18283. It would come in, they'd all
- 12:31stick around to watch the finals of 5848, and then they'd come
- 12:34back Saturday for the their final day.
- 12:39Unfortunately, Boise State's success in football prompted
- 12:44them to remove the track inside Broncos Stadium.
- 12:48So at that point. We started.
- 12:49We had to separate the state track meet.
- 12:51There wasn't a venue in the state large enough to handle all
- 12:545 classifications over a three day period.
- 12:57SO5A and 4A have been together for about the last decade and
- 13:04that at times has been at a high school here in the Treasure
- 13:07Valley in the Boise area. I'll refer to it as the Treasure
- 13:09Valley. That's the Boise metro area.
- 13:12Sometimes it's at Donna Larson Park, which is Boise State's
- 13:15practice track. Their facility that they work
- 13:18on, It's a good, fantastic facility for performing at It's
- 13:23not the greatest facility for spectators.
- 13:26Sight lines aren't aren't very good.
- 13:28The throws. It's tough to see the discus in
- 13:30the shot from inside the stadium.
- 13:33It's tough to see the horizontal jumps as well.
- 13:36But great track, good surface. Parking's an issue, but that's
- 13:41another conversation. 18283 are out at Middleton High School,
- 13:46which is right now probably the best high school venue in the
- 13:51state of Idaho. Tremendous facility, really,
- 13:55really good track. It's fast.
- 13:57They've been breaking state records of that track at the
- 14:00state meet for three years now, just because of its I think they
- 14:04put down a polyurethane. It's a much quicker, quicker
- 14:06service and so 1-2 and three are out there.
- 14:11It's sad because we've had some really talented kids.
- 14:13That ran out there, you know this last year.
- 14:15Fortunately Gatlin Bear who was the the one of the, you know,
- 14:20big stories of the of this past track season.
- 14:23He was a 3A athlete for the longest of times so four and
- 14:27five. We didn't get to see him and
- 14:28then he decided to transfer schools going into his junior
- 14:31years and he ended up at a 4A school last year.
- 14:34So he. And he was the big talk of the
- 14:36town at the at the four and five a meet and obviously everybody
- 14:39if you saw what he did at those meets.
- 14:41He shattered our state records in the 100 to 200 and that was a
- 14:44joy to watch. But it's it is unfortunate.
- 14:46We got some really talented kids run 3A2A and one and so it's
- 14:50four and five a coaches and spectators.
- 14:52We don't get to see those kids but for now we're probably going
- 14:57to be, we'll probably won't be at Boise State's track.
- 15:00We'll probably be at another high school.
- 15:01We've been at Mountain View High School last year.
- 15:04I believe we're going to be there again and then the 382A1A
- 15:07will stay at Middleton. In regard to the classification
- 15:11changes, I don't know what they're going to do.
- 15:13We're going to have six different classifications now.
- 15:15I don't know if the 3-4 and five will be together.
- 15:18That's probably the smarter thing to do.
- 15:20And then have 1-2 and three together now that it's split.
- 15:25You used to do a three day meet. Are those meets now two day
- 15:28meets now that we split? Yeah, they're just two day
- 15:31meets. Yeah, makes sense.
- 15:32Makes sense. What about And this is always a
- 15:33hard question because you're in it, so it's not unusual for you
- 15:37or unique. What unique events do you do?
- 15:40And I gave you a list of what the kind of the common races and
- 15:44relays and field events are. Anything we do uniquely there in
- 15:48Idaho? Yeah, a little bit.
- 15:52So we have 4 relays, which is a little bit more you know,
- 15:57uncommon versus the traditional 25A which is my division.
- 16:02We have the four by eight and no one else in the state has it, so
- 16:06we have the four by 800. SO5A has four relay events.
- 16:10And so does everybody else. But we have the four by eight
- 16:14Okay. Everybody below us has the
- 16:16Sprint medley. Okay.
- 16:18All right, so let's make sure we hear this right.
- 16:20So for 5A, the large school, you've got the four by one, the
- 16:23four by two, Yeah, Yep, 4x4. Of course, you better we we'll
- 16:29just we'll kick you out of the NFHS if you don't have the four
- 16:31by four and then you have the four by 8.
- 16:34Is that new or is that been tradition 4 by 8?
- 16:38So it's we decided to go with the four by eight.
- 16:42I want to say it's been since 2008 or 2009, so I'll call that
- 16:49new still that's not. Yeah, it's it's 15 years or so
- 16:52now. The one 2-3 and four, they have
- 16:55the four by one, they have the four by two, correct.
- 17:00They of course have the four by four.
- 17:01But now instead of the four by 8:00, they have the Sprint
- 17:03medley and now the Sprint medley is one of these weird relays.
- 17:08It is run a lot of different ways.
- 17:10How do we run it in Idaho? So genders run it differently,
- 17:15so it's always unique. All right, here we go.
- 17:18How do the girls run? It so the ladies run 101 hundred
- 17:21204 hundred. And the gentleman run 202
- 17:25hundred 408 hundred. I love track and field.
- 17:30This is awesome okay question and you may not be able to
- 17:33answer this next year. When we go to six A what happens
- 17:39is five AC4 by 8. Does 6A not do any of those
- 17:42relays or do they do Sprint, do they do 4 by 8?
- 17:45Do they say, you know what, we're going to go crazy, we're
- 17:47going to run the DMR? So this I'd love to do the deal.
- 17:50That would be awesome. I'd I'd much rather prefer that
- 17:53over the four by 800. So 6A will definitely stick with
- 17:57the 4 by 800. All of the the majority of
- 18:00almost all the schools that are going to six A are our 5A
- 18:03schools right now. So we will hold on to the 4 by
- 18:05800 last year in 4A, which will be 5A next year, the 4A.
- 18:13There was a petition for 4A to try to move to the 4 by 800.
- 18:16A lot of the distance coaches felt like it.
- 18:18It just gave the kids more distance kids a chance to
- 18:21participate the state meet. Which it does.
- 18:22Yeah, absolutely it does it. It got shot down too many too
- 18:28many Sprint coaches, too many football coaches coaching track
- 18:32that that want to still stick with the the Sprint medleys.
- 18:36So I'm assuming. But 5/8 down next year, we'll
- 18:40all still stick with the Sprint medleys.
- 18:42I really do, even though I have to say ever since we adopted the
- 18:47four by 800, our distance running in our in our division
- 18:51has exploded. We, you know, we had Nathan
- 18:56Green was NCAA champion this year in the 1500.
- 18:59He's from Boer High School here. Absolutely.
- 19:03The him running 800 all the time made him such a great miler in
- 19:06high school. Any other unique events?
- 19:08Do you run the 1632 or do you run the mile two, mile fifteen
- 19:113000? What are you doing and those two
- 19:12events? Now we're at 16132 hundred 1632.
- 19:17Yep, 32 hundreds on the first day.
- 19:19Mile 1600s. The second day you run 300
- 19:22hurdles. We do run 300 hurdles with the
- 19:25relays. You do all the traditional, so
- 19:27boys and girls, this is somewhere, it's a little bit
- 19:28different. So a couple of states, boys and
- 19:30girls, both doing triple jump. Absolutely pole vault for both.
- 19:34Pole vault for both. Perfect.
- 19:37Do we do the Javelin in Idaho? So 2024 Javelin is an exhibition
- 19:44event in the state of Idaho. We're super excited about it.
- 19:48I'm a Javelin guy and so I'm really thrilled that we finally
- 19:53got it passed. Big shout out to TJ Crater and
- 19:59Bud Rasmussen and all those guys up there and I.
- 20:01Right, guys, yes. Yep, good friends mine.
- 20:03TJ's a college teammate of mine. So absolutely thrilled that they
- 20:08they, they were been pushing it with support from a lot of us
- 20:11around the state. And so it's all the exhibition
- 20:14in 2024 and then it'll be a full scoring event, 2025, all
- 20:17classifications. So we're really excited about
- 20:19that. That was going to be my next
- 20:20question. All classes or do you skip it
- 20:22out in a few? OK, great.
- 20:24Anything else at the state meet like this Sprint medley and
- 20:28things like that that we're doing that are unique?
- 20:31Only thing is that maybe it's to me it's unique.
- 20:35I don't like it, but it I'll bring it up.
- 20:37We literally have the three fast relays all on the last day.
- 20:42So we run the four by two, the four by one and the four by four
- 20:46all on the final day of the track meet and that's Murder's
- 20:49Row on his leg. So pretty tough at some states
- 20:54after the official state meet. So after we've given our our
- 20:56team titles the the teams have earned those.
- 20:59They do and usually maybe an athletic coaches association or
- 21:03something does an unofficial state meet whether it's a meet
- 21:06of champs. So you maybe take the top two of
- 21:08each one of the classes and raise them.
- 21:10Or they do a Hiptafon decaf on an official state meet or
- 21:13hammer, anything like that in Idaho.
- 21:16We used to, we used to have the Micron need of champions back in
- 21:19the late 90s and early 2000s, but it went away and it just
- 21:23never got rebirth. So no, once the state meet is
- 21:26concluded that's the end of our season.
- 21:28Most of the time if we look for anything you know are more, you
- 21:32know are more high profile kids, they'll look to Nike, maybe the
- 21:36great Southwest. That's a good track meet for us
- 21:38to get to any. We're learning more and more
- 21:42that states are adding adaptive athletes, any wheelchair races
- 21:46or adaptive shot put or anything for the state meet.
- 21:50Absolutely, absolutely. If we have kids that are
- 21:53competing in the in anything adaptive we've done in the past.
- 21:57I actually had a gentleman graduate, oh, Bryce graduated
- 22:00three or four years ago, Wheelchair, fantastic experience
- 22:05for him. What an amazing person he was to
- 22:07have on my track team. Not to mention what he did for
- 22:10my kids and what we did for him. You know he raced his freshman
- 22:15year actually in his real wheelchair.
- 22:18Mom and dad were were trying to figure out how to get him into a
- 22:20racing chair and then his sophomore through senior year we
- 22:24got him in a racing chair and what a what a tremendous
- 22:27experience it was for all of us. We got to learn how to write
- 22:31wheelchair workouts for him to appropriately and then it was it
- 22:36was it was great because we have actually a gentleman here in
- 22:39town that. Is an adaptive wheelchair racing
- 22:43professional athlete and so he mentored him through everything.
- 22:47It was a fantastic experience and we've had we have had
- 22:51adaptive shot put as well a young man who was in his
- 22:55wheelchair. He did shot and we and then so
- 23:00we do contest those. We do unified in the middle of
- 23:04our tracking we will have the unified for the special Olympic
- 23:07kids. But yeah if we have a Paralympic
- 23:10athlete. We we'll do everything we can to
- 23:14actually make sure that the Adaptive Athlete is included in
- 23:17our state track meet. Very cool.
- 23:18Love that. Now let's settle a debate at
- 23:21least based on you and your culture and your team or your
- 23:24area of Idaho. What do we do in Idaho?
- 23:27How do we say it? Do we are we trying to qualify
- 23:29for the state meet the are we trying to qualify for states or
- 23:32is it just state? How do we say it there in Idaho?
- 23:37We're going when I when one of my when I see one of my kids
- 23:40punch their ticket. I said you're I would say you're
- 23:42going to state. I just just state yeah you're
- 23:45going to the state meet. I've met we I've never heard
- 23:49anyone in Idaho ever call it states that's that's not
- 23:53something I I I've been doing this for a long time.
- 23:56I'm an Idaho kid. I went.
- 23:57I grew up doing Idaho track and field.
- 23:59No one's ever called it states. I think so far I'm not going to
- 24:03keep data. I'm going to ask for listeners.
- 24:05As you you know, this is April and May of 2024 that we're
- 24:08publishing all of these day after day after day, every new
- 24:10one, every single day. I'm going to ask, there's going
- 24:12to be some data scientist listening.
- 24:16That's a coach and I want them to do the data because I think
- 24:19right now it's still early. This is very early.
- 24:21You know, we're only in the eyes here.
- 24:23I think state singular is winning is winning.
- 24:26I really do. That would shock me and that was
- 24:28a new one to me though I always thought of state meet or states.
- 24:31That's the two I heard on the the old Twitter.
- 24:33But this state has come roaring from back, and it's.
- 24:36Definitely leading so far. All right.
- 24:39So Brian, I'm going to give you a magic wand and you get one and
- 24:44only one. If you could change something
- 24:47about the Idaho High school outdoor track and field
- 24:50qualifying, the state meet events, things like that, what's
- 24:55one thing you might change for the greater good of the sport
- 24:58there in Idaho? Definitely.
- 25:01In my opinion the number one thing we should have, we should
- 25:03have had automatic qualifying standards for the state meet.
- 25:07So not just the number of kids in the district is that changes,
- 25:10but also okay and it'll be tougher than what it was to get
- 25:13the districts. Obviously that would be an
- 25:16additional that way that 9th kid isn't getting left out.
- 25:19That example you gave earlier. Right or or.
- 25:23Or if you've got a really talented jumper and they fell
- 25:25all three jumps at the district meet.
- 25:27But you know, say say I've got a 47 footer in the triple jump for
- 25:31the boys and they fell all three jumps and now their season's
- 25:36over just because of 1 track meet even though they're maybe
- 25:39you know top 25 in the country. So let's explore this in a
- 25:42little time that we have left. You're not saying out of the
- 25:45district meet necessarily that if they jumped 58 feet and the
- 25:49third track meet, triple jump here, third track me to the
- 25:52outdoor season and they foul and divisions that they should go
- 25:55divisionals, they should go districts, they should go to the
- 25:58state meet because 58 would would make it for sure.
- 26:01So what what happens then? Why wouldn't that again just
- 26:04using this hypothetical 58 foot triple jumper, why why wouldn't
- 26:08they just skip districts then and say hey I've already got the
- 26:11automatic qualifier. I'll just, I'll see you next
- 26:13week at State. Well, you could.
- 26:15You could. I think that that's a
- 26:17possibility but I I wouldn't I would support that.
- 26:20I mean I think if you're if you're that type of kid our
- 26:22sports a championship sport. If you're if you're going to go
- 26:25try to be the state champion you should be district champion too
- 26:28but but but I have there's been some casualties where a kid just
- 26:32underperforms or no heights in the pole vault those type of
- 26:35things that to me that's troubling.
- 26:38It's hard for me to see a kid season being ruined off of
- 26:43something something so small. Yeah, and and you could include
- 26:46a honest effort at the Districts as well.
- 26:48You could say, hey, 15 footer, you still got to compete at
- 26:50Districts and if if you happen to fall or you know fall start
- 26:54and or whatever, you can qualify, but you have to at
- 26:56least go to District. Yeah, that's interesting.
- 26:58That's, that's an interesting take.
- 27:00I love that. And I think too to qualify for
- 27:03the state meet, I would say you it would probably be mandatory
- 27:06that you have to qualify that you have to compete in the
- 27:08districts in that event. To be able to, you can add,
- 27:12yeah, you can add an honest effort at the districts, right?
- 27:14Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.
- 27:16Brian man, thank you so much. As we continue to dive through
- 27:2051 even you Washington DC we have not forgotten you states,
- 27:24it continues to be a fascinating, I love what we're
- 27:27learning at each state. I think this relay thing that's
- 27:30super interest, that's super unique that we have not heard
- 27:33yet as we are just in the eyes as we continue to move through.
- 27:36So, Brian, thank you so much. Appreciate your leadership and
- 27:39stepping up to represent the state of Idaho.
- 27:40It's a great state. I've been there many, many
- 27:42times. It's beautiful.
- 27:43Coeur d'Alene, get out of here. If you've never been, you got to
- 27:45go. But Brian, thank you so much for
- 27:48just giving us some behind the scenes and letting us understand
- 27:51more about Idaho track and field for the high school outdoor
- 27:54season. Thanks, Mike.
- 27:56I appreciate it.