The Etownian >> Sports
Jays forbidden to participate at meet
Thursday May 06 2010
Last chance meets represent final opportunities to qualify for important competitions, such as the MAC and NCAA Division III championships. However, the Elizabethtown College track and field team will not be able to participate in the Last Chance Meet on Monday night at Swarthmore College. Many members will also be unable to make the journey to Allegheny College on Friday, where another meet offers the prospect of qualifying for the NCAA meet. “We do not permit our teams to compete during finals week unless they are involved in conference or NCAA playoffs,” Athletic Director Nancy Latimore said. “Only students who have completed their finals will be able to compete at the upcoming Allegheny meet.”
Cross country and track and field head coach Christopher Straub understands the policy’s logic. He called finals week “one of our most important assessments,” and said, “This is why we’re called students first and foremost and athletes second.”
However, some runners have expressed dissatisfaction. “Do I understand that students have to take finals? Yes. But can they try and work around it with their professors? Yes,” senior and co-captain Wyatt Eaton said. “I think it’s unfair to just cancel it without talking about it or giving anyone the chance to free up their Monday schedule if they had finals, to just try and take them another day.’”
The Swarthmore meet is among the most significant on the team’s schedule.
“Swarthmore is used for athletes who are just on the outer edge of qualifying for nationals, either individually or relays. Swarthmore has been on the schedule all year since it first came out, way back in the winter, so this has been known all along,” Eaton said. “It is extremely frustrating to come within one week of a meet, only to have it canceled. We went to the same meet last year during finals week with no problem.”
Straub thinks that the decision not to participate in the Swarthmore meet is for the benefit of the athletes.
“Success in life is often about finding balance. The decision was made that the Swarthmore meet created too much imbalance,” Straub said. “Therefore, it was eliminated.”
Nonetheless, senior co-captain Mike Mauger believes that there will be negative consequences.
“I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with the athletics department and the way they handle things before, but this is a decision that directly affects some athletes’ chances of competing on the national level,” Mauger said. “The fact is that many athletes were scheduled to go to the Swarthmore Last Chance meet this coming Monday. These athletes were told they can’t go, but they can go to the meet at Allegheny. Now many of those athletes cannot go and compete because they have finals and/or because it’s five hours away.”
“Swarthmore is a close, convenient meet,” senior captain Myles Lund said. Lund, a distance runner, said that the meet’s cancellation does not affect him as much because he needs more rest to perform well, but he sympathizes with his teammates who would have been able to participate.
Eaton explained that traditionally, “Swarthmore is used more for the sprinters/jumpers/throwers, while the Allegheny meet this year was for the mid-distance/distance crew, so none of our sprinters were counting on only being able to go on that Friday. We had our schedule pinned around Swarthmore after MACs for one last chance to PR or qualify, and now this deprives me from the chance of running one last good, solid relay with my teammates, who have worked so hard for so long.”
Straub explained that the Swarthmore meet is not the end of the road. “A few student athletes who do not have conflicts will travel to Allegheny College to attend a prestigious invitational we’ve been invited to attend,” he said. “We then have one last opportunity to better our performances at The Lion’s Last Chance Meet.”
Mauger concluded, “I don’t think it’s a decision that was made against the track team. I think it’s just a wrong decision that negatively affects the track team.”
“The track and field team has been around only for 12 years now, and we’ve won over 20 conferences titles in that time. It's almost a 2:1 ratio (two titles per year). But not many people know that,” Eaton said. “It’s a shame. A darn shame. And I feel that will continue to be the way as long as a certain someone is running this athletics program.”
The Etownian >> Sports