This article isn’t really about the MileSplit sites, per se. It’s about how track and field is done in the 4 corners states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. As I’ve been around track in each of these states at different points over the past 14 years, I’ve become intrigued by the differences (and the similarities) between states, and I think you’ll find this interesting enough for an enjoyable read.
Perhaps the first thing you notice when collecting results from the four states are the rather stark differences in meet organization. Meets in New Mexico tend to be small relative to the other two states. Meets in Arizona tend to be large relative to the other two states, though Utah also tends to gravitate towards larger meets.
Proportionately, there are relatively few state-qualifying meets in New Mexico that have even as many as ten teams participating. By way of contrast, meets in Arizona Utah are often huge, bringing in numerous teams, and the largest ones (Mario Castro, Sun Angel, Chandler) often run over the span of two days. Colorado lies somewhere in the middle, with both some very large and very small state qualifying meets, and many more somewhere in between.
In Colorado and New Mexico, it is rare for meets prior to the championship season to cover a span of more than one day. It comes close to being the norm in Utah and Arizona (at least for big meets). Part and parcel of two-day meets are prelims and finals in the laned events. While this also approaches being the norm in Utah and Arizona, it is much more the exception in both Colorado and New Mexico. New Mexico until this past season did not use pyramided seeding in the heats of the laned events at the state meet.
Most invitationals in Utah and New Mexico are highly inclusive. Many meets either have no limit, or at least generous limits to the number of participants from each school (and this one factor alone helps to account for the sheer size of many Utah meets). In Colorado and Arizona, the standard is split between two and three entries per school. The largest meets in all the states follow this standard. As a side note, Arizona has a much higher number of dual, tri and quad meets than its neighbors. In fact, Colorado and Utah they have come close to abandoning the idea except in more remote areas.
Meets with multiple relay entries (B, C, and D relays) per school are common in Utah. This situation is only rarely encountered in Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado.
On account of the limits of entries per school (and perhaps also to find more appropriate levels of competition for athletes), it is not at all uncommon for Colorado schools with larger track and field programs to run split squads several weekends during the invitational season. I have this seen this in Arizona as well, though it is usually to get the same kids more events. I’ve encountered no evidence of this in either Utah or New Mexico, but I’m guessing it does occur at some low level. Perhaps, though, I’m wrong about that.
Another readily-detected difference between states concerns the events contested. New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado contest the triple jump. Utah is one of a very small number of states that do not. Utah and New Mexico contest the javelin at the state meet. In Colorado, the javelin only appears at meets that choose to contest the event. I have yet to see it offered in Arizona. Utah has no girls pole vault at the state meet, though I hear rumblings that this situation may be about to change.
With respect to relays, Utah goes the minimalist route. The only state-contested relays in the Beehive State are the 4x100, 4x400, and 1600 SMR. New Mexico adds the 4x200, but with only a two-turn stagger. To New Mexico’s total, Colorado takes away the 1600 SMR and replaces it with an 800 SMR (for girls only), and adds the 4x800. Colorado’s 4x200 employs a four-turn stagger. As many of you know Arizona has 4x100, 4x400 and 4x800, striking a middle ground between its neighbors.
I hear many varied expressions of relay envy from distance-oriented coaches in New Mexico and Utah. There are many coaches in either state who would, in a heartbeat, discard their 1600 SMRs in favor of 4x800s. Ironically the athletes I talk to seem to yearn for a DMR over a 4x800.
State qualification in Arizona and Colorado is strictly by rankings. At the end of Colorado's season, the top 18 in each event and classification (or the top 9 or 12 in 1A, depending on event) advance to state. Regional meets are a relic of the past, though there is some sentiment to change that back to the way it was a few years ago. Both Utah and New Mexico have provisions for prequalifying for state in addition to regional meet qualifying.
If you go to a state-qualifying meet in Arizona, Utah or Colorado, you will see wind gauges in use. For athletes in the wind-critical events (100, 200, 100/110H, LJ, and TJ), legal wind readings are required for a state-qualifying mark. State records required a wind-legal mark as well. Outside of the state meet, it would be rare to see a wind gauge in use in New Mexico.
Speaking of state meets, these affairs are single-site, one weekend events in Arizona (well, if Wednesday is now a weekend day), Utah, and Colorado. Utah’s state meet is hosted at BYU, Arizona’s is hosted at Mesa Community College and Colorado’s is hosted at Jefferson County Stadium (the showpiece stadium of the largest school district in the state, and centrally located in suburban Denver). Mesa Community College was chosen, as I understand it, after a scheduling conflict with Arizona State University, which has a decidedly better track. Both MCC and ASU are located in Phoenix, which is the population hub in Arizona. BYU is relatively centrally located in Utah, particularly once you take into account the combined factors of geography and distribution of the state’s population. New Mexico’s state meet is split up over two weekends at UNM’s track and field facility in Albuquerque. 1A through 3A hold their state meet one weekend prior to 4A through 6A. And, in New Mexico, all roads definitely lead to Albuquerque…there is no conceivable rival to Albuquerque as the center of all things in New Mexico.
All but Arizona contest at least five classifications of their state meet. Arizona contests 4 after reducing their high school classification sizes a few years back. The size of these classifications differs dramatically across states. Both Utah and New Mexico have fewer than 30 schools in their largest classification (5A). Colorado, on the other hand, has in excess of 60. The disparity of numbers across other classifications is more or less consistent with the 5A numbers until you reach the smallest classifications. At the 1A and 2A levels, New Mexico and Utah have relatively more schools competing in comparison to Colorado. As I understand it Arizona divides their classifications to maintain equal school counts. This is roughly 50, though it varies by sport.
In any case, Colorado awards a much lower number of state championship trophies per participating school than either Utah or New Mexico, though comparable to Arizona.
Online registration is the entry mode of choice for Arizona, Utah and Colorado. Most schools in Utah use RunnerCard to manage their meets, while use of Hy-Tek’s meet manager is required in Colorado. Arizona tends favor Athletic.net.
It’s a different story in New Mexico. Only a fraction of the meets in New Mexico use any meet management software. Hy-Tek gets used in a few larger school meets. RunnerCard appears occasionally in meets from the southern part of the state, and if you look hard enough you can find a meet with athletic.net. One or two very small circulation meet management programs may be in use elsewhere in the state, but they barely add to the total of meets using any sort of technological aids in seeding and scoring.
As you may have already surmised, meets using fully automatic timing are uncommon in New Mexico. FAT is mandated for state-qualifying meets in Arizona, Utah and Colorado.
The differences extend beyond the state-mandated season. In all four states, there is a winter indoor season and a summer outdoor season. In Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, these seasons are contested pretty much strictly at the club level (the exception being that the New Mexico state association counts participation in the Great Southwest Indoor against an athlete’s allowable number of meets). In Utah, the indoor season is competed on what amounts to essentially a scholastic level.*
Of the four states, indoor participation is easily the highest in Utah, second in Colorado, third in Arizona and fourth in New Mexico. Arizona indoor participation, while buoyed up by Desert Vista, on the aggregate probably falls just shy of New Mexico's. Utah uses indoor facilities at BYU, Weber State, Utah State, and the Olympic Ice Oval in Kearns (which features a 441-meter 8-lane indoor track around the speed-skating ice). Colorado uses indoor facilities at CU-Boulder, Colorado School of Mines, Western State, and the Air Force Academy. Arizona has a single indoor meet geared towards high schoolers at Northern Arizona’s Skydome. New Mexico has only the Albuquerque Convention Center for hosting indoor meets, but the 200-meter banked Mondo track there stays very, very busy over the months of January and February. In fact, I’ve heard rumors that the track is very definitely starting to show signs of wear from all the use it has received in its comparatively short history.
Doubtless, Utah’s proximity to the Simplot Games has helped to enhance the popularity of indoor track and field there, but you need more than just the Simplot Games to account for the number of athletes who participate in indoor track and field (and especially so in distance events) in Utah. At first blush, many coaches outside of Utah may look at the number of distance races run by athletes in Utah and conclude, "That's too much racing!" Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't, but it's difficult to argue with the kind of performances turned in by Utah's top distance runners, both male and female, over the past few years.
It’s a very different story for summer club track and field. This time, it’s Colorado that has the largest program, but participation in distance events is not especially large on the Colorado outdoor club scene. By way of comparison, summer club track and field is rather small in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The heat in Arizona and length of the season in Utah seem to be leading reasons for the lower participation numbers.
Speaking of the heat, scheduling is another way Arizona distinguishes themselves. Colorado and Utah tend to start their meets relatively early in the morning (8AM-10AM) in order to get the 4x800 and usually the mile complete before the day really warms up. At the biggest meets, they may still hold the 3200 under the stadium lights, but it isn’t past anyone’s bedtime. Arizona on the other hand likes to start meets at 11AM or later. While coaches do get to sleep in, their runners have to run the 4x800 and 1600 during the heat of the day. This also means meets tend to go really, really late. With the smaller meets New Mexico meets generally take place during daylight, which makes photographers' lives easier.
Other differences? There aren’t many more that come readily to mind, but New Mexico’s state association does allow for eighth graders to compete at the high school level. The decision of whether they actually do or not falls to local school governing bodies. Some schools are allowed to use eighth graders, and some are not. Typically, though not exclusively, the impact of eighth graders is seen more in the smaller school classifications.
* - Athletes are (mostly) identified with their school, not their club, at Utah indoor meets. There is, however, no state-sanctioned indoor state championship event.