CHSAA Track & Field Committee Deep Sixes SMR8


Get your watching in this spring, because after this spring there won't be many SMR8s around Colorado to watch.

It was expected to be a largely uneventful meeting of the CHSAA Track and Field Committee. In at least one important respect, it didn't end up that way.

CHSAA commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green made the observation that the SMR8 created a gender equity issue for the state association. After a brief period of discussion, it was voted to recommend to the April Legislative Council meeting that the SMR8 be terminated as a state event following the 2018 outdoor season.

That leaves the state with 18 boys and 18 girls events and removes Colorado from the status of being the only state with a disparate number of boys and girls events. Passage is expected at the Legislative Council meeting, but the vote will come too late to change things for this season.

Meets that wish may still host the SMR8, for this coming season and beyond. For this year only, it will be a requirement of rankings meets that they host the SMR8.

Usage of the SMR8 as a state event in Colorado reaches back more than 30 years. It originally came in as a gender equity event in view of the fact that girls did not have pole vault at the time it was introduced. It now leaves the scene under the same circumstances as it came in, as a gender equity consideration.