Things to Do in Tally When You're Dead

 Yes, it's been nine months since I've written a blog.  I don't know if it was semi-retirement, a sudden feeling of angst over the another abrupt ending to the Kansas basketball season or just a lack of enthusiasm about the outdoor track season in Southwest Florida.

You see when I last put fingers to keyboard I was complaining about a nine hour high school track meet.  The only meets I attended last spring that didn't run a couple of  lifetimes were league, district, regions, and my second trip to the Florida High School Track and Field Championships.  It was a rather unsatisfying trip to Jacksonville because granddaughter Masha finished one spot off the podium.  Although it was heartening to see Bishop Verot's MacKenzie DeLisle win her first state title.

While out on a ponderously slow run tonight I decided to dust off the blog and write about a rather interesting trip to Tallahassee, a city I've driven past on I-10 on numerous occasions.  I've avoided making the trip because it's a god awful drive from Fort Myers.  It's a six hour torture test with unpredictable traffic tie ups south of Tampa and again as you drive north of Tampa.

An evening arrival to Florida's State Capitol landed the Czarina and I in a terrible Wyndham Garden hotel.  The place hasn't been updated since the Reagan administration and there's nothing like finding blood spots on your pillow cases.  

On a beautiful Friday we took a visit to the state capitol.  It's rather austere building that looms over the old state capitol that looks like a wreck.  Atop the 22nd floor we were afforded a beautiful view of Tallahassee and the campus of Florida State University.  Other than that the only other excitement came when the Czarina decided to stage a re-enactment of January 6th but fortunately, or unfortunately, neither the House or Senate were in session.

We then took the drive out to Apalachee Regional Park, site of the 2024 Florida High School Cross Country Championships and future host of the World Cross Country Championships.  This course is one of the nicest layouts I've ever seen.  While it pails in comparison to the beauty and the challenges offered by the University of Kansas Rim Rock course Apalachee has plenty of parking and offers spectators decent options for viewing the racing.

I was in Tallahassee to cover the meet for the Fort Myers News-Press and to catch my granddaughter Masha's final cross country meet running for Fort Myers High School.

Nothing in Masha's early season meets suggested what was to come.  She showed progress year over year from meet to meet but she didn't score her first victory and first ever league title winning by more than a minute.  After interviewing her for the paper I suggested that she shouldn't discount her chances at winning State.  No one in her division was running out of her minds and by the time she toed the line for Districts, she was ranked 4th in Florida's Class 3A Division.  

Masha repeated her defense of her District title and a week later won her first ever Region championship.  Again she won by 40 seconds.  Even though her winning time wasn't stunning I again reminded her that winning State wasn't out of the question.

So here we are in Tallahassee, rolling out of bed at 5:44 a.m. to catch the 7:20 start of the girl's Class 3A race at the FSHAA Cross Country meet.  The weather was outstanding.  It was 49 degrees with almost no wind.  A thick fog hung over the starting area which was atop a hill about a 500 yards from where I was standing.

The gun sounded and slowly the horde of 200 plus girls emerged from the gloom and started heading toward my position.  I strained to see if I could pick her out of the front pack as it zoomed by me.  Masha is generally loathe to position herself up front early in a race, preferring to carefully pick her way through the field.  But panic ensued as I couldn't spot her.  Next to me I could hear one of the Fort Myers moms shouting go Masha and suddenly I spotted two of her teammates passing by in new uniforms.  The all black singlets were difficult to spot and I later saw their they were wearing shorts that had their names monogramed onto them.

Masha hit the first timing mat at 750 meters in 12th place.  If you would have asked me I would have said that's a good spot to be in to finish in the top five, but not if you want to win.

By the mile she had made up the five second gap on first making her way up to second.  I had refused to run around the course choosing to watch the big screen with its video feed.  I had trouble picking up on exactly what was going on. It turns out what was going on was Masha making a move going up a hill before heading by the finish line on the first of two loops and by the time she passed my spot about 200 yards away from the two mile mark she was five seconds up on second place and looking fresh and unconcerned.  

Masha doesn't have a great kick so I worried that if she slowed too much she would have trouble staying in the top three.  But Masha made a decisive move on the toughest hill that the course had to offer, affectionately known as The Wall.  She had lengthen her lead and she confided later that she was worried about why no one was going with her.

As she crested the last hill and made the final turn 200 meters from the finish she was well clear of the field.  I could see the smile spreading across her face as she ran easily toward the finish showing no signs of stress or concern.  There was no demonstration or histrionics as she hit the finish line, it was simply the biggest smile I had ever seen on her face.  The time, 18:05.5, her fastest cross country ever.

There were hugs and tears from mom Natasha while dad Vlad looked rather stoic and Masha came over for a post race hug.  She then spotted her teammates that had just finished and there were more tears and hugs.  It seemed as though the girls from Fort Myers High cared more about her winning than Masha cared.  

Then I wrangled her for a post-race interview for the paper.  I have teased her mercilessly about her awful answers to my questions in past post-race sessions but this time with that massive grin still attached to her face she gave the best interview of her life.

The rest of the meet was anything but uneventful.  After all two of Masha's rivals were running in the 2A section of the meet.  MacKenzie DeLisle was one of the pre-meet favorites and Jazlyn Forbes couldn't be counted out.  When it was over you could see that MacKenzie just didn't have it.  She ran to a respectable fifth place finish while Forbes had finally tagged her rival grabbing the number four spot.  Masha has never beaten MacKenzie while she's managed to take down Forbes a couple of times.  Her winning time was more than 15 seconds faster than either rival.

The icing to this championship cake came when the senior laden squad from Bishop Verot claimed the boys Class 2A title.  It was the school's first ever cross country title.  The Vikings managed to put three boys in the top ten and even more remarkable, third and fifth place finishers, Andrew Marino, Jr. and Zach Zeilke had been battling various illnesses over the last two weeks.

And that brings us back to another first.  Fort Myers High has long been a Florida cross country power.  The school has produced a bevy of outstanding distance runners, most recently Krissy Gear who was a many time All American at Arkansas and won the 2023 national title in the steeplechase.  But Masha accomplished something that hadn't happened in more than a decade.  Masha became the first female harrier from Fort Myers High to claim an individual title. none that came before her could claim.  Masha became the first female harrier from Fort Myers High since the great Emily Edwards took the top spot in 2013.

Houston, We Have A Problem

Somewhere high school track and field went off the reservation.  Follow me here to the reality that an invitational track meet with a large field and heats can run five to six hours.  That's understandable.  

Now this old man yelling get off my front porch ran in large high school invitationals that would take three to four hours.  That's before our nation pulled its collective head out of its posterior and started inviting girls.  But even then I can remember going to a league meet in the late 70's that took three hours.

Last weekend I attended a large invitational meet that took nine hours.  Let me repeat that, nine hours.  That's insane and it's stupid.  And it's all about the money.  I don't blame the schools trying to monetize a big meet.  But greed is going to kill it with this kind of a mind sucking event.

We don't need 17 heats of the boys and girls 200.  A large invitational meet should be for VARSITY runners.  Not just every high school kid who wants to run.  It's not fan friendly and yes, fans do attend even if they don't have a kid out there in spikes.

Yes, we need junior varsity meets.  We had three a year when I was in high school.  That's it.  Running a varsity meet was a privilege.   But those JV athletes don't need to be at big meets.  Hold a few tri's or quad's and maybe one big JV invitational.

If you want to invite 20 to 25 schools to run your meet, either limit the entries or as World Athletics has figured out, limit the events.  No one school should have eight athletes in a single event which I saw last weekend. That's ridiculous.

Meets need to be kept to a manageable five hours for the sake of the kids and the sake of the parents and just as importantly, the sake of the officials.

Florida has a long enough season and more than enough meets to make this work.  It just takes a lot of communication and cooperation between the coaches and the state federation that rules the sport.  

Some athletes who make it all the way through the state series end of running  more than 12 meets not counting the new indoor season that's been added.  Ten meets is plenty for a season.  I challenge the coaches and administrators to figure this out.  But I'm a realist, the money from all those schools is too attractive to show some discipline and hold five hour meets.