I love the sport oftrack and filed and I hate to join the naysayer?s and negativists, butI think the sport is in real trouble. How can the Executive Director ofUSA Track & Filed proclaim that our distance runners are back?Where is the evidence, certainly not in performance? How about progressin the technical events, where is it? Unfortunately you cannot solvethe problem by going to the people who created the problem for asolution. There needs to be fresh blood and ideas in the sport. Thereis more money now than ever and less production ? where are theresults? For example the California Statemeet and the CIF Sothern Section Masters meet have been on our cable TVfeed. I watched the two meets with great interest because I started mycoaching career in Californiaand I feel those two meets are very indicative of the state of thesport. Watching them only confirms again that the sport is in trouble.The depth of performance is not there. There was a scattering of topmarks but nothing compared to twenty or thirty years ago. I think part of the problem isthat these meets are just not as important to the kids as they used tobe. There is now a plethora of all star meets and national meets thathave served to diminish the school competition. School competition hasalways been the cornerstone of our success in the sport. Fewer of thecoaches are teachers at the schools, so it is less a part of the wholeeducational experience. Track & Field is a sport that I love, itgave me my foundation as a coach, I hate to see the path that it isgoing down.
