Message from MTCCCA Godfather Dean Hays

"I don't know this for a fact, I just know it is true." - Bill Maher

    Several years back Joe Bill Dixon of West Plains made the statement to the effect that in cross country whichever team gets their 5th runner across 1st usually wins the meet.   While I definitely believe there is validity to the statement, I wanted to crunch the numbers to see.  Since Breitbart News has no data on the state CC meet, real or imagined, I had to go to the official MSHSAA state meet results for my source. (Note 1)

    For girls, the team that has their 5th runner across 1st is the best predictor.  The team that won the state meet had the top 5th place finisher 77% of the time.  Next highest was the top 4th place finisher which happened 73% of the time.  For boys, however, the highest 5th place finisher at 70% was only the 3rd best predictor behind 3rd place at 73% and 4th place at 80%.  Combined, the 269 state meets show the top 4th place finisher was the best predictor 77% of the time with 5th place at 73%.  Not much of a statistical difference to quibble and Coach Dixon's assertion of "usually" is affirmed.  As if there would be any doubt.

    Now for another two cents that may tick some of you off but I hope makes you think.   In high school track and field, NFHS Rule 6.7.11 and NFHS Rule 6.9.13 are the most abused rules in all the NFHS Rulebook.  The first rule covers the measurement in the shot put to the lesser ¼ inch and the later covers the same for the horizontal jumps.

    While I already knew that the queen of alternative facts who had done so much for Todd Akin's senate campaign would be of no help in providing data to prove my assertion on the track rules, I next thought of turning to the accounting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers but, for some reason, quickly decided against that.  Instead, I used official MSHSAA district and sectional meet results to justify my claim.  More importantly, these are meets with assigned field event referees. (Note 2)

    If all head field event judges followed the rule book, measurements in these three events would all in end in only four different ways with a 1/4, a 1/2, a 3/4 or nothing at all - to the nearest inch.  Over a course of time, each should have an equal chance of occurring, each at roughly 25%.  However, looking at the last two years of boy's district meet results for the top eight places, I did not find that.  Marks without a fraction occurred almost half the time at 45.3%.  Marks ending in 1/2 inch happened 30.4% of the time, slightly more than they should, while 1/4 and 3/4 occurred 12.7% and 11.7% - each about half as often.   In looking at specific events, in just over half the time (52.9%) all marks were measured OK.  That is with great leniency.  In 30% of the time, there are no marks in those events to the ¼ inch.

     I extended the data out to look at 10 years of boy's district meet results and found the percents almost the same.   For 10 years of sectional meets, the results are only slightly better - nearest inch drops by 6% and each of the other three grows by 2%. (Note 3)

    The net effect is that over the last 10 years, there may have been up to 30 athletes that could have qualified for the state meet but did not do to incompetence and/or ignorance.  Educated guess on my part and never said would of or should of.  Another effect is that if I as a coach saw it was measured wrong and made a protest it should be upheld and never get to the jury of appeals.  A rule was clearly not followed and it is up to the meet referee per rule 3.4.4 to determine how that event would be re-run.

    Two-part question.  Is the incompetence/ignorance of not following the rules because of a lack of knowledge of the rules or is it due to incompetence/ignorance in knowing how to read a measuring tape? 

    I think it is more of the later than the former.

    What can be done to fix the problems as I see them?  We start recording marks in metric. 

    I would like to quote Ron White now but I do have some restraints.  He said, "You can't fix (blank)", but in this case, it will also be much easier to prevent (blank) than to fix (blank). 

    At any hand-timed track meet that Hardin-Central runs the scoring computer, I tell the finish line group to go ahead and record everything to the hundredths.  It is much easier for me to train an HS sophomore of whose educational ability I am aware to do it right in Hy-Tek when they get the finish line sheets than to try to explain to 6 or 8 people at the finish line with educational abilities I will not attempt to guess and sometimes may question. By preventing (blank) we have correct results according to the rule book.

    Florida is recording marks in their HS state series meets this spring in metric per NFHS rulebook.  Part of their reasoning stated is nonsense but the basic reason is that it will all but eliminate the incompetence/ignorance of both reasons stated above.   We should still announce results in English.  If you use Hy-Tek, click reports, preferences and then FE conversions (results) and it will print the results of FE in metric and in English.  As a head judge of that event, after recording in metric, just flip it over and read aloud it in English.  That is what I did in college meets.

    Give me a good reason not to propose this to the advisory committee in June.  A handful of kids each year may thank you.

Dean Hays

 

Note 1) Boys state meets included are from 1950 through 2016 in all classes (148 total) and girls from 1979 through 2016 (121 total).  On the boy's side, however, I am missing complete meet results from 1955 through 1963 so they cannot be included.  The 1972 meet is not included because the official numbers do not add up.   The 1977 meet results do not have the pushers included and I have very incomplete results for 1978 so none are not included.  The 1986 Class 3A boys meet is included with proper scoring - Carthage only had 4 finish but their runners were included incorrectly in the adjusted places in the official scoring.  I will note also that having the top 1st place finisher is worst among all places to predict the meet winner.

Note 2) I did not use state meet results because they are done by competent people and are correct.

Note 3) There were 1918 marks in the district meets in those three events over the last two years.   There were 7848 marks looked at the previous 10 years of district meet results and 3687 marks in 10 years of sectional meets.  The number of LJ, TJ, SP events the past two years was 240.  Twice, an event had the top eight marks all to the nearest inch.  The probability of that happening once is, I think, 1 out of 65,536 times.