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If you are a track and field coach or athlete in southwestern Pennsylvania, Baldwin High School is THE place to be come the middle of May.
Forecasts of a storm-filled day had many WPIAL (District 7) coaches thinking that competing for state berths at the home of the Highlanders was the last thing they would be doing Thursday. District officials decided otherwise, sticking with their originally scheduled date for the district championships before Mother Nature finally won out and forced a handful of field events and the final five running events to be contested Saturday morning.
Dozens of coaches expressed disappointment in the decision to compete Thursday when weather charts several days out showed a 100 percent chance of rain/thunder throughout the day and the likelihood of stormy weather increasing as the day unfolded. The unrelenting rain left everyone in attendance soggy and looking for answers.
“I’m disappointed in it,” Greensburg Salem coach Jeremy Lenzi said of the decision to compete while at least three other PIAA districts changed their schedule to hopefully avoid expected inclement weather. “When you see (District 1) make a proactive move (to Saturday and Sunday), you can see with them that they’re concerned about what’s best for their kids. And we got none of that today, and it’s very disappointing.”
“All that this is about is let’s get this meet in. It has nothing to do with trying to get our best kids on (to Shippensburg) and even worrying about that. A WPIAL championship is still important to our kids, too. (Meet officials) need to keep that in mind. It’s not about just getting four kids through.”
The top four in each Class AAA event and top five in each Class AA event were guaranteed spots in Shippensburg for the PIAA meet. An unofficial tally of additional state berths secured Thursday by matching the qualifying standard showed just one extra entry into Pennsylvania’s championships.
“I wished that we had the flexibility to do that,” veteran Mt. Lebanon coach Mike Agostinella said of pushing the WPIAL meet back before it started as happened in District 1. “For some reason, the people in our area seem to be very deadline conscious. They don’t seem to have the flexibility. I would like to get the straight scoop on why District 1 can do that, and we can never seem to be able to do that.”
WPIAL official Tom Norris said any chance of changing dates for the one-day extravaganza for both classes was squashed because of another spring tradition – high school proms.
“Our discussions about moving (dates) were focused on, of all things, proms,” Norris said after the meet was suspended about 7:30 p.m. Thursday. “There are 20 proms (Friday) night and 11 proms on Saturday night. If we go (Friday), we run into those 20 proms and the fact that Baldwin (allows its students to return to the school parking lots). (So Friday) we’ve got no place to park, we’ve got the proms (and) the kids are all going to want to go to the proms.
“We determined that we would either come back on Saturday or Sunday. We have not run anything on Sunday so in spite of what District 1 is doing in going Saturday and Sunday, we have not used Sunday at all.”
The potential conflict with local proms that meet officials worked around was not well received by a number of coaches as the reason for battling the worst of the weather.
“When the first thing I hear out of their mouths is there are (20) proms, I’m sorry that’s not what this is about,” LaBuff said. “Run it in the morning tomorrow (and) most of those kids could have had their meet done. Even if they moved it to Saturday, fine, but this?”|
The pre-meet unrest with many coaches was magnified during the coaches’ meeting about 45 minutes before the start of competition. The response to a question about available shelter in case of lightning or severe weather drew an unexpected answer from a meet official, according to numerous coaches.
“It was pretty disappointing to be perfectly honest,” said Seneca Valley coach Gar Bercury, who asked meet officials about whether the meet would be moved and then about available shelter in light of team buses being moved some distance off site. “To hear someone say, ‘that’s your problem.” That’s not good. There are other issues with that just beyond the fact that that’s incredibly shortsighted. It’s not professional, and I think a lot of coaches are really mad about it … it’s not good. It’s just not good.”
According to coaches, Baldwin officials subsequently offered the school gymnasium as shelter in case of severe weather. “It’s sad that you assume the worst,” Bercury said. “When you look at how proactive the largest district in the state, with all kinds of issues with a two-day meet, they were proactive and we here knew that the weather was going to be even worse. That is was a guarantee, and it was going to be worse than they were going to get. It starts at the top and I’m not afraid to say that.”
Rain from the outset kept the pole vault pits covered and the event on hold, while the remainder of the meet moved along at a fairly steady pace except for brief stoppages to clear standing water from throwing circles and jumping aprons.
The constant rain also resulted in at least one heated exchange between an event judge and meet official as all in attendance tried to minimize how wet they were getting. Meet officials worked to avoid any problems with unreadable results because of soggy stat sheets as they supplied waterproof paper and pens to aid the recording of field event results.
Many competitors in the throws had trouble matching marks from earlier this season as their implements simply were harder to control and hold. Coaches with athletes in the Class AAA boys’ discus reported that at least four competitors had falls during their attempts as the circle filled with water, and one competitor tumbled and came away mud covered like the implement he was throwing.
Also, the triple jump shut down before the meet was suspended because of standing water in the pit and officials were waiting for a break in the rain to start a girls’ long jump competition when the meet was called.
Meet officials made some minor adjustments in the typical championship schedule, minimizing a break between the prelims and finals in hopes of getting a leg up on the weather. In the end, Mother Nature won out, and one coach said those doubling up in the 100 and 200 dashes and the 4x800 relays and 1,600 runs were left with much less of a breather in between.
The first weather delay in the meet occurred at about 4:30 p.m. after the boys’ Class AAA 1,600-meter run field pushed through easily the heaviest rain of the day that sent the other competitors, coaches and spectators scrambling for drier, sturdier surroundings.
“So the weather’s bad, then postpone the meet,” LaBuff said. “Now we are going to punish the athletes. They are going to say we thought about the athletes because we stopped it in the middle of a downpour. It just shouldn’t have been happening at all.
“We all understand when things have to be done. This did not have to be done.”
Shortly after the meet resumed with the 400 dashes in both classes, the rain also returned. However, this time it appeared to be here to stay for several more hours.
“I thought I had enough of a window that we would be able to get it in,” Norris said of resuming the meet shortly after 6 p.m. and a 95-minute delay. “When it came time to run, we were watching the radar. At the time when we canceled, the radar had moved and it was coming right straight from the south, right straight up on us. There was no break after. Before that, it was moving to the east and we had some breaks.
“We determined that it was possible that the conditions on the track, even though it’s an all-weather surface, would be dangerous. Coming off the intermediate hurdles, somebody might get hurt.”
The approval to bring a halt to the meet was met with both approval and further disappointment.
“Should have done this four hours earlier,” Gateway’s LaBuff said. “I had already been told they were postponing it after the (4x100 relay). I said, ‘Why not do it now? None of the AAA 4x1s have run.’ ‘Oh no’ (was the response). What are you going to do?”
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