AIA's new track and field championships format draws mixed reaction

The Arizona Interscholastic Association is entering a new world on the track in the next two weeks.

This week, starting Thursday and finishing Saturday, are the divisional track and field championships, being held at Mesa Red Mountain (Divisions I, IV and V) and Glendale Deer Valley (Divisions II and III).

The top 18 athletes in each event will advance to the state championships the following week at Mesa Community College in what in essence is the first Open state track and field championships, pitting the best from each of the five divisions into one meet.

There will be teams scoring both the divisions and the state championships, so a team that doesn't win the division title still has a chance to win the state title.

"I think it's great for the sport and the fans," said longtime track and field expert David Shapiro, who helps the AIA put on meets. "It keeps the divisional meet that many coaches wanted and also creates the best versus the best, regardless of school size.

"California with over 2,000 high schools has only one classification for state. Ohio only has one, as well. Years ago, I would have loved to have seen Chandler, Salpointe and North Canyon girls go head to head."

But North Canyon coach Airabin Justin, who has built a girls track dynasty, wonders if some of the top athletes will skip divisionals to focus only on state next week.

The top-six ranked athletes in each event automatically qualify for the state championships, but they need to be entered with the AIA by May 8 in order to participate.

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Justin said all of his top athletes will compete in both the divisional and state meets. So will Gilbert Williams Field hurdler Saira Prince, Red Mountain 800-meter runner Tyler Mathews and Mountain Pointe 400-meter runner Jayden Davis, who all set state records within an hour of each other at the Arcadia Invitational, be running in this week's divisional championships and preserve their energy for state with chances to go even faster than their state records?

"The division and the Open two weeks in a row, that's really tough, especially for a team like us that doesn't have that many kids," Justin said. "Some of the kids aren't even running this week in the division. It's kind of bad."

Lori Larsen, who was co-director of California high school track and field championships in Sacramento in 1997 and '99 and served on the AIA track and field advisory board from 2014-17, believes what Arizona is doing this year is a better format, calling it similar to California.

"This significantly raises the quality of this event," she said.

Chandler girls track and field coach Eric Richardson, whose teams have won 14 state championships since 2006, said he likes the format, but he doesn't like how state is structured with back-to-back days of competition on May 12 and 13 at Mesa Community College.

Usually, at state, there is at least one day of rest between preliminaries and finals.

"AIA did drop the ball by not listening to the committee when structuring the meet," Richardson said. "The top kids in the state who must compete in more than one event are forced into going back-to-back nights at an extremely high level. The risk of injury without a day of rest in between is really short-sighted and narrow-minded by the AIA."

Phoenix St. Mary's coach Don Durkee believes this is a way of getting kids to participate in what was previously called the Meet of Champions, which included top athletes from every division. That was like an all-star event that wasn't well-attended less than a week after the state competition, after athletes had used up their energies there.

"For the most part, it will be a repeat of the Division I meet," Durkee said. "I believe that's why most of the D.I state champions in the past elected not to participate in the Meet of Champions. Each divisional champion should be considered a state champion.

"It will be interesting to see how things work out with the current format."

Xavier Prep girls coach David Van Sickle believes this is the right direction for the AIA.

"No more speculating who the best of each event is," he said. "From a fan's perspective, this is what you want to see. The key is to add leverage with the 'state championship' title linked with this meet, so the kids will show up. They want to be called 'state champ.'

"Personally, I like this meet to crown individual champions and not determine the best track and field team. A team could have a few stars and they could win a team title? In my opinion, a couple of good kids does not make up a team. However, that's another story."

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AIA's new track and field championships format draws mixed reaction