Agenda approved

Minutes Approved

There is a concern that the Cal Coaches Alliance now has two seats on the State Advisory Committee when they only have a membership of 225 members. Other groups that would like to have representation on this committee do not have a seat due to the small group that they do not represent. It is felt that this Alliance does not represent the whole state since most of its members come from the Southern Section of the State.

If the Alliance does not increase its membership greatly, it could lose its seat on this committee. Discussion continued on how to raise its membership.

1. With the ($25.00/individual or $85.00 for a complete school staff), membership fee a coach receives a million dollar liability insurance which is the best reason to join.
2. It is a place to voice your opinions in regards to how our sport is run.
3. The State would like to keep their seats on the committee so they are going to help with advertising flyers in the State Meet Packets.
4. All coaches should encourage other coaches to join.

Marty reported that the State Meet ran well despite the inclement weather. Some changes that occurred at the meet were the blockage of some parking areas and barricades to keep coaches from certain areas that could have interrupted some runners.

A situation came up that a runner said he qualified for the meet, but there were not hard copies of results from the sections offices to support or disprove him. The management allowed him to run, only to find out later that he did not qualify.

Restrooms near the warm-up area were not open on Friday, but the will be in the future to ensure that people will not have to wait in long lines on Friday.

Our goal would be to have the meet with at least a $5000 bonus, but any amount in the black is a good sign.

At the championships this year, Hal Harkness posted a notice to coaches about the uniform ruling and explained that headbands and hair-ribbons would not be acceptable during the race. It was posted on the Dyestat.com website, but not many people knew about it. The athletes were asked to remove any ribbons and were checked thoroughly for their compliance with the uniform rules. Most of it went very well. In our section, the York Team should have been disqualified for illegal shorts, but were still allowed to run. They had different shorts and they contained different decorations on them. This should not happen at this level.

They did allow runners to have hats and gloves due to the rain and cold. This will be decided by the games committee on the game of the meet.

Discussion was raised about whether it was appropriate to make the girls to remove their hair ribbons. Hal Harkness, a member of the National Rules Committee stated that he felt that they were an unnecessary part of the uniform and classified them as jewelry. A few coaches agreed that they were unnecessary and that the kids should just be there to compete and not worry about their appearance. Roberta Chisam brought up the point that the hair ribbons were also about team unity and school spirit. There are many ways that kids can express themselves and that this is a very positive way and it really does not cause harm to anyone. Where are we going to draw the line? Boys have tattoos and dye their hair or make Mohawks and strange gooey messes. Hal agreed to look at the decision again and in his National Rules Committee he will discuss it with others and get back to us. It is not a rule that hair ribbons are jewelry, so this is a personal interpretation by Hal as a member of the Games Committee.

We need to get information on this for the track season.

For the 2005 season, the following will be the XC team qualifiers for the CCS:

It was brought to our attention that some teams were bringing up their whole program and introducing 20-30 kids on the awards stand. We need to reduce the time of the awards for continuity and respect of the teams that earned the awards. We are encouraging coaches to only bring up the 7 runners and 2 alternates to the victory stand. There are only 7 medals to award and they are the ones that should be given the recognition at that time.

For the meet coming in June, the same format as last years meet will take place. The Pole Vault will be on the backstretch this year. In odd numbered years the Girls will be first in the events and on even numbered years, the boys will be first.

1. The tentative meet schedule will be posted on the CIF website in late March with the final schedule posted the Sunday before the meet in May.

It was brought to our attention that the track at Cerritos College is in desperate need of a make-over. The bill was passed a couple of years ago to have it done, but they have not gotten around to do it yet. There is discussion of holding it at Mt. SAC if possible.

The coaches in the North Coast Section and Tim O’Rourke wrote a letter to the committee encouraging the committee to consider allowing the steeplechase to be held for one year with sanctioning to show the support that the event could raise. The committee discussed the interest in it, but only three sections (NC, CCS,SS) showed much interest in the event. There was much concern in the liability of allowing an athlete to do an event that could be severely dangerous without proper training. There is only one high school in California that we could think of that has steeplechase equipment. This means that coaches would be responsible for transporting their athletes to Jr Colleges or Universities to train for the event. Jumping a hurdle is not a true preparation for steeplechasing. It was also felt that most schools just wanted the event for invitationals, not dual meets or the championship level so there was a question raised as to why we need the event. It was discussed that we are not responsible for training athletes for the next level, the Olympics or whatever so we cannot be held to their events. The same argument was made for the Hammer,and Javelin. The State of California does not recognize these events as sanctioned and does not want athletes participating in them. This means that coaches should not be hosting clinics, practices or enter their athletes in competitions with these events without proper sanctions.

If we want to get this event on line, we need to show statistics of other states that run the event, how many participants they have and how many schools in California would actually participate in this event.

The State has taken over the Coaches recognition review board. They are not having Honor coaches for each sport any more. Instead, they have the Model Coaches Award. They will take up to 18 recommendations for the different sections and sometimes there will be a XC or TF coach and sometimes there will be many, like this year all of the four that the recognized were. And some years it will be from different sports. Bottom line, each sport needs to have their recommendations submitted to their section representatives.

During the State Championships, any vertical jumper that is entered in and needs to leave for another event has the choice to talk to the jumping event to finish their attempts at the height and jump out of order before checking out. They will have 30 minutes to return and jump again. If while they were gone, the bar was raised, it will stay raised and the athlete must attempt that height or higher if they wish to stay in the competition.

The new uniform rule allows both boys and girls to wear a one piece body suit without shorts over them. This does not allow a person to wear a singlet and just long tights. It also does not allow someone who wears shorter tights, like bikers, to not follow the rules. They must be of a single color with not writing or decoration. If more than one person wears them, the relay team must all be dressed identical.