Cross-Country Plan Aims to Hike State Meet Entries

A proposal to increase the number of participants in the state junior college cross-country championships and eliminate the Northern and Southern California regionals will be voted on this week by members of the state Track and Field Coaches Assn.

The measure would increase the number of teams competing in the state meet from 10 to 28 in both the men’s and women’s divisions and increase the maximum number of individual qualifiers from 30 to 60.

Results of the mail-in balloting should be known by the second week in January.

“We’re trying to form a meet that reflects a state the size of California,” said Antelope Valley Coach Mark Covert, who helped develop the proposal. “The way it is now, our state meet is one of the smallest championship meets in the world.”

Under current guidelines, a maximum of 100 runners (10 teams of seven runners each and as many as 30 individuals) compete in each race, but that number would increase to 256 if the proposal passes.

By comparison, about 575 runners, including 63 teams, competed for boys’ and girls’ titles in four divisions each in this year’s state high school championships in Fresno.

If passed by the coaches’ association, the proposal still would need to be ratified by each of the state’s 12 cross-country conferences and the state Commission on Athletics.

If approved, the measure could be implemented next year.

While more than doubling the number of participants in the state championships, the proposal would cut traveling expenses because regionals would be eliminated.