The NCHSAA has determined the direction it wants to go in two cases that got significant public attention earlier this year: the jewelry rule, and the scoring policy for wheelchair athletes. First, the sanctioning body for North Carolina's public school athletics has decided to follow the new NFHS rulebook and drop the old ban on jewelry. This will simplify the jobs of meet officials, lead to less disqualifications, and bring high school track and cross country in line with other levels of the sport that already allow jewelry (USATF/AAU club competition, NCAA competition, etc.). This choice falls in line with overwhelming opinion among the public and the coaches on NCRunners polls earlier this season.
Jewelry Rule Public Poll
Second, the NCHSAA made two decisions regarding adaptive competition. It was decided today that there will be no change in the way adaptive athletes are scored in meets. Adaptive athletes (those that compete in wheelchairs or with other accomodations due to physical or mental disabilities) will still score points toward their school's team scores, rather than being placed in a separate division. In order to score points, the athlete must meet the standard for the event during the competition - in other words, if a male wheelchair thrower at the indoor state meet does not throw over 8 feet during that meet, then he does not score. When adaptive athletes do score, the number of points will be determined by the number of participants in the event. If there is only one athlete, then he or she receives 1 point; with 2 athletes in the event, first place gets 2 points and second place 1 point; and so on. All of this is exactly the way that adaptive athletes have been scored for the past several years, and the NCHSAA has held firm to its policy. Scoring by wheelchair athletes contributed to Mount Tabor's boys state championship in outdoor track season (although I continue to maintain that the outcome of the pole vault was what really determined the title in that meet). The NCHSAA rejected a proposal by the coaches association that would have created a separate championship for all adaptive athletes.
Revisit the Poll on Adaptive Athlete Scoring
The qualifying standards for adaptive athletes are a puzzling story in themselves. New standards are prepared by the North Carolina Track and Cross Country Coaches Association (NCTCCCA), and this year's indoor standards were determined at their July board meeting. In the minutes for that meeting, it states that the NCTCCCA recommended no change to the adaptive standards. However, according to NCTCCCA executive director DePaul Mittman, the NCHSAA contacted them in September and told them they had to revise the standards for the adaptive events. The new standards they created, which were adopted by the NCHSAA in November, were dramatically different than last year's standards (see table below for some examples). When I brought this to the NCHSAA's attention last week, they came back with adjusted standards that are much more reasonable. However, the question remains: why did the NCHSAA insist on adjusting the standards in events where no more than 2 participants qualified last year? As of the publication of this article, the NCHSAA has not provided their reasoning for this decision.
| Event | 2014 Standard |
Original 2015 Standard (before Thanksgiving) |
Revised 2015 Standard (after Thanksgiving) |
| Boys WC SP | 6' 0" | 11' 1" | 8' 0" |
| Boys WC 55 | 25.24 | 16.04 | 23.24 |
| Girls WC SP | 4' 0" | 7' 2" | 6' 0" |
| Girls WC 55 | 28.24 | 19.04 | 26.24 |