Athletics Veritas is a weekly series aimed at helping higher education executives, faculty, and other stakeholders stay tuned in on trending national issues impacting college athletics, especially NCAA Division I. Athletics Veritas is created by senior DI athletic administrators around the nation.
Term-in-Ology: Fast Facts Around The Track
As the winter NCAA sport seasons have come to a close and we turn our attention to spring sports, let’s look at five fast facts related to indoor and outdoor track and field.
Using a season of competition is truly sport specific. It is possible for a track student-athlete, for example, to exhaust four seasons of eligibility in indoor track by the end of their fourth year of enrollment, but still have season(s) of competition left in outdoor track (and vice versa).
An NCAA Division I school that sponsors cross country, indoor track and field, or outdoor track and field as separate sports may use the services of one volunteer coach for each of the sports that it sponsors. Each volunteer coach may coach student-athletes in any of the three sports throughout the academic year. Further, an NCAA Division I school that competes in pole vault may use the services of one additional volunteer coach (to coach both genders), limited to coaching pole vault.
Under the NCAA’s safety exception, a track and field coach may be present during voluntary individual workouts in the institution's regular practice facility (without the workouts being considered as countable athletically-related activities) when the student-athlete is engaged in field events, jumping hurdles or the jumping element of the steeplechase. In these instances, the coach may provide safety or skill instruction but may not conduct the individual's workouts.
According to the NCAA’s membership requirements, a member institution may receive credit for sponsoring both indoor track and field and outdoor track and field, provided its team participates in a total of at least eight indoor and outdoor meets during the year, including at least three indoor and three outdoor meets.
Both indoor and outdoor track and field teams at the Division I level have some flexibility in terms of the divisional level of teams they must compete against to fulfill the sport sponsorship requirements. Specifically in cross country, men's swimming and diving, indoor and outdoor track and field, and wrestling, an institution must schedule and play at least 50 percent of its contests against Division I opponents to satisfy the minimum number of contests requirements.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
