Survey of the State High School Activities Associations Relative to Two Problems in High School Track. Resource Monograph No. 9

This monograph concerns two problems that arise persistently at the Track Committee of the Florida Athletic Coaches Association annual meeting: (a) types of relays--with many coaches favoring distance events while others prefer sprint events, leaving the problem of agreeing on the balance to be reached between these two types of events, and (b) limitations of participants--with divergent opinions regarding how many and in what types of events a high school athlete can participate within a prescribed period of time without danger of muscle strain or other undue stress. To facilitate the committee's making recommendations relative to these problems, a survey was taken of the high school Activities Association Directors of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. A statistical interpretation of the results is presented, although no position is taken on either issue. Some of the general findings include the following: (a) the most popular relay run is the mile relay; (b) the 880 is run by 42 states; (c) the 440 is run by 24 states; (d) the average number of relays run is 2.6 per state; and (e) the total number of events in which an athlete may participate ranges from two to unlimited. Other findings and exceptions to the above are cited. (JCW)