Some Track Athletes In Ariz. Missing State Meet Due To Deadline

Chuck Schmidt, associate executive director of the Arizona Interscholastic Association, said a “handful” of athletes won’t be able to compete in this week’s state track and field championships, because their names were not entered before the Sunday 8 a.m. deadline.

The Division I and II meets are Wednesday and Saturday at Mesa Community College. The D.III and IV meets are Friday at Saturday at MCC.

Chandler Athletic Director Dave Shapiro, who helps run the state meets, said he feels for the student-athletes, but he added that all of the coaches knew the deadlines and mehods with which to enter the names of state qualifiers into the meet software.

It has been posted on the AIA’s  Web site during the season.

“It’s a simple process,” Schmidt said. “As far as the AIA, there has been no problem with the software. Ninety-nine percent of the coaches did it correctly. It’s unfortunate that several coaches failed to follow that process. We can’t redo the whole track meet once we get it done Sunday and make it public. To try to pull these volunteers back from their normal business work hours, it’s not going to work. By the rule, we can’t do it.

“I’m not concerned about communication. There’s a sender and a receiver. Unfortunately, it didn’t register with a couple of coaches.”