Even on the best of days, competition in the world of track and field is fierce. With limited opportunities to ascend to Div. III biggest stage, the National Championships, those athletes in the upper echelon of the sport must constantly work to gain minute advantages to edge their equally capable competitors.
Unless, of course, the advantage finds them.
Such was the case in the long jump event at the George Davis Invitational, held at UMass Lowell on Apr. 15. The meet saw phenomenal results, with two of the sixteen long jumpers provisionally qualifying for Nationals, including Tufts junior Fred Jones, who hit 7.10, then the fifth-best mark in the country.
Competitors, however, suspected that the elevation of the sand in the landing pit was too low, giving jumpers at the meet an added boost.
"[The elevation] was an inch or two low," Tufts coach Ethan Barron said. "They could have used a couple more wheelbarrows of sand."
"It's pretty unfair." Jones said. "Ask any competitor at that meet; most jumpers all hit personal best marks. That's not a coincidence when 80 percent of the people did their best at that meet. That just doesn't happen."
UMass Lowell was unreachable for comment at press time.
According to Williams coach Ralph White, UMass Lowell maintains that there was no violation.
"UMass Lowell certified the pits, and said they weren't illegal," Williams coach Ralph White said. "UMass Lowell is saying that they are fine; our kids and coaches think otherwise."
A low sand elevation increases the measurement of an athlete's jump, and is in violation of NCAA regulations. According to the 2006 NCAA Cross Country and Track and Field rule book, the long jump landing area must be filled with sand to an elevation even with the takeoff board.
The alleged Lowell pit violation stratified the distances in favor of the best jumpers. Jones' jump of 7.10 meters was the fifth-best mark in the country at the time, while Williams sophomore Branden Mirach leaped 7.18 meters, the third-best mark in the country and a new personal best (those standings have since dropped a spot, following Ohio Northern sophomore Ryan Robertson's 7.20 meter jump at the Joes Banks Invitational on Apr. 21). While Mirach's mark placed him firmly above the distance of the last 2005 Nationals qualifier (7.12 meters), Jones is right on the cusp of qualification.
"The pit was already about two inches too low, but the farther you got into the pit, the more of a decline [in elevation of the sand] there was," Jones said. "The further you jumped, the better off you were. It was like jumping downhill. Anyone who was jumping a good distance, it added more than two inches. It added, three, four, maybe even five."
According to White, a typical pit violation can offer an inch or two distance increase depending on how low the sand elevation is.
While the violations do not pose any increased injury risk to athletes, even a typical pit violation can negatively impact an athlete's performance.
"The timing of the landing is the most difficult aspect to get down," Barron said. "If you're in the air longer than you have been before, it can throw off some athletes' timing."
Following such violations, coaches and athletes have the option of filing a complaint with an NCAA track and field subcommittee comprised of a representative coach from each region as well as an NCAA official. The subcommittee conducts an investigation, and if it finds evidence of a violation, the marks are voided for the NCAA competition.
The NCAA committee, however, has no sway over the validity of the marks on a regional level.
"Every league and conference will have to make their own decisions if the marks will be used for regional competitions," Barron said.
Individual collegiate track and field programs must also reach a verdict on the potentially unfair results, such as Williams' decision to disallow marks from the UMass Lowell meet for school records.
Barron and Jones are currently considering logging a complaint, a decision that is something of a double-edged sword, weighing the benefit of Jones retaining a Nationals qualification mark against the track and field program's desire to promote ethical athletic practices.
"If the mark is voided, [Jones] is not on the Nationals qualifying list at all, so you can't consider it necessarily in his best interest," Barron said. "However, in terms of our best interest as athletes and people, it's not right to qualify for Nationals on a mark that was not legit."
"I told my coach it's completely up to what he wants to do," Jones added. "I think he should [file a complaint], but it's completely up to him.
Barron's decision is perhaps made easier by the likelihood that Jones will hit legal distances beyond his current measure of 7.10 meters.
"[Jones and I] both know that he is going to jump farther later in the year," Barron said. "This mark won't be his mark for Nationals. It's expendable in many ways."
White feels that coaches should log a protest against unfair marks, but recognizes that the regular incidence of violations often leads coaches to turn a blind eye.
"The common problem with it is that everyone else is saying the same thing is true at Springfield, MIT, Tufts, everywhere [the athletes] jump," White said. "So [coaches] kind of look past it more than anything."
As of now, no definitive steps have been taken in resolving the alleged Lowell pit violation. Barron has spoken informally with some people, and he awaits the NCAA subcommittee's decision on whether or not to conduct an investigation. The timeframe for the results of a potential investigation is also a gray area.
"I'm not sure when the results of that [an investigation] would be in," Barron said. "This is the first time I've been involved in something like this."
Though violations would prove difficult to eradicate, track and field programs try to avoid the stigma of unjust marks.
"We are hoping we can just jump somewhere else, and meet the standards where we know the pits are level," White said.
