A LETTER FROM ED GRANT

The following is not the weekly roundup--that will come tomorrow
with the updated performance list--but it is something I have to get off my
chest


        Of all the track meets I have covered over a period of more than 50
years, nothing else has ever approached the various new Jersey indoor state
meets for controversy.


        The very first meet I attended back in 1947 set the pattern which
has been followed over a period of seven decades. It was the first meet held
at the Newark Armory after World War II. The armory had been the North
Jersey induction center during the war and this forced a suspension of the
state meet for a period of five years.

        In those days, the NJSIAA did not iteself conduct the indoor meet.
There were a vareity of sponsors over the years. The meet was held in two
divisions, one for all public schools, the other for, at first, the prep
division and, when that folded up just before WWII, the parochial division
which replaced it.

        The Newark AC took over sponsosorship in 1947 with John Tomasko as
meet director. That first post-war meet had some real talent in the field,
though a 1946 meet would have been even stronger, graced with the presence
of a future Olympic gold medalist, Andy Stanfield. (In fact, there was a
state meet of a sort in 1946 at the Jersey City Armory, the Hudson County
CYO/Northern new Jersey championships.)

        The most anticipated race in 1946 was the public school 880. Bill
Curran of Bayonne had set a state outdoor record in the 1946 state meet and
gone on to win the National Junior AAU 800-meter championship. It seemed
possible that he would be the first high school runner to break 2:00 at the
armory, no mean feet on that 176-yard oval. But, as it turned out, he ran
over 2:10.

        In fact, all the times that night were incredibly slow. Curran's
coach was George Buttner, a legendary developer of middle distance stars and
a man who, to say the least, brooked no nonsense. I can still see him,
following the meet, pacing off the track and, as he finished, stating
affirmative, "This track is long."

        And so it was. In bringing the boards up from storage to be placed
on an unlined floor, a few extras had somehow found their way into the mix.
No one will ever know just how long the track was and the ensuing newspapers
stories threw the always irascible Tomasko into a rage.


        It was seven or eight years later that this rage mounted agin and
this time terminated the state indoor meet for a period of five years. A
racial insult was thrown by the meet director at the graduate manager of the
Snyder HS team, a mild-mannered lad named Billy Melvin. Snyder coach Tom
Gerrity, a man of principle, immediately filed a complaint with the NJSIAA
and Tomasko was barred from future contact with the high school program.
Since no one else was willing to take up the burden of running the meet, it
died a not-too-quiet death.

        For the next five years, the major New Jersey meet was that CYO
affair which, however, was limited geigraphically to the northern part of
the state---which then, of course, had the great majority of indoor teams
and indoor talent. And so things might have remained but for the creation in
1957 of the New Jersey Catholic Track Conference.

        The NJCTC was a sort of offhoot of New York City's CHSAA, taking its
leadership from religious brothers who came to teach in such newly-opened
schools as Marish, Roselle Catholic, Bergen Catholkic and, a little later,
essex Catholic. It imediately began running championships in all three
seasons, the indoor meet beginning as part of the Essex County CYO meet and,
in a couple of years, branching off on its own.

        It was not too long before the public schools, seeing this
development, went to the NJSIAA and said, in effect, "What about us?" And
so, under the leadership of Gene Littler of Tenafly and Jay Dakelman of
Highland Park, the state indoor program was reborn as the 60s dawned. And,
since, the NJCTC was running both a relay and individual championship for
its members, the state program became the dual affair we know today. But not
without some headachjes.


        In the very first relay meet at the Newark Armory, for example,
there ws a miscount of laps in the Gr. II distance medley relay. This became
almost a tradition as the meet moved around from Newark to jersey City and
back again and then to Jadwin Gym. It crept into the two-mile relay as well.
I recall one day when, busy typing some results, I took time to split the
New Providence team (my older son had recently graduated from that school).
The first leg was around 2:15, the second about the same and the third 1:41!
A lap had been losty somehow en route.

        But miscounted laps have not been the only headachle to plague the
indoor meets over the years. This season, things hit their peak with two
relay titles decided not by what happened on the track, but off it. The
tragedies which hit Haddonfield and Pope John are the kind of thing which
seem to happen only at the indoor state meet and it is time to wonder if it
might not be time to throw out the baby with the bathwater,

        Let;s face it: the program as run now, no matter whose fault it may
be, simply isn't right. Track and field desrves the same treatment as do the
many other sports the state sponsors; in fact, it deserves more, since the
profit from entry fees is each year a major factor in the NJSIAA budget.
Profit from other sports, such as football, basketball and wrestling, come
from a voluhtary source---the attendance at these popular sports. Profit
from track is a direct tax on each school's budget in that sport, a tax
which is then employed to subsidize the many state championships which run
at a loss.

        The whole situation is exacerbated by the heavy penalties which
result from any violation of the rules, however minimal. There is, after
all, only one penalty in track and field, disqualification. If a football
player showboats, or throws the ball away after scoring a touchdown, the
penalty is 15 yards on the ensuing extra point. No one would dream of
nullifying the touchdown, but that is just what happens when an exhausted
runner throws a baton in disgust at losing a race. (It has even been
assessed when a tired runner, standing still just past the finish line, has
had the stick knocked from his grasp by another running crsossing the finish
line behind him)


        And what would happen if football teams were told they could not
wear cleats for a state championship game because it might damage the field.
But it has been years since anyone wore a set of spikes at Jadwin except in
the now-cancelled Princeton Relays. No wonder, one coach, in sending me an
update on his team from the state relays, noted that they would run a lot
faster when they got on a :real track," And, remember, performances are the
life blood of scholarships in our sport where the battle again time and
distance gives college coaches an objective standard by which to judge
possible recruits.

            What would be lost if the state program were again suspended
until a suitable site appeared within the state? Not reallt that much, In
2002, with an all-group date in early February, that title became almost
meaningless. Things are a little better this year, but how silly is it for
two state groups to have their meet on a dtate, Jan. 19, which was so early
that a transfer student serving a 30-day purgatory, would not have been
eligible to compete. (One state champion this year is, in fact, a transfer
student, but was evidently "saved": by having moved back to the school
district in which she lived two years ago. I might add that, as far as I'm
concerned, the transfer rule should be tossed in the ashcan.)

        It should also be remembered that, as a private institution,
Princeton is under no obligation to host the state meet. It is another fact
of life in New Jersey indoor track that, without privately-owned facilities,
we would have virtually no indoor program at all. Until the recent reopening
of the Jersey City Armory, there were just two publicly-owned sites in the
state, Red Bank Regional (whose meets are now limited to Shore area
championship affairs) and the totally inadequate Dunn Center. The rest are
all private: Fairleigh Dickinson, Drew, Seton Hall, Lawrenceville and
Peddie. I live just two miles from a three-arena hockey complex owned by
Morris County; there are at least 10 times as many publicly-owned hockey
rinks in the state, yet that sport, like swimming, is granted an early start
to the indoor season because of "lack of facilities."

        In those years when there was no state program, the 168th St. Armory
was the mecca for New Jersey teams. It has become that again with its
revival; I would say that, except for the Shore schools, most New Jersey
athletes of any ability (and some with little) will compete there more times
this winter than in their home state.


        Indoor track and field is certainly the "orphan" sport in our state.
I can't help but suspect that some of that is due to the ancient bias
against a "two-season" sport like our (three for cross-country runners),
borne by those (often in authority) who feel constricted by the one season
allotted to them.

        Of course, there are really few one-season sports today. Soccer,
basketball, tennis, golf, swimming, wrestling, baseball/softball---all have
at least two seasons, though limited to one in school competition. The only
one-season sports left are football (which makes up for it by weight
training in winter and long summer practice season) and ice hockey, limited
by the weather (though there is some out of season action even in this one).

        Of course, the state indoor program will continue, but with a
trickling away by schools where coaches have some freedom of choice. There
were some notable absenttees at the relays this year, even a few at the
first half of the group meet.