NCAA track championships embark on ‘grand experiment’

EUGENE, Ore. – Arkansas Razorbacks women’s coach Lance Harter called dividing the NCAA track and field championship schedule by gender a “grand experiment.”

With the exception of the decathlon and heptathlon, the four-day meet will have the men competing today and Friday, the women on Thursday and Saturday.

It’s a compacted schedule, too. The preliminary rounds were held at the regional level, so this week’s competition begins with the semifinals in most races and goes right to the finals in other events.

The powerful teams are the same, though.

Host Oregon is expected to contend for the men’s and women’s titles. Florida, Arkansas and Texas A&M also will field formidable men’s and women’s entries.

Oregon men’s and women’s coach Robert Johnson said he’s in a “wait-and-see” mode for the new format.

The slimmed-down schedule was developed to accommodate ESPN, which is why one of the sports longest-serving coaches, Texas A&M’s Pat Henry, gives his support to it.

“Right now, if you’re not on TV, you don’t exist,” Henry said at a news conference on Tuesday. “You’re not a sport if you’re not on TV. We’ve got to be on TV and we’ve got to do whatever it takes to get there.”