WAC TRACK AND FIELD
WAC meet will run with help of mainland officials
Officially speaking, there was a problem.
Hawaii has never hosted a Western Athletic Conference championship track and field meet -- which also means it has never hosted a WAC meet on the same days as the state high school championships.
It takes around 40 people with varying levels of expertise and certification to officiate a championship meet. And 40x2=more-than-there-are-here.
"There's definitely not two sets of officials in Hawaii to run two (at the same time)," said veteran local official Mark Zeug, who is the meet director for the WAC event.
UH track coach Carmyn James and Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive director Keith Amemiya saw the problem coming nearly a year ago. They proposed a novel solution: Hold the events at the same place, Cooke Field at UH.
It was a good idea, but NCAA rules, liability concerns and the lights being repaired at Cooke Field added up to a no go.
"Trials, not knowing how long theirs would take and how long ours would take, was a problem," James said. "And because of an NCAA rule, everyone would have to leave the facility after one meet and come back. And we couldn't have any overlap.
"One of the meets was going to have to go into the evening to make it work," she added.
So the high school meet will be at Kamehameha, as originally planned, with the usual crew of officials it has each year. The WAC meet will be run by other local volunteers and experienced officials from the mainland, including a 14-member contingent from the South Plains Area Track Officials headquartered in Texas.
"We knew if the two meets were going head-to-head we'd have trouble finding enough officials, if we tried to do it all locally," Zeug said. "This is NCAA and the rules are a little different than high school rules. The people who are coming in to do this event are really NCAA officials. They officiate at regional meets, league championships and national championships all the time. So we've got a top-notch group coming in."
The WAC has contracted the South Plains officials the past nine years. But like officials at all levels of track and field, they don't make a profit.
"We'll probably spend $20,000 by the time we're done," Dennis Goheen of South Plains said. "The WAC gives us $10,000.
"We get to travel a lot, all of us have other jobs," said Goheen, who is manager of an auto parts warehouse in Lubbock, Texas. "We don't take a salary from this, we try to cover expenses. We have a group of people who work really, really hard to make sure the athletes are treated right. We've got about $260,000 of equipment we've paid for. We're always buying more. We brought about $150,000 of equipment with us."
As for UH's finances, James said it actually costs less to host the WAC meet than to travel to it on the mainland (around $20,000).
"The schools pay their own way," she said.
UH did put out $50,000 each for a javelin runway and weight ring needed to host the championships; facilities needed eventually to recruit top athletes, James said.
"If we weren't hosting, we'd probably have to wait a couple more years," she said.
Zeug said the more track and field events Hawaii hosts, the more the quality of officiating here improves.
"We learned an awful lot hosting the national masters (last summer)," he said. "We learned a lot of things about how to handle the finish line better. What kinds of things we need to do, what kinds we don't."
Some of the top local officials will work the WAC heptathlon and decathlon events today and tomorrow and move to the state meet Friday and Saturday.
James recruited students from P.E. classes and other student-athletes to work on hurdle crews and handle other duties not requiring experience or certification.
Goheen said all officials should have one thing in common.
"The most important thing to remember is we try to do what's best for the athlete. If you think your ego is more important than taking care of the athlete, you're in the wrong business," he said.
Zeug said everyone gets paid the same, from meet director to results runner.
"I have officiated at hundreds of events, and the compensation has always been the same," he said. "Lunch, and once in a while a T-shirt."