If you've never been to one of the indoor national championship meets, I encourage you to go one of these years. I'll be the first to admit that we have too many of them right now, as the various shoe brands are competing to get the best athletes. But that's a conversation for another day. The good thing about having multiple options is that it gives more kids the chance to compete in these meets, and anything we can do to increase participation, especially at the elite level, is a good thing.
The best thing that indoor track and field brings is the intensity. Outdoor track is fun, of course. But there's something just so much more intense about indoor track and field meets. Yes, indoor facilities are getting bigger and are losing this intensity a little bit as they spread out. But in general, indoor facilities are so much more confined than outdoor track meets, and that just leads to a more intense atmosphere. If you've ever been to a meet at the Armory, you know what I'm talking about. In short, it's just so much more Hype than outdoor track and field.
But what does the future hold for indoor track and field in Georgia? I don't know. The history of indoor track and field in Georgia is a strange one. For a while, only the most elite athletes ever did the indoor scene. Indoor track and field started in the Northeast, and for the longest time was mostly just a Northeast and Midwest thing. Areas of the country where it snowed for months on end required something for them to do when it's too cold/dangerous to go outside and compete. And so naturally that led to indoor nationals. And if you create a national championship, then athletes from all across the country will come to compete in it. Even if there's no need for indoor track in their state, we still saw some athletes from California compete at indoor nationals. And now, even states like Texas and Florida have multiple indoor track facilities.
So where is Georgia's facility? Georgia is one of the top track and field states in the country, and every year we have athletes who compete at nationals. Well, we don't have one right now, and it's been an interesting history of trying to qualify for these meets. For a while, you had to go to a far away meet and only compete unattached to qualify for nationals. This wasn't as appealing to the masses. But then the Crossplex got built in Birmingham and it allowed athletes to take a short drive to the neighboring state and compete in some meets. the Crossplex draws tons of athletes from the entire southeast and hosts meets almost every weekend.
The other complication is the schedule. And recently the changing schedule as last year our first day of outdoor track practice was January 8th while this year it's January 27th. When the schedule starts earlier, it allows athletes to go compete in an indoor meet for their school. This opened up the sport to so many more athletes over the last several years. But with this year's schedule, nobody can compete in an indoor meet for their school, they can only run unattached, and that brings with it complications.
So I ask again, why don't we have an indoor track facility in Georgia? Well, the short answer is because of money. It's expensive, with the New Balance facility costing $200 million. And like I already said, Birmingham beat us to it and hosts a ton of meets, so it's not like we can draw too many out of state athletes. If you build one, you'll have to do so knowing that it'll be primarily for Georgia athletes. But that's not a bad thing. There are tons of Georgia athletes who do indoor track every year. There's a market there. And I think several people know it. The Atlanta Track Club has stated it's one of their goals to build an indoor facility. And then there's the fact that the new North Clayton High school will have a 200m indoor track, though I have no idea if it will be suitable for big meets or not. But the point is that there's hope for us here in Georgia to add this sport.
So then the question becomes, SHOULD we do this sport? The short answer is Yes. Again, anything to increase participation is good, and more opportunities for athletes is a good thing. But let's not forget there are potential downfalls to this. When I first started at Georgia MileSplit, there were coaches who would text and email me in December wanting me to highlight their athlete's performances. And that's fair, but often times those same athletes wouldn't even make it to the outdoor state meet. I remember being on a panel one time where a coach asked a question along the lines of "how do you balance cross country with indoor and outdoor track?" And the answer was short and sweet - don't do indoor track. It's impossible to be on your game for 9-10 months straight. I know that sprinters and field event athletes usually don't do cross country, but alot of them do football or other sports. And many of them also compete in outdoor track until the end of July. If an indoor track season were to start in November, like most winter sports in Georgia, that would be a very long stretch to go from November to May and even longer to go from November to July. You have to be smart with training too, and can't just compete all year. There needs to be an offseason to recover and grow. So while I will always vote to bring indoor track and field to Georgia, there are smart ways to do it.
So what do I think will happen? I think that at some point in the next 5-10 years we will have an indoor state track meet in Georgia. And I hope that we follow the Alabama model of time qualifiers only and the state meet in February. So a distance kid/football kid could pursue a time qualifier immediately after XC/football season ends and then take a break. And non fall sport athletes could wait until January to start racing and hit their time qualifiers closer to the meet so their season isn't too long. This will allow kids to have an offseason still. And more importantly, it will allow coaches to have an offseason too. It would be pretty tough for XC/track coaches or Football/track coaches to immediately have to coach a full indoor season after their fall season. Everybody needs down time. But overall, I think an indoor season is coming. And I think that's a good thing. I think there are hurdles to clear on this journey, but I think we can all work together to clear them.