Spectacular final night doesn't quiet format critics

By BOB BAUM
AP Sports Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) A spectacular final night of competition in front of a big crowd didn't quiet critics of the new expanded format of the NCAA track and field championships.

Despite complaints from the country's top collegiate coaches, the regional track competition and vastly expanded championship meet will return next year with only minor changes.

``It's only year one with the whole regional concept,'' said Mark Bockelman, the NCAA's assistant director of championships, ``so there will be a lot of review and evaluation of it. And yet, we'll be back next year to do regionals and have a large championship field.''

When the 1,088 athletes wrapped up four days of competition Saturday night at Sacramento State site of next year's U.S. Olympic Trials a pair of familiar track powers were on top in the team competition. Arkansas won its 10th men's championship, and LSU captured its 13th women's title. Both schools won the NCAA indoor championships this year, too.

``It just proves that it doesn't matter what you change, the same teams are going to win,'' Arkansas coach John McDonnell said.

LSU coach Pat Henry, whose men's team won the title last year and has 25 team titles with the Tigers, had only one senior among the 14 women, and one senior on his fourth-place men's team. So LSU is set up for another big run next year.

``This is a tough format and I'm not going to complain,'' Henry said. ``All I will say is this was a very difficult championships on athletes here, and especially sprint athletes. I'm just happier than heck we got through it without hurting anybody.''

Arkansas won behind the performances of distance runners Dan Lincoln and Alistair Cragg.

Lincoln became the first to win the 10,000-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Cragg held hands with Lincoln as they crossed the finish line in the 10,000 and appeared to step back to allow his teammate win the race Friday night.

Then on Saturday, Cragg sprinted away over the final 200 meters to win the 5,000 and clinch the team title for the Razorbacks.

Arkansas won its 38th NCAA title under McDonnell 10 in outdoor track, 17 in indoor track and 11 in cross country. The Irish-born coach turns 65 on July 2, but squelched rumors that he plans to retire.

``As long as I keep winning, I'll keep doing it,'' he said. ``I enjoy it and with the young guys that we have, I have fun.''

Saturday night's competition included two tight, fast 400-meter finals. Minnesota's Adam Steele, who had never beaten his good friend and teammate Mitch Potter, won the race by six-thousandths of a second over Otis Harris, 46.563 to 46.569. Potter was a hair back in third at 46.8.

``Easily the closest race I've ever been in,'' Steele said.

Sanya Richards, Texas' phenomenal sprinter, broke her American junior record in the 400 in 50.58, two-hundredths of a second ahead of runner-up Dee Dee Trotter of Tennessee and Nadia Davy of LSU. Two-time defending champion Allison Beckford of Rice was right with Richards but stumbled near the finish, fell as she crossed the line in fourth place, then had to be carried from the track.

South Carolina's Aleen Bailey again ran down LSU's Muna Lee at the finish to add the 200-meter title to the 100 crown she won on Friday.

The expanded field meant sprinters, hurdlers and competitors in both relays had to run an extra round of events. South Carolina sophomore Tiffany Ross ran an incredible 10 races in the four days. That came after she won both hurdles and was part of both winning relays a week earlier in the East Regional.

``What the NCAA is doing to these kids is an atrocity,'' South Carolina coach Curtis Frye said earlier in the week. ``They say they want participation. This ain't participation, it's brutality.''

After an exhausting string of meets that included conference championships, regionals and the NCAAs, most of the best Americans will be back on the track next week at the USA championships trying to earn a spot on the U.S. team for world championships.

The crowded schedule is just one of the complaints. Coaches say they face exorbitant costs in housing athletes at school for the added competition.

``We've been out of school since before our conference championships,'' said Southern California coach Ron Allice. ``I estimate that my costs are somewhere between $65,000 to $70,000 to pay room and board.''

Tennessee coach Bill Webb is submitting a proposal that would allow the 16 top individuals and 10 top relay teams qualify for the national championships automatically. The rest of the field would be determined in a super-regional held at a single warm-weather start.

But the NCAA met its goal was to give more athletes a championship experience.

``We had 3,000 people compete in the four regionals,'' Bockelman said. ``A year ago we had about 800 total. That's a very positive thing. It's about giving opportunities for kids all over the country in all sorts of different sizes of schools.''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)