Nike SPARQ, Combines, and the New Track and Field

Something important has started to happen over the past decade in a sport that doesn't even share the same season as track, yet has had a profound impact on it.  In recent years, football, king of sports in America and especially the south, has expanded to cover the spring time and summer as well.  No, the season hasn't really gotten much longer, although it has expanded a little, it is all the off season fanfare that is starting to eat away a little at the base of track and field.

You certainly have a distance element that has it's own culture, but outside of the mile and two mile, and possibly the 800 depending on where you are from, track and field is almost exclusively speed and power events.  Jumps, throws, sprints, hurdles, etc.  These are all events that are traditionally filled with the kids who are running for touchdowns and making tackles on the gridiron in the fall.  The emergence of the high school football combine, recruiting shows and websites, the festivities related to signing day, and the long wind-up to the NFL draft has distracted many athletes from being competitive in the second half of the school year.

Make no mistake, baseball and basketball also lose athletes to this phenomenon as well, but both those sports have a wealth of specialist athletes who don't play football, so the level of play is still high in many leagues around the country.  Also, year round sporting events for baseball and basketball presents a way for those athletes to stay active in the "off-season" months.  But now football combines, clinics, elite training sessions, seven on seven football, and weekend after weekend of recruiting trips takes a toll on an athletes ability to participate effectively in other sports.

Well, I didn't want to present all doom and gloom, but rather identify the issue and help create a solution.  Events such as Nike SPARQ are basically track and field events in other forms.  The 40 yard dash is just a couple seconds longer than the 55 and 60 meter dashes indoors.  The vertical jump has a lot of relation to the high and broad jumps (obviously the broad jump is no longer an event).  The ball throw shares similar elements to the javelin or discus based on using the majority of the body to launch a projectile.  And the shuttle event is the least like any track events, but is totally based on explosiveness like a sprinter leaving the blocks.

Now how does this information help a coach keep a kid on the track team who would rather do combine training?  It may not help, but if you can find the similarities you may be able to convince the athlete that track and field training will not only help him in his combine, but he will also have an outlet to help a team achieve competition goals as well.  A coach can see the symbiotic relationship of being able to help that athlete do well in their "off-season" football training, but actually contribute to a team and, who knows, maybe they will even end up liking the sport!

Football players are the core of the high school track and field community!