As every spring nears, I try to prepare myself for the upcoming track and field season. There are a number of ways that goal is achieved. One of them is looking at rules and tournament regulations and district assignments. This year was no exception. It’s tough to be immersed in other sports while knee-deep in another season, so you kind of have to shake the rust off from what you missed after getting in the car after state the year before. Upon visiting the district assignments, pretty much everything was the same … except for the “primary” News-Herald coverage area Division I district meet heading outside the coverage area to Nordonia. After walking into mostly Mentor, Mayfield or Riverside in mid-May for so long, that’s going to take some acclimation. But that’s fine. Times change. Reasons occur. So be it. Then I saw something in the tournament regulations that blew my mind. Section 8.3 of the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s track and field tournament regulations reads as follows: “Schools will be charged a $20 per bib fine/fee for the replacement of a lost bib. Coaches will be required to sign a bib replacement form before receiving the replacement bib. Following the meet, the forms will be sent to the OHSAA office for invoicing. Schools who do not pay the fine will not be permitted to participate in the tournament the following season.” Not the fine. THAT didn’t blow my mind. Not the punishment for not paying the fine, either. All I could think was, “Ugh, we’re still doing this.” So amid the pandemic, we fell out of the habit of uniform numbers. Teams would compete in what they had purchased, and it did not include identification as it had in the past. Prior to the pandemic, the standard was for uniforms to have numbers printed onto the uniform as a permanent fixture upon it. We did just fine with this setup for, like, a thousand years. Then, in 2024, the OHSAA tournament regulations began to dictate that numbers were required again. OK, great. It probably shouldn’t have gone by the wayside in the first place. The concept was fine until the fine print. Per Section 8.2, the predecessor to the new bib fine section: “All athletes competing in running events are required to wear a number assigned to them by meet management on the back of their uniform between the shoulder blades. Meet management must provide numbers or ‘bibs’ that have horizontal numerals of at least three inches in height in a contrasting color to all athletes competing in running events. Meet management must provide to the referee and all meet umpires a list of athletes and their numbers. “All athletes competing in running events are required to wear the number provided to them unobstructed in accordance with NFHS Rules. It is recommended that the contracted timing company provide the number or ‘bibs’ for the meet. Meet management is also to provide safety pins for attachment to the uniform. The number will be provided on day one of the tournament and MUST be worn on both days of the tournament. The athlete is responsible for the wearing of the same bib/bib number on all days. New numbers will be issued at each level of the tournament (district, regional, and state).” Printed numbers?! Safety pins?! Why?!?! There are some concepts that just escape me. If you’re worried about schools having ample time to reintroduce numbers on their uniforms: Tell them a number range they can use and say, “Starting in 2024, we’re going to bring numbers back on uniforms. Please plan accordingly.” The schools order the correct version of the uniform, the ones we used for so long anyway. A school enters their student-athletes and their numbers into a database. Someone double-checks the database to ensure there aren’t more than one No. 524 named Joey Smith. And off you go. Problem solved. Even if it’s a scenario in which the student-athlete purchases a uniform themselves, fine. Tell them what number needs to be on it. Adjust if needed. It’s permanent. It can be used in the regular season and postseason for identification. The numbers are entered from Day 1 into MileSplit and don’t need to change. And it’s done. Instead? We’re going to print out bibs. There’s ink and paper cost. We’re going to have student-athletes pin those bibs to their uniforms. There’s a cost for the pins. And oh, by the way, we’re going to do this EVERY WEEK of the postseason. Now coaches, timing crews and meet management have to ensure, with a hundred other things to do, that bibs are in order. Coaches have to be concerned about the random quiet sophomore who doesn’t pay attention wearing the wrong bib. When this came into play last year, I stood at what was then the Division I Mentor District and saw this parade of student-athletes in bibs or in the process of affixing them to their uniform. I swear, it felt like the 1970s (I was only alive for two months of the 1970s for the record, so save the jokes). At that rate, I was wondering if we were going to resurrect the old finish-line stands for timing or cinder was suddenly going to make a comeback. Trying not to get too facetious, the optimal 2025 solution would be to go back to permanent numbers on uniforms. And if the goal is true high-tech identification, perhaps there’s a day down the road when you can insert a chip into the lining of a uniform, and timing crews could somehow access that chip via their cameras when student-athletes cross. But bibs with safety pins? That’s not exactly being in tune with the times. With so much of the information at a meet that we crave being readily available within seconds, surely we can take proactive steps well before the fact to ensure that the quest is smoother for timing crews and for interested parties when the moment arrives. Additional and unnecessary red tape like a bib and safety pins, like we’re still watching a version of track and field with cinder, chalk and sashes for winners, might not be too unreasonable for a start. ...read more read less