A final note before we all descend upon Wichita for one of the most exciting events and atmospheres the high school activities association puts on.

First, a thank you to the Wichita State Athletics staff along with USD 259 AD Chris Asmussen and his administrative assistant Dena Kelly. That group has logged many hours preparing for this event, just as they do each year and that will continue into Sunday.

Another thank you to all of the volunteers who spend two (or three) days at the track facility to help make this meet go as smoothly as possible. Many of them have plenty of windshield time as well as spending their own money on gas and hotel to help at this event. There is no way it could happen without all of them.

As always, thank you to those who put in the time/effort to host a regional!

A final thank you to our staff and our staff’s families. I don’t have to explain to this group what it takes to execute and host a track and field meet. There are many people who volunteered countless hours to put together 16,000 safety pins, stuff the packets with all of the necessary information and provide general organization to this event. Almost every single person in our office helps in one way, shape or form and many of those hours are after the workday is ‘done’ and on the weekends. TeeJay did a phenomenal job leading the charge on many of these organization items.

If you see any of the people listed above, please thank them.

Team packets will be available to pick up starting around 11a Thursday on the northeast side of the facility. Packet pick up will close Thursday at 5 p.m. If you want your packet Thursday, get there by 4:55 p.m. Team packets on Friday will be available starting at about 6:30 a.m. until about 3:00 p.m. when they will be moved to the northwest corner of the facility to join the volunteer/admin check-in. Team packets on Saturday will also be located on the northwest corner of the facility.

Be on the lookout for the new ‘credentials’ for the coaching boxes. Pole vault is pink, high jump is blue and horizontal jumps are orange. These will be in your girls packets if both genders qualified. If only your boys qualified, it will be in the boys packet. There is one new ‘credential’ per school, even if there are multiple qualifiers in those events from the same team.

We have had several coaches who have emailed potential schedule conflicts. If you didn’t email your conflicts, it is not a big deal. After this email is sent, I am not going to forward to the referees as they are used to this. Our officials have done a good job of managing these. The biggest thing is to make sure your student communicates with the head field event judge and the clerk of the course. They are the ones that navigate this with the individual students.

There is rain in the forecast tonight for Wichita after getting rain over the weekend and on Memorial Day. As is always the case for a track and field meet, mats and heavy blankets are encouraged for team camp areas. The gravel area on event level could be a soggy.

Remember the schedules are rolling and the times are a guide. On Friday we don’t start the afternoon track events until the scheduled start time of 2:10p unless there is weather or some other reason to keep Friday moving. Fortunately, it looks like Friday is going to be a great day in Wichita! The Saturday schedule is rolling and may run ahead. Make sure your athletes and parents know this. We have several recognitions of significant people at the peak attendance time on Saturday right before the 4x100 relay. For those of you who were still left at the end of Saturday last year, we waited three and a half hours to run one three minute and a half minute race. We will get Saturday moving at a quicker pace if we have to. I wish I had done it 15 minutes earlier than I did last year.

Don’t forget the zoom webinar tonight at 7p with WSU athletic administration to answer any questions about the facility you have. It is a webinar format so only the faces of WSU athletic administration, etc. will be on the screen. If you want to ask a question, please put it in the chat.
If you get asked for meeting credentials:
Meeting ID: 987 3800 8149
Meeting Password: 150692

Best of luck as many of you have your final practice at your home facility today! Safe travels to Wichita!