Winter Track Season Is Put On Hold While Section XI, SCCC Iron Out Insurance Issue

Winter track athletes who were gearing up for the start of their season this past weekend will apparently have to wait a little bit longer.

The winter track season has been postponed indefinitely due to an insurance issue between Section XI, the governing body of Suffolk County high school athletics, and Suffolk County Community College, which hosts all of the county’s high school indoor track meets at its Brentwood campus.

Local coaches say they didn’t find out about this issue until November 30 at the sport’s seeding meeting just prior to the start of the season. The boys were expected to start this past Saturday, with the girls to follow the next day. It wasn’t until a few days later when coaches got final word that the start of the season would be postponed.

This past Friday, a day before the start of the season, Section XI Executive Director Tom Combs sent an email to all athletic directors with an update on the situation.

“We signed a contract with SCCC this fall to hold 30 track meets this winter in their facility. We provided the requisite insurance certificate, the same policy we have provided for the past seven years, and we were scheduled to go,” the email stated. “This Tuesday afternoon (2:00PM), an attorney with SCCC informed us that the insurance certificate was insufficient by $1 million dollars. Since this announcement, we’ve been trying to secure the additional $1 million policy. Unfortunately none of the companies we have contacted could get it done for this weekend. Our intent is to have something in place for next week. We are working with our insurance company. They deal with the entire state and use the same policy for every entity in the state of New York without any issues, thus adding to our frustration.

“Obviously we are extremely disappointed by the actions of SCCC. To do this to us at such a late hour is unconscionable,” he continued. “We have many individuals trying to assist us to provide our student athletes the opportunity to run at SCCC. If this doesn’t come to fruition, we will and are, looking into alternative options.”

When contacted on Monday, Combs said the situation hasn’t changed all that much and only added that “our insurance carrier covers all of New York State and this is the only case of the certificate being rejected. We are working tirelessly to purchase the additional coverage but could not acquire the coverage before the weekend.”

Combs said he could not answer as to why SCCC is asking for an extra $1,000,000 and also could not answer if it had anything to do with the pandemic.

In a memo sent out to coaches, the Suffolk County Track and Field Coaches Association said, “It was an egregious error on the part of groups involved in planning our season.”

Many local coaches agreed with that statement.

“I am extremely disappointed that Section XI officials could not put this together for the kids, and not just our program, but everyone that this is affecting in the county,” Southampton girls track head coach Eddie Arnold said. “This is a black mark on our sport, and honestly, I feel like it was disrespected. If this was any other sport would this have happened? How did they not see this was coming? Why did this happen? We have the largest amount of participants in any sport in the county.”

Shelter Island girls track head coach Kevin Barry and Westhampton Beach girls track head coach John Broich both had similar sentiments. Barry questioned the timing of it all while Broich questioned the county.

“I would have thought that section would have resolved it before the first meet,” he said. “I don’t know how important it is to them.”

Some coaches and school officials have already thought about alternative options, such as holding some meets outside and using possibly different venues other than Suffolk’s Brentwood campus. Both have been met with mixed reactions.

The outdoors option seems viable to most because last season was conducted entirely outside due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But that season was also condensed into a month, and a glaring difference this season is that state championships have returned, which greatly alters things. A state qualifier, for instance, must be held indoors, and athletes are required to have competed in six contests before that time. There is also the ongoing debate between times and measurements indoors and outdoors.

Broich said that years ago, for the first month of the season or so, typically the month of December, meets were held outside because the weather was still viable to do so, for the most part. Then, when the weather really turned, the season was moved indoors. He is not opposed to having some sort of season outdoors.

Arnold and Barry, on the other hand, said an outdoor season is simply not viable to do again

“The injury risk is too high,” Arnold said. “I know back in the ’70s they ran track outdoors all the time, but if I were an athlete today, I wouldn’t run outside in the winter. Last year was different; they had nothing last year. And they even canceled a lot of the events. There were no long or triple jumps because the sand pits were too hard. In Southampton, we’re less than a mile away from the ocean, and when that wind picks up, it’s just not conducive to the sport.”

Arnold did say there are coaches who are making arrangements to have practices or scrimmages with opposing teams just to get some events in for their athletes. He said he has approached that possibility with a few local coaches as well but they wouldn’t be actual meets, just something to get the kids by until a solution is hopefully found.

“Right now we feel like the bottom feeders of sports. It’s not right,” he said. “It’s not right for the kids. It’s a black eye on our sport.”

As of Monday there was no timetable revealed as to when meets might return to Suffolk’s Brentwood campus. Broich said if things hadn’t changed by Wednesday, he would just assume that this weekend’s contests would be postponed as well.

Combs tried to stay positive as things are still being worked out.

“It is our hope that we will be running our meets at SCCC this winter season,” he said.