Should Brian Herron's Time Count As A Freshman Record?


Brian Herron ran 400 meters in 47.39 seconds this weekend at Vanderbilt's oversized 300-meter indoor track. He's a freshman in Georgia and that time is faster than the freshman class record of 47.97, set just a few weeks ago by Floridian Tyrese Cooper on Arkansas's 200 meter banked track. But Herron isn't the record holder. 

Should he be?

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No.

Moving things slow down when they travel around curves. There are more curves in a 400 meter race that happen on a 200 meter track than when that same race happens on a 300 meter track. There are a bunch of physics terms like centrifugal and centripetal force that explain exactly why this is, but it all comes down to that--running around a curve is slower than running a straight line. The bigger the track, the fewer the curves relative to the distance run - -a 400m at, say, Vanderbilt only goes around three curves, while a 400m run at say, Arkansas, goes around four curves -- and therefore, it is easier to run fast at Vanderbilt.

(Here's where someone who has run a PR at or is a coach or fan of a team that often competes on an oversized track cries out "What about the banks?! Our oversized tracks are flat!" Interestingly enough, parts of the NCAA agree with you. Until two years ago, Divisions II and III indexed oversized tracks as different than banked ones; DI didn't.  They've since standardized their rules to the DI index, but the fact that different divisions had decided that physics apply differently to them should probably discredit all of them as authorities on physics. The point here, though is that there are large and important groups of dissenters on the question. Also, when actual science students and their professors study it -- not, you know, track coaches -- the conclusion is that oversized tracks are faster than 200m banked ones).

The whole controversy is actually not a bad microcosm of the NCAA universe. A few institutions detect a loophole (marks from oversized tracks are counted the same as marks from banked ones); many more dive through that loophole; the ones who can less easily exploit that loophole cry foul, and the ones who can easily exploit it form a committee based on sham science to post hoc defend their advantage. And with the millions spent and the new oversized facilities already built (why would anyone build an oversize facility if they didn't think it was the fastest possible track?), the toothpaste can't go back in the tube. 

We're left with a confusing record book and scores of people who both prefer running on their track because they think it's faster but want the rules to punish the other type of track because they think it has an unfair advantage.