Explanation of the Scoring Tables

Revised for 2001

How Do They Work?

The tables, as always are based on our automatic qualifying mark (AQM) in each event, which is set as the seven-point value. The one exception was for the men's 55-meter dash, where I left the seven-point mark at the old AQM. Otherwise the eight-point mark would've been the same as the world record!

In the past, ten points was equal to the world record for that event (when possible, which wasn't the case with quite a few field events). The 0.1-point mark was set to the 225-point mark in the IAAF tables (the Hungarian Tables) when possible. We're trying to get a progessive curve, meaning that a given performance increase is worth more at higher levels than at lower. For example, which is the harder to accomplish - an improvement in the 5,000-meter run from 18:00 to 17:00 or from 14:00 to 13:00? The latter of course, so that one minute improvement should be worth a lot more points than the former.

There were a few problems with this approach. First, our AQM was far enough away from the world record in a lot of events (especially the field events) that I wasn't able to set the ten-point mark at the world record in those events. Also, especially with the newer events like the women's pole vault, the event had changed enough that the table wasn't fair for that event any more. It makes more sense to set up the tables so they are relevant to Division II, and basing the tables on the world record doesn't necessarily do that.

The new tables should still be fairly similar to the old ones. However, what I've done is looked at what the average percent difference was between the NCAA Division II meet record and the AQM, and set that as the eight-point mark (on the old tables it worked out to approximately 8.2 points). I did something similar with the zero-point mark. Running events and field events were figured separately. This should make things fairer across the board, even with emerging events like the women's pole vault where, for example, the outdoor meet record was the same as the AQM!

Here is a men's example and a women's example of a team's points and totals.

Why Did You Redo Them?

The main reason is that as the AQM has changed enough in several events to require them to be redone. Plus, as noted above, there were problems with some of events, especially the emerging events. Finally, we had a new event this year, the women's steeplechase.

How Was the Women's Steeplechase Set Up?

Since there was no AQM for that event, what I did was look at the percent difference between the 3,000-meter run provisional qualifying mark (PQM) and the steeplechase PQM. I then multiplied the 3,000-meter run AQM by that percentage to come up with an "AQM" for the steeplechase. From there I could figure out the eight-point and zero-point marks the same way as I did for all the other events. Hopefully, this will mean that the tables won't have to go through a major revision again in a few years...

Below are the eight-point, seven-point and zero-point performances for each event:

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