Responding to “Track runs on for too long” from page 23 of the February 2018 issue of The Harbinger:

Dear Harbinger Editor,

A high school indoor track meet often will last for several hours. I cannot argue with the fact that leaving for the meet at 3:00pm and arriving back at school afterward at 10:00pm is rather lengthy. But I don’t think it would be a good idea to have more meets with less people at each one; while they can get boring, this system is the most convenient one.

One of the primary complaints about the current track meets is that they leave very little time to do that day’s homework. However, it is fairly simple to just bring a backpack to the meet and get work done there. As a member of the track team, I often do this, and I have never had trouble finishing my work on the day of a meet. The longest events, including the warm-up and other preparations necessary, don’t take much more than an hour to finish, leaving plenty of free time for everyone. The main reason why people think they don’t have enough time is because they spend all of this free time talking to other people or watching races in the gym. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, but it hardly makes sense to say there isn’t enough time for homework if you choose to not do your homework at all in the time you are given.

Splitting the track team into two separate teams would only benefit the athletes; what about everyone who helps to run it? Yes, the meets would be shorter; however, there would be more meets overall, which means there would be more work and money required to set up and clean up.

Track meets are fine the way they are. They do not need to be changed. If anything, it is the way that individual people decide to spend their time that needs changing.

Kevin Dai, Class of 2020