From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

If you’re confused, don’t worry about it. I’m confused, too.

But that’s what happens when you’re dealing with two different national high school championship meets that used to be one meet and one of the meets is being held this year where the other one was held last year.

It’s hard to untangle the history of indoor national meets. Neither current meet has any sort of history on its web site and as sponsors and venues change, the whole thing just becomes a jumbled mess. If you’re trying to trace the lineage of each meet, it’s impossible.

As far as I can tell, the first national indoor high school meet was the Pathmark National Scholastic Indoors held at Princeton’s Jadwin Gym in 1984. It moved to Yale in 1986 and remained at Yale in 1987 but with a different name – National Scholastic Indoor Championships without a title sponsor.

After three years at Yale, the meet move to Navy in Annapolis, Md., for one year, and then Syracuse for six years – the first five with Day 1 at Manley Fieldhouse and Day 2 at the Carrier Dome.

In 1996, the meet moved to Boston for the first time and remained there for three years  before moving to Ohio State in 1999 and for the first time being known as the Nike Indoor Classic.

After a year in Columbus, it seems to have resurfaced in 2000 with a new name and a new home – the New Balance Scholastic Championships at the Armory in New York.

In 2001, it was once again known as Nike Indoor Classic, now at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex in Landover, Md., outside Washington, D.C.

After three years with one meet in Landover, it seems that 2004 was the first year nationals split into two meets.  Nike was at Prince George’s and National Scholastic was at the Armory. That setup remained until 2009, when Nike moved to the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

As far as I can tell there was only one meet in 2011, and it was called New Balance Nationals and was at the Armory. The one-meet setup appears to have continued through 2019 and then there were no meets in 2020 thanks to COVID and it appears the only meet in 2021 was something called adidas Indoor Nationals in Virginia Beach.

In 2022, all three meets were held – adidas in Virginia Beach, New Balance at the Armory and Nike a few miles away at Ocean Breeze. That created a comical situation where top athletes would shuttle between the two venues, racking up multiple All-America honors in the same event (and multiple backpacks!).

Looks like there are three meets again this year – although New Balance is now at the Reggie Lewis Center Friday and Saturday and then at THE TRACK in Boston on Sunday, and Nike – which was at Ocean Breeze last year – is now at the Armory. So the Armory will have hosted a national meet in each of the last two years … but not the same meet.

Anyway, it all seems absurd but at least high school athletes are getting another chance to compete against elite competition before outdoors starts next month.

It looks like South Jersey athletes are split between Boston and New York, so we’ll be keeping an eye on both meets all weekend.

Heat sheets for THE TRACK Nationals are here.

Heat sheets for Armory Nationals are here.