May 9, 2015 4 min read

How aggravating would it be to attend a high school basketball game and the scoreboard did not work?

How aggravating would it be to sit through a high school football game and you didn’t know the score or how much time was left to play?

And how aggravating would it be if the bout score of a high school wrestling match was not kept?

Most would be unhappy to have to sit through a game under those circumstances, especially after paying decent money for a ticket.

Fortunately, the WPIAL understands these possible snags and does its best to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Except in the wonderful world of track and field, where the feeling seems to be one of just getting the event over with as soon as possible with the least amount of hassle.

Thursday afternoon’s WPIAL Class AA Southern Qualifier at South Side Beaver High School might have set a new low for coaches and the media when both were told the final results would not be available until the following day.

The reason? We were told a computer problem was mucking up the process.

However, throughout the event, the public address announcer was able to read off names of each and every qualifier in that event in ascending order.

Naturally, it sparked my curiosity, so I peeked into the press box to see result sheets stacked neatly on the counter in front of him. Amazingly, those results were printed in the same format that were released Friday on the WPIAL website.

Either a miracle occurred and the computer system was magically fixed or there were was a plot to keep these results a secret.

Why?

Who knows?

It’s track and field, for heaven’s sake, and it wasn’t like the WPIAL was about to release the codes to launch missiles.

The same secret ways were used at the Class AAA Southern Qualifiers, and I would guess the other qualifiers held that day, but I can’t be sure.

The stealth-like qualities of our guy on the scene at West Mifflin High School, Lance Lysowski, managed to obtain results after being rebuffed at first by the WPIAL officials operating that meet.

It was my understanding heads were going to roll over this lack of security.

I feel shame for not being so clever.

Look, track has enough problems without the creation of new ones. These meets are the most important because they determine who advances to the WPIAL Championships, which will be held Thursday at Baldwin High School.

To even complete these qualifiers, the WPIAL needs coaches from participating teams to help marshal the events, 18 for girls and 18 for boys. The least you could do for these dedicated souls is provide them with results at the end of the day.

Without them, coaches depend on their own times, usually noted by the stopwatches they carry and not the precision timing mechanisms used to record the results. In field events, coaches sometimes depend on their athletes to tell them where they finished and the distances or heights.

It’s not easy, from the media standpoint, to cover these events under the best of circumstances. Not having access to results makes it that much harder to do the job.

The WPIAL probably doesn’t care about that, and I wouldn’t expect them to. Except for this: coverage provided by the media is golden. You can’t purchase that type of coverage for a sport in need of it.

We’re not asking for free food at the concession stand or posh places to produce the stories that appear in this newspaper.

Just results provided in a timely fashion.

Apparently, that’s too much to ask.

Assistant sports editor Joe Tuscano can be reach at jtuscano@observer-reporter.com.