Short Answer: Saturday meets can last for 8+ hours. Dual meets typically 3 hours. All athletes must stay the duration for home meets.
Long Answer: Track meet lengths can vary for a variety of reasons. Saturday meets typically begin around 8am and will last as late as 5pm. This depends on the number of schools, entries, and how fluid the meet is operated. Dual meets and meets during the week, typically start at 3:15pm and will last until about 5:30pm if ran very effectively. Nonethless, anticipate any weekday meet to go until at least 6pm.
For Saturday and Away Meets, an athlete may leave before the end of the meet. While we desire that an athlete stay the entire duration as would be the case for any other team sport, we do understand that an athlete may finish their events and sit for hours waiting around. If an athlete is going to leave a meet early, the following must be done, there will be no exceptions to this:
1. Communicate ahead of time with one of the head coaches.
2. Print out the Transportation Waiver sheet and have it turned in at the beginning of a Track meet or the day of. This is necessary for us to inform transportation if we do not need the same number of busses returning.
3. Prior to leaving a meet, the athlete and athlete's parent must directly communicate with one of the coaches.
An athlete is NOT allowed to go home with anyone other than a direct parent. An athlete may NOT drive themselves and may NOT leave with a friend's family. This is a major liability to coaches and the school. Any violation of this can result in an athlete being removed from the program immediately. All athletes are to ride the bus transportation to every meet. Transportation waivers must be filled out and submitted PRIOR to Saturday meets for a parent to transport an athlete themself to those meets.
For home meets, all athletes are expected to stay for the duration of the meet. This is imperative as we are the hosts. All athletes are responsible for assisting the track meet by placing hurdles, removing hurdles, cleaning up, setting up, marking, measuring, etc. There is NO exception to leaving the track meet early. Again, an athlete who leaves a home meet early may be removed from the program immediately.