The ritual begins the Sunday before each state track and field championship.
Coaches rise at the crack of dawn to hunt for big-city newspapers.
After poring through results from every regional, they size up the chances of their teams and individuals for the following weekend. Many even try their hand at predicting team champions and potential point totals. The less avid prognosticators wait until the complete list of qualifiers is published in the Ohio Track and Field News later in the week. That's all about what's going to happen on paper. . . . We just go out and run and let them add up the scores.