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Reply to "One Course, More Than One Official Name?"

Jeff,

What you are suggesting may not require much of a change in our system. Gene could answer this better than I could.

Your proposal, which makes database sense, only requires the Registrar to name the map file with the Certification Number (not the Course Name), which is how it currently exists. We, as measurers, would simply stop putting a name on our maps. The map itself would not have a race name on it anywhere, nor a Course Name. Simply the Cert Number.

When the Registrar enters info into the database that gets uploaded to the USATF site, he enters the Race Name in one field, and the cert number in another. Then, when someone does a search for a Race, the race name is associated with a cert number, which brings up the associated map. The database says, in human terms, "Race for the Cure - Hoboken uses Cert IL11001JW". If we added another entry in the db for another race that uses the same course, there would be an entry in the database that says "Run for Hunger uses Cert IL11001JW".

When someone searches on the USATF site, the underlying programming would then pull up Map IL11001JW as the result for a search for either Race for the Cure - Hoboken, or Run For Hunger.

If we make this change (not that it is likely to happen, but just following this scenario), then the maps we give to the race director would not have the race name on it, just the cert number. The cert would be their "ownership" that ties the name to the cert number, and the associated map (page 2 of the cert) would just have the cert number on the map. Nowhere would the race name appear on the cert.

Would race directors object? Maybe. But, I think this would solve more problems than it would create. If race directors didn't expect to see the race name on the map (we would have to carry that torch), they wouldn't object to seeing only the course number on the map. And, technically, the maps would finally be correct - we certify a course, not a race. What we supply now suggests that we certify a race, since we put race names on maps in many cases.

Jeff, are you ready to take up that battle??? Big Grin
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