V 1 N. 6 Another Robot Running Story by Chuck Hunsaker

 Chuck Hunsaker was inspired by a recent report in The Guardian which we published last week to send this piece he wrote about the possible future of Cross Country due to the new rules applying to our sport in the NCAA domain.  Later this week I'll put up one completed created by an AI robot.  Thank you Chuck.


TECH SCORES 15...DESTROY'S STATE CROSS COUNTRY 
They said it was impossible.  No team could ever win Tech-State with a perfect score…but yesterday it happened.
The team from Tech was almost machine-like.  In actuality, they were machines.  “They were simply invincible,” said the coach from State.  “We had the best team we’ve had for a number of years.  We’ve won every meet we’ve been in this year, and today we got destroyed.  I looked up as the runners came over the last hill and all I could see was black and gold and I could hear a faint hum.”
The NCAA should have seen this coming, but they have been reluctant to change the rules. Should a robot be allowed to run with humans over 10,000 meters?  The national ruling body has heard about robots running races, but it has been road races, half marathons and full marathons.  They simply didn’t see this coming on the college level…but why not.  Every coach I've spoken with was outraged.  Once again, the NCAA appears more like an Ostrich with its head in the sand than a sports ruling body.
"Tank" Williams, cross country coach at Tech, doubles as the department head for their world-class robotics department.  “We were finding it harder and harder to recruit for our track and cross-country teams.  NIL and the new team member limits were killing us. So much money was going to football that we were an afterthought.  We still wanted to field teams, but our teams were becoming irrelevant, and we were afraid the athletic department would simply drop cross-country.  Robots are running in other races, so why not in college?  Tech should dominate, so we checked the rules and there was nothing against it.  We built these guys over the past 6 months and ran them at night on our home course.  Yesterday was the first day we put them in an actual race.  We don’t have to worry about scholarships, coaches, trainers or academic standing.  We simply tune them up and turn them loose.  We’re now working on field event robots.”
This is certainly a new era for the NCAA.  Will future championships become the battle of the robots or will sanity rule and see real human athletes once again compete for championships?

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