Champion Speed Development, Led By Joe Lee, Stepped Up And Put A National Indoor Championship Together On Short Notice

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

In six weeks, Joe Lee and his team have created an indoor national championship meet for high school athletes practically out of thin air — adidas Track Nationals.

The cancellation of national high school indoor meets in New York and the opening of a weekend in Virginia spurred him to action.

Lee, who coaches track and field at The Bullis School in Maryland and runs his own business, Champion Speed Development, LLC, found an apparel sponsor in adidas and immediately went to work organizing a complicated three-day meet that will run through Sunday at the Virginia Beach Sports Center. LIVE RESULTS

When the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference (MEAC) canceled its indoor championships, there was suddenly an open date on the calendar at Virginia Beach. 

"I said 'Let's charge the hill,'" Lee said. "I'm someone who doesn't like to live with regrets about not going all in."

Lee was already interested in putting together a smaller invitational this winter, but never imagined an opportunity like this would come up. Championship Speed Development hosted The 757 Showdown the final weekend of January, which turned out to be dry run before attempting to host nationals. 

The meet began Friday and includes Freshman, Open, Rising Stars and Championship competition in a format similar the one employed recently by the National Scholastic Athletics Foundation, which has put on high school indoor championship meets since 1991.

The NSAF was forced to cancel this year's indoor championships and is now planning the USA Meet of Champions outdoor meet in Myrtle Beach, S.C., March 25-28.

"When we saw there was a need for a national championship, and the opportunity was there, we got our team together and said 'Hey, can we do this?'" Lee said. "We connected with the local track clubs and local community in Virginia Beach, we connected with the facility and they have a great plan that they've been working with, and the local government. Along with our team, that was four pillars together to build a stable structure to make something happen."

Athletes from 40 states, eager to compete on a national stage with credible national championship bragging rights, have quickly filled the entries with a wide swath of the top prep talent in the country. Shawnti Jackson and Avery Lewis are both entered in the girls 60-meter dash, Sydney Thorvaldson is coming out from Wyoming to run the 2-mile, Kinetic (Saratoga Springs NY) is in the girls DMR and Jaylen Slade is in the boys 60 and 200. 

The meet will go a long way in shaping a final indoor national ranking in a season where competition opportunities have been sorely lacking across the country.

Lee and his team of about a dozen people that have worked long hours to put this weekend's event on. 

It will be, as Lee points out, the first national high school championship track and field event since the 2019 New Balance Nationals Outdoor (an NSAF event) in Greensboro, N.C. 

But the biggest challenge of them all remains the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Working with the facility managers and the City of Virginia Beach, the meet will be one of the largest attempted since the pandemic began in the U.S. 

"They showed leadership in this pandemic, saying what can we do to make this work for the sake of sports and our kids," Lee said of the operators of the city-owned complex. "They made sure that there was an environment that was No. 1 safe and didn't lose the competitive aspect of it. (Virginia Beach) put a plan in place that the rest of the country followed, because to my knowledge nobody was running (indoor) track meets in the country before they were."

The event calendar has been carved into 71 sessions, time slots that will accommodate particular athletes for particular events. The athletes will have about an hour of time to warm-up, a chance to compete, and then will have to exit the facilty so the next group can go. 

And the arena itself has been split into half in order to make it happen. People will be allowed on the right side of the area, for instance, while the left side is being cleaned and sanitized. For the next session, the sides will flip: One for masked, socially distant people who are supposed to be there, while the other side undergoes cleaning. 

"Safety is the first priority," Lee said. "We have worked very hard to make sure we have a protocol that works and we plan to error on the side of caution."

The meet will include a limited number of spectators. 

Lee also rented four nearby basketball courts to serve as an extra space for athletes to warm-up and also conduct medal ceremonies. And yes, there participants will receive backpacks, just like they did New Balance Nationals events presented by the National Scholastics Athletics Foundation. 

Young pro athletes from Virginia who have signed with adidas — Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway and Drew Hunter — have all shown their support of the event. 

Lee said he is not certain whether this weekend's event will happen again. At the moment, he's just trying to get through the weekend.

"We don't count sleep in hours any more, we count sleep in minutes," he said. "Because in order to do this, we've literally been working around the clock."

In the end, Lee feels the effort will all be worth it.

"The focus is on the kids, who need something like this after the 2020 cancellation of the outdoor season and then the announcement that the indoor championships were canceled this winter," Lee said. "Our biggest goal is to try and give these students that have worked so hard a positive experience in a safe place."