photo by: Journal-World file photo

The month of April passed this year without the running of the Kansas Relays.

That doesn’t happen often. The meet began in 1923 and paused only briefly for World War II, renovations and the COVID-19 pandemic. But KU decided not to put on the event this spring in order to reduce expenses, as the Journal-World reported in September, amid the advent of student-athlete revenue sharing and other significant costs.

At the time it was unclear whether the meet would return for 2027 and beyond.

“We made kind of a one-year decision, and I didn’t know,” athletic director Travis Goff told the Journal-World in a recent interview. “And then, of course, I said that we didn’t know if that would extend in a short time frame, perpetual time frame, or if we’d pick it right back up.”

KU is currently evaluating the possibility of reinstating the Relays as an event that takes place not annually, but with additional space in between meets.

“We’re actually running a little bit of an exercise right now, not to make it sound overly complicated,” Goff said, “but is there a thought and a justification and an impact to an every-X-year version of the Relays, and if (there) were, then what would be the core objectives and strategies around it?”

At its peak, the Kansas Relays used to draw tens of thousands of fans. In 2023, upon its return from a COVID-induced hiatus, the meet received a World Athletics Heritage Plaque acknowledging its prominence in the sports of track and field.

In terms of participation, the most recent running of the Relays in 2025, the third and final in its most recent iteration, included 5,500 entries from 4,600 competitors representing 106 colleges and 447 high schools. Goff said in September that KU never intended for the event’s latest iteration to be “fragile.”

In retrospect, he said on Wednesday, the meet became beholden to too many different pursuits.

“What’s so neat about it is of course the history, but it’s also that it’s had multifaceted elements to it,” Goff said. “You know, it’s had high school and local high school impact. It’s had community impact. It’s had KU track and field impact. But at the end of the day, I think as time went on, each of those realms became a little less clear and/or blurred and watered down.

“And I think if and however we relaunch it or reestablish it, we’ve got to just be really clear about what (are those) one or two core elements of opportunity and impact, and then that way you have an ability to figure out how to fund it and what the model looks like.”

He emphasized that if the Relays return, “we’re going to be able to conclusively state, ‘Here’s what the new version looks like.’ It won’t just be rolling it out in the former vision.”

KU is not operating in a vacuum as it makes decisions about the future of the Relays. Its decision last fall created something of a ripple effect. Rival Kansas State seized the opportunity this spring to host at its R.V. Christian Track Complex in Manhattan the “inaugural K-State Relays,” a high school meet focused on team-scored relays and individual field events that took place in mid-April.

“There was a void and we wanted to fill that void,” Travis Geopfert, K-State’s second-year track coach, told KCTV5 in January.

The organization RunningLane also staged an event at Blue Springs South High School designed to “reimagine the historic KU Relays as the all-new Kansas City Relays — a modern, athlete-first track festival powered by the RunningLane experience.”

Asked about K-State’s event in particular, Goff said he was “not really” concerned that its presence would impact plans for a potential return of the Kansas Relays in an every-few-years format.

“And not because I’m shrugging that off,” he said, “just because one of the things we’ll consider is why are we different and why is our event different?”

He said that K-State’s investment in track and field is good for the sport, but KU would take “a unique approach” that prevents its own meet from being made redundant.