| HS Senior |
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Do you know how many kids run? And how you just gotta be rich to be better at soccer? Good club teams cost $. |
| whatevvvs |
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She is on the Mountain View - Los Altos club...they are basically guaranteed about two spots on the national team every year. Look at the history. The director of coaches for that club is also the U17 national team coach. Doesn't take much to put two and two together. It's not because these kids are better soccer players than your average high school girl, but rather their millionaire parents are willing to fork out the big bucks to get them connected. It's politics, not talent. You have to play the game, know the right people, and situate yourself on the right club. Soccer has a network of coaches who talk to each other, recommend players and trust each others' decisions. Yes, you have to have some talent, but who you know is more important. I'd say that making it to Footlocker is more impressive. There's absolutely no doubt that you earned a spot in that case. Whereas in soccer it is pretty iffy. |
| wrong place |
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She was 5th. |
| CedarParkInsider |
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Parker Stinson did this in 2009. He finished 7th at the Footlocker South Regional, but decided not to run in San Diego. It has worked out pretty well for him... |
| flw |
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Uh, no. She was 4th. |
| Flobie |
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I would think this is pretty common. My top girl decided not to run FL trials in New York, where she would have, no doubt, been in the top 5-6. The original plan was to do that and then not go to SD. At the last minute, she decided not to do either one. College visitations, backed up school work, rest took precedence. |
| z9-s4;4w95a |
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whatevvvs, Of course they are better than your average high school girl at soccer. On the other hand, I bet she knows that Footlocker is more impressive but that she can run it next year and no one will care. However, soccer is not so much about connections and money but about second chances. If she says no to the U17 national coach, she is out of big time soccer forever. |
| GASP |
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Maybe she just likes soccer more than running |
| elee |
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As one of Sarah Robinson’s coaches, I thought I could clarify some things and answer some questions that have been brought up in this thread. Sarah is a full, participating member of the Gunn High School cross country team. She trains with the team and ran in all but one of our races this season. She is allowed to miss practice one day a week (note that this policy is true for anyone on our team with an approved conflict), and even though she had soccer practice every day, she actually preferred to do a running workout before going to soccer practice. Her soccer coaches (both school and club) have been quite accommodating to her running. For the past two years her club team has adjusted their tournament schedule so that Sarah could run in cross country races. In addition, her school coach gave his blessing for Sarah to run the West Regional race even though the school soccer season has already begun (she did play in two school games last week). One thing to remember is that her improvement in running has only been a very recent thing. Last year, she placed 68th in the state meet (172nd overall combining all divisions) running 18:59 for 5K (her best at the 2.95 mile Crystal Springs course was even slower). For most of this season she was running faster, but not significantly so. At our league meet (consisting of just seven local schools) in early November, she wasn’t even the favorite to win. In a span of 2 races over 2 weeks, however, she dropped her Crystal Springs PR from 19:06 to 17:12. When she committed to the national team training camp in December, she was just thinking about running the West Regional race and certainly didn’t expect to qualify for finals if she did. Our head coach, Matt Tompkins, encouraged her to run specifically to give her an opportunity against top competition. To that end, we gave Sarah a very specific race strategy that would give her the best shot at finishing in the top 10, but also had the potential for being very ugly if she wasn’t at her best. To her credit, Sarah wanted to run that way to challenge herself. At the conclusion of the race, we immediately informed the Footlocker folks that Sarah would probably not be able to attend the finals so that they could inform the 11th place finisher. After calling her parents to confirm the details of the training camp, Sarah formally declined her invitation. The 11th place finisher was confirmed within thirty minutes of the finish of the race. As for the future, your guess is as good as ours. She does enjoy running and plans on doing both cross country and track throughout high school. Soccer, however, is her primary focus and what she would like to do in college. She is well aware that her current size isn’t advantageous for her soccer career, but her older sister was even smaller than Sarah at that age and ended up growing to 5’7” by the end of high school. Our job as coaches is just to give her opportunities and to best prepare her for achieving her goals, whatever those may be. -ernie lee. Gunn Cross Country. |
| Ah Ha |
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LOL your kidding right? Good one! She has a MUCH greater chance of going to the OLYMPICS on with U.S. soccer than EVER seeing a penny from a shoe contract. Thanks for the funny though! |
| Adam C |
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Thanks for the inside info, Coach Lee. Sounds like Sarah is a talented and well rounded young lady. |
| Another Party |
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It is people like you who are killing our great sport. You should be fired and jailed for what you are doing. You need to force her to quit soccer. There is no future for her in soccer and you are only leading her on in a fantasy world. This isn't about her enjoying soccer, she has a duty to run the Footlocker Final! She is letting her team down, her school down, her region down and her entire sport down. I am ashamed to be affiliated with the likes of you. Obviously, this post is a joke. I just felt like I would contribute sarcastically prior to someone saying the above in sincerity (which will happen). She sounds like a smart girl. Best of luck to her. |
| TrackCoach |
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I have dealt with a similar situation several times and it usually a matter of how your body develops. In soccer, girls who come from the elite clubs have a big advantage at the youth level, pretty much like tennis or gymnastics. They generally enter the real world of soccer at U17, physical stature and athleticism starts to play a major role. This is where you will see kids with good skills, but their main thing is speed/endurance and start to migrate to running. At the Junior or NCAA level, they all have good skills/speed/endurance, but they are also big and strong and overall athletes. Junior or NCAA level female soccer players are built more like a guards in basketball as opposed to runners. Once you get beyond the youth level, the girls average about 5’8” 150lbs; the small youth phenoms who stick around in up injured a lot. Some of the smaller girls that remain competitive are usually not the distance runner types, but are more like 400/800 type athletes. Btw, if this girls is 15 and playing up in U17 means she is very good…U17 is where the serious weeding out takes place. |
| pulse |
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Coach, thanks for your note - it should not have been necessary but maybe it will calm people down. I think it shows the sad, insecure state of distance running in this country when a high school girl decides to play soccer instead of running a cross country meet and people get so upset and bent out of shape. Maybe the Lukas Verzbicas episode has everyone on edge or something. If I am remembering correctly, Futsum Z. chose not even to run the Foot Locker regional race his sophomore year. Big deal. Would soccer fans have the same reaction if she had chosen FL over soccer? Hopefully not. Good for her for having a break out race - hopefully she had fun with it. And best wishes to her and her soccer team. |
| Another Example |
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In 1987, Ian Alsen of Granada Hills won the West regional, but skipped nationals in order to run with his team at the LA City championships. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-01-22/sports/sp-25278_1_distance-runners |
| areusure? |
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I don't understand your argument. You have to be in HS to go to XC nats...so XC nats "doesn't include all ages". |
| envewi |
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Well said, coach Lee, and congratulations to Sarah Robinson on BOTH of her great seasons. |
| Maximus |
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So "pulse" did you even read this thread before you responded. I think at least 90% of the posts were either positive or neutral about this girl not running footlocker. Not sure why people need to calm down or that anyone is bent out of shape or upset. Posts like yours annoy the heck out of me when they talk about something that isn't true. Even the OP was not negative towards this girl, he just said it was interesting that she turned down the trip, since it is. The majority of the posts were just comparing soccer and running and which would be more competitive, which team is harder to make, etc. This thread has been a great discussion, outside of your rant about something that wasn't even happening on this thread. |
| I think not |
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I can assure this is false. |
| whatevvvs |
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Read some of my posts on this thread. It is pretty obvious that I am a Stanford alum. Look at some of the comments about Gunn High School (adjacent to Stanford) and the Bay Area. The men's cross country team received 4 total scholarships and the women got 8 back in the day. These were all officially track scholarships and the money was split up with ZERO people getting a full ride. I doubt Chris Derrick or Aisling Cuffe even signed for half the tuition. Better deal than the ivies, but cost of education is not why you go to Stanford. Cross country and track are possibly Stanford's weakest sports at the moment. |