Is it too late for my high school xc team?

Well I'm right there with you. My boys have the talent to be a state caliber team. But they are all also very motivated in academics and the push of today's student to do more and more has resulted in what I have now. A half commitment, talented, young men.

But ya, we are better than last year but we aren't catching anyone unless the other teams implode.

It begs the question, did YOU hold Summer Running SIX days a week all summer long?

You can not--in today's day & age--expect teenagers to run on their own.

BUT, if you're willing to sacrifice YOUR SUMMER to coaching all summer long, THEN your team can do something magical.

It really bothers me--and maybe I'm not even talking to you--coaches who whine that their student athletes did not run on their own over the summer. Why would they? They're kids who would rather play video games, sleep in, & hang out with friends. But, if you hold Summer Running & are willing to meet with the kids, then your team will have a base to really train hard & go after a state title!

In many states coaches aren't allowed to meet with their team during the summer so the responsibility falls on the athletes.

Yes. They definitely can. In fact, you can time it just right to where they kill it during the post season. I've helped in/watched this process a few times. Email me if you'd like to talk it over.

New Yorker wrote:

In many states coaches aren't allowed to meet with their team during the summer so the responsibility falls on the athletes.

Add Nevada to that list...

H.S. Coach #120r57 wrote:

It begs the question, did YOU hold Summer Running SIX days a week all summer long?

You can not--in today's day & age--expect teenagers to run on their own.

BUT, if you're willing to sacrifice YOUR SUMMER to coaching all summer long, THEN your team can do something magical.

It really bothers me--and maybe I'm not even talking to you--coaches who whine that their student athletes did not run on their own over the summer. Why would they? They're kids who would rather play video games, sleep in, & hang out with friends. But, if you hold Summer Running & are willing to meet with the kids, then your team will have a base to really train hard & go after a state title!

It's quite possible that the OP really couldn't do that.

As the posters before me have said, many states' high school athletic organizations forbid coaches from being able to meet with their athletes during the summer.

I recall that my HS coach established a "track club" during the summer, but we were forbidden from actually running on our HS's track, and instead met in a nearby forest preserve. Moreover, neither he nor our assistant coach were actually permitted to be at the practices, so he ended up asking for the help of team alumni who were back home for the summer.

Basically, what had to happen was that our coach had to write workouts, give the workouts to the alumni who were volunteering to run with us, and then receive feedback from them for how we were doing.

Overall, the system really wasn't that great. A lot of guys on our team never showed up, and the former team members who were supervising us didn't exactly have the greatest insight on how to help with running mechanics or anything beyond the actual workouts. For instance, an incoming freshman had a gigantic stride, and leaned forward much more than he should have while he ran, and although everybody knew that he needed some way to fix that, nobody knew exactly what he had to do to accomplish it since it was so ingrained in him.

Back in the day-30 some years ago-there were rules that you couldn't practice on Sunday, you couldn't practice over Christmas or summer, and you couldn't practice for football in January or April. Kids did three different sports. Kids were able to go to church if they chose to. Kids could go on vacations. Kids did not worry about a specific athletic activity with a singular focus.It was better then. Let the kids have summers off. If they ask, tell them to run 20, or thirty or forty or whatever miles per week. Don't schedule the workouts. Don't meet with them-either yourself or proxies. Let them have summers off. Who cares if you win State. Kids need to be kids.I hate what youth sports has become.

The reason you hate what youth sports has become is most likely because you're not a youth. In fact, you sound like one of those stereotypical "old man" caricatures who is always yammering on about how "In my day, you could buy meal for sixty two cents!" or something like that.

Just what exactly are you trying to imply with the statement "kids need to be kids?" Are you suggesting that you have some method of "being a kid" that is more correct than any other method? Last I checked, a kid who dedicates vast amounts of time to being the best he can be at a sport is still a kid, especially since he's probably enjoying himself while doing it.

And let's just take a look at some of the other things you described:

I'm 100% positive that kids are still able to go to Church on Sundays, and that the vast majority of teams do not host a formal practice that would interfere with it. In fact, that's half the reason the "Sunday long run" is so ingrained in many high school programs. It's something the kids can do themselves.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure that any kid could go on vacation if he/she wanted. In case you've forgotten, cross country is a no-cut sport in almost every school. The only consequence would be that the kid would miss training (and school if they choose to vacation during the school year), but that's something they would have had to deal with even in "your day".

As far as the "three different sports" point goes.

1) I doubt many kids did three different sports, even "back in the day". The exception would be track throwers who were also football players and wrestlers, but those 3 sports naturally complement each other to some degree.

2) There's nothing stopping kids from doing 3 sports now except schedule clashing (which would have occurred even "back in the day") and being cut for not being good enough (which also would have occurred even "back in the day".

Of course, I suppose you could argue that those kids with a "singular athletic focus" take up all the team spots on the sports with cuts, but that's really not an argument at all. That would be the same as claiming that it's unfair for a player who dedicates more time to a sport to be privileged over a player who dedicates less time to a sport.

And in all seriousness, there is a huge amount of benefit associated with having a coach oversee training during the summer.

Perhaps you're not familiar with this anymore because you seem so removed from high school, but high school distance runners are injured very frequently, and a good portion of them have an unhealthy tendency to try and run straight through an injury.

On my team in particular, there were several kids each year who would work very hard to the point that they would end up with afflictions like ITBS or hamstring problems. But instead of stopping, they would just go home, foam roll, ice, and come back the next day because, surprise surprise, they liked running. Fortunately, it's pretty easy for a coach to spot injuries like these, since the kids typically start limping around or avoiding putting weight on one leg, and it usually just takes a quick talk to set them straight and make sure they don't start running until AFTER they heal up. During the summer though, there was one year when a kid ended up running on a stress fracture for 3.5 weeks before it completely immobilized him. And it was because he trained alone and thought that icing it would make it go away. Had one of the coaches managed to see him for just ONE day during that period, they could probably have knocked some sense into him and gotten him to stop before it got worse.

In case you've forgotten, for whatever reason, distance runners LIKE physical exertion, and LIKE the idea of working hard. For many high schoolers, most of whom are unfamiliar with just how much of an impact injuries can have on performance, running through an injury is just another chance to work harder. Part of a coach's job is to make sure that doesn't happen, which is pretty difficult to do when the coach can't see the athletes.

In Iowa we had that rule, but my coach got around that for both summer and winter. We had what essentially were "voluntary OTAs" during early summer mornings and then after school during the winter. As far as teens running on their own, the two years I didn't train with the team in the offseason, I ran on my own. Of course, I was probably (mistakenly so) more driven than most teens to succeed at running. To the OP: a fairly talented runner can get by with a lack of training at the high school level.

New Yorker wrote:

In many states coaches aren't allowed to meet with their team during the summer so the responsibility falls on the athletes.

My top girl did not run last summer, stress reaction took her out. She started running Sept. 5th a total of 5 min.that day, was up to 30 min. by the end of Sept., ended up finishing 2nd overall in the state meet in Nov.

Be patient, if there is talent it can be done.