Carter Blunt (TX) won NXN South by :08, while losing FL South by :18... 2nd placer Alex Rogers placed 2nd at NXN South, only getting 10th at FL South.
I have 17 more examples, but you get the point. Foot Locker is where the talent is... NXN is for cowards hiding behind their teams.
Co wrote:
NXN is for cowards hiding behind their teams.
Kinda like a loser douchebag hiding behind a screen name
The winner of NXN NE was fifth in the CT state meet.
Co wrote:
Carter Blunt (TX) won NXN South by :08, while losing FL South by :18... 2nd placer Alex Rogers placed 2nd at NXN South, only getting 10th at FL South.
I have 17 more examples, but you get the point. Foot Locker is where the talent is... NXN is for cowards hiding behind their teams.
Footlocker was today?
Is not cross country, for real runners, a team sport.
How many states in NXN south vs. Footlocker SE?
What is the historic quality of those states involved?
Co wrote:
Carter Blunt (TX) won NXN South by :08, while losing FL South by :18... 2nd placer Alex Rogers placed 2nd at NXN South, only getting 10th at FL South.
I have 17 more examples, but you get the point. Foot Locker is where the talent is... NXN is for cowards hiding behind their teams.
No, I don't see your point yet, give me the other 17 examples...
ficustree wrote:
How many states in NXN south vs. Footlocker SE?
What is the historic quality of those states involved?
NXN Southeast has 11 states (DE, MD, VA , NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, TN, KY, WV) and Washington DC.
Footlocker South has 14 (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC,
TN, TX, VA, WV), but a couple are completely noncompetitive (MS, AR, LA, OK, didn't even have 5 boys and girls...MS and LA didn't even have one kid).
lmb wrote:
Is not cross country, for real runners, a team sport.
It is a good question, but one that I think actually puts the spotlight on why a national team championship is not of real interest. Contrast it with the college (NCAA DI) championship. There a lot of people care about one or two of those teams. Maybe half of the posters here do, and on this sub-forum, probably 75% do.
Now, do I care who wins NxN? Not really; I and most posters really have to strong connection to the teams. Yes, I would 'like' the team from my state to win, but except for atypical situations (my town, my high school or my conference) I do not really care very much.
Why is this? At the high school level there are a ton of high school teams. Most of the runners from most of those teams will not race DI in college, and only a relative handful will race on competitive (top 50?) teams. These tend to be the state champions and those pushing them and big states will generally go deeper (cf., CA, NY). This sorting to a manageable set of teams that you can pay attention to and follow those top runners out of high school and in to college is where the interest lies, I think.
Now, this is my take, but I actually would be interested in someone countering or diminishing the importance of some of my 'argument' here.
26mi235 wrote:
lmb wrote:Is not cross country, for real runners, a team sport.
It is a good question, but one that I think actually puts the spotlight on why a national team championship is not of real interest. Contrast it with the college (NCAA DI) championship. There a lot of people care about one or two of those teams. Maybe half of the posters here do, and on this sub-forum, probably 75% do.
Now, do I care who wins NxN? Not really; I and most posters really have to strong connection to the teams. Yes, I would 'like' the team from my state to win, but except for atypical situations (my town, my high school or my conference) I do not really care very much.
Why is this? At the high school level there are a ton of high school teams. Most of the runners from most of those teams will not race DI in college, and only a relative handful will race on competitive (top 50?) teams. These tend to be the state champions and those pushing them and big states will generally go deeper (cf., CA, NY). This sorting to a manageable set of teams that you can pay attention to and follow those top runners out of high school and in to college is where the interest lies, I think.
Now, this is my take, but I actually would be interested in someone countering or diminishing the importance of some of my 'argument' here.
Reasonable take. I suppose you might get some Nike employees that hammer on your post, but I think it's reasonable. With almost all the top individuals going to FL this year that is the one I'll be watching. Actually, I think the regional team results in FL are actually more interesting than the NXN team results. I like to see if the East and West Coast hype machine is real or just hype.
I don't know about your "17 more examples", but you can't really claim that NXN is for cowards. Were you not aware of last year's showdown between Baxter, Cranny, & Efraimson? That was a dramatic one, and one that had been on the radar since the summer before. All three of them ran tough and courageously and were clearly not afraid to push each other to the max. I'd also like to point out that Efraimson and Cain, neither who did FL, have done great things on the world stage and are now pros. Besides, Efraimson and Cranny just proved at last summer's junior worlds that they aren't afraid of racing the Africans; I honestly do not understand how one can view them, or any other NXN competitors, as cowards for that.
My take on is that in recent years NXN has the better girls field, part of it probably to what Cain and Efraimson have done, but I do agree that after 2010 FL had the better boys' field. Don't get me wrong, I still think this year's NXN field for the boys will be fantastic, but with the coexistence of both meets, you can never truly determine who the true national HS XC Champion is unless you have all competitors in both meets race head-to-head.
I know this sounds weird, but I have actually never viewed NXN vs. FL as a team vs. individual thing. I've always felt that NXN was actually for the true XC runners and/or those who favor power and strength- similar to the IAAF World XC Championships, the competitors are running against tons of other talent on a cold, muddy, obstacle-filled course. The NCAA's are also run this way, or at least similarly, as well as the European Championships and the Bupa Great International XC Challenge, to name a few. However, with NXN at Glendoveer this year, I realize that this might change. On the other hand, I've always felt that FL was for speed runners, runners who use XC as a buildup to track, or runners who prefer track over XC. I will concede that from my own observation, FL runners tend to prevail over NXN competitors at national-level track, not necessarily XC, meets. With track being the Olympics and XC not *sad face*, I can understand how track appears to be much bigger thing at the moment, and why some view FL as the true teller of who America's next stars are.
That being said, I can understand why fans and competitors alike prefer NXN over FL and vice versa, but feel free to agree or disagree with me all you want.
and 3rd at new englands behind the 1 and 3 runners at footlocker northeast
I think the top runners in the country that opt for NXN are hiding behind their teams because they are afraid to race the best at Foot Locker.
Foot Locker is for the best individuals. NXN is for the best teams. If you are one of the best individuals, run both.
lkjc wrote:
I think the top runners in the country that opt for NXN are hiding behind their teams because they are afraid to race the best at Foot Locker.
Foot Locker is for the best individuals. NXN is for the best teams. If you are one of the best individuals, run both.
Did you ever consider that not all runners have the option of doing both? Or that some simply choose to do one over the other so they aren't traveling both weekends?
Were Baxter, Cranny, and Efraimson hiding behind their teammates? Or Cain the previous year?
Small penis syndrome?!
dip sh*t alert wrote:
Did you ever consider that not all runners have the option of doing both?
Right, some runners are forced to run with their teams.
Which might turn out to be the case with Tamagno this year.
To be honest, I don't think "hiding" is the appropriate term. Tanner Anderson, Sukhi Khosla, Austin Tamagno, and Jessica Lawson, to name a few (sorry if I missed out on anyone else to whom this applies to), have expressed, and proven, that they're not afraid to race the top talent in the nation. Unfortunately, all of them had to choose one or the other, but impressively, all of them stuck with their teams, even though two of them ended up only making it as individuals. If anything, these guys and gals have proven to be the real heroes of their teams for putting the team goals of above their own aspirations.
cooptastic wrote:
ficustree wrote:How many states in NXN south vs. Footlocker SE?
What is the historic quality of those states involved?
NXN Southeast has 11 states (DE, MD, VA , NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, TN, KY, WV) and Washington DC.
Footlocker South has 14 (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC,
TN, TX, VA, WV), but a couple are completely noncompetitive (MS, AR, LA, OK, didn't even have 5 boys and girls...MS and LA didn't even have one kid).
You were doing so well until your last sentence. In true LRC fashion, I must correct your small error. MS did have one boy who ran Footlocker Seeded.
irbis wrote:
To be honest, I don't think "hiding" is the appropriate term. Tanner Anderson, Sukhi Khosla, Austin Tamagno, and Jessica Lawson, to name a few (sorry if I missed out on anyone else to whom this applies to), have expressed, and proven, that they're not afraid to race the top talent in the nation. Unfortunately, all of them had to choose one or the other, but impressively, all of them stuck with their teams
It is sad that pressure was put on them to do that, rather then encouraged to do their best on their own.
Not so impressive wrote:
irbis wrote:To be honest, I don't think "hiding" is the appropriate term. Tanner Anderson, Sukhi Khosla, Austin Tamagno, and Jessica Lawson, to name a few (sorry if I missed out on anyone else to whom this applies to), have expressed, and proven, that they're not afraid to race the top talent in the nation. Unfortunately, all of them had to choose one or the other, but impressively, all of them stuck with their teams
It is sad that pressure was put on them to do that, rather then encouraged to do their best on their own.
I am certain that they will do their best regardless of the venue.
Although I favor watching the top individuals over the top teams, but I would not say "cowards hiding behind their teams". The Baxter, Cain, Efraimson and Cranny on the girls side and the Verzbicas, Cheserek, Rosa, Gedyon, Lutz and Moussa NXN races on the boys side where historic. - If you have a strong team, you run NXN, if you don't have a strong team, you choose FL...it's as simple as that. Btw, starting in 2008 the NXN individual girls overall have been slightly more competitive than FL and the boys overall have been just slightly less competitive. In fact for a couple years, NXN was so competitive that people were predicting the death of FL.
One day (soon I hope) there will be just one race and we will look back and say how could we be so stupid.