High school recruiting advice!!!

You could pitch it as a way to stay in shape for other sports, or maybe try to appeal to those who aren't big or necessarily athletic enough for other fall sports, as well as those who just want a sport to tack onto their resume. While none of those approaches are particularly glorious, you've got to start somewhere, and if enough kids come out, you're sure to get some good ones. Also, make sure that students know that it's not a "wimpy" sport, and in fact shows a lot of toughness and grit, not for the faint of heart. Additionally, while it may not be a big deal, I would suggest forming 100, 250, 500, 1000 mile clubs for training over the summer, just as an added incentive for the kids, maybe with t-shirts or something, and other little rewards such as that should help out as well.

Ok thanks so much. That's a great idea.

Especially if your school only values football, it is VITAL to get as many freshman on the team as possible. This means having a second meeting at the middle school. Try to set up the meeting at the middle school through a gym teacher or the middle school XC or track coach and get them to ask likely candidates to show up for the meeting.

Eventually, in an ideal situation, the middle school will have XC and spring track teams so you might want to pick the gym teacher's brain for a teacher or two that you could talk to about sponsoring middle school teams. Middle school teams don't have to be deadly serious to help HS teams a lot. You can offer to help plan what they need to do.

Most high school freshmen take gym. Talk to the HS gym teachers and have them point out or ask likely candidates to attend the meeting. By this time of year, the gym teachers know the freshman that are going to make it playing other sports. Ideally, if you could watch all the gym classes while talking to the teachers one day, you would be able to do most of the asking yourself.

make contact with the soccer coach, so when they make the team cuts the coach can recommend they stay fit by running XC

All good suggestions. I go to our middle school's "Bulldog Mile" which has the top 10 milers from each grade. Their classmates come out to cheer them on. I hand out flyers that emphasize all the fun stuff of being on cross country (meeting kids at the high school before the school year starts is a big one), being on a team, getting in shape, etc. I also mention that if they can put one foot in front of the other, they can run cross country! A lot of kids think they have to be already good before they come out. I try to dispel this idea.

I also have a meeting at the middle school and tell kids that they don't have to be great athletes to run cross country. Of course, I'd like to get great athletes, but honestly, some of the kids who aren't great athletes turn into OK distance runners. I have a freshman boy this year who didn't even make our middle school's Bulldog mile, but heard my cross country pep talk, came out, trained well starting last summer, and has run 10:05 in the 3200 this year so far.

If your school doesn't have the equivalent "Bulldog Mile" talk to the PE teachers and find out who does well in the mile or pacer and make a special effort to contact those kids- especially if they are kids who don't really shine in other sports.

You also need to build a great summer of pre-season training. Love the 100, 200 mile etc club idea with T shirts- think I might have to add that to our program.

I love all these ideas with interaction with the middle schools, where I'm from the programs at that level are a joke, and building good habits and increasing participation there are crucial. Great idea to try and recruit some kids with more potential. Especially fond of the hosting the race, what a great way to show how fun running can be, and pick out the faster kids at the same time. I don't know if it'd be possible right now for you, but I'd also recommend having your better high school runners come out and run a workout or something, maybe with the middle school kids, to show them what can be achieved with hard work. They could also talk to the kids to give them an idea of the program from a peer's point of view. A local school near us literally has kids playing in the sand pits instead of doing anything productive, so you may have to point out that in high school XC/T&F are "real" sports, and not an activity to waste time after school (but make sure they know it's still fun). Good luck, I hope your season goes well! Maybe put up a update or email those of us that have participated in this thread every couple of months with your progress, I think it'd be neat to get a look at your progress.

I Hope that helped.

A middle school running club could be a good idea. You could have some students show up after school and run a few miles, then compete in local races every now and then. That would spark interest in running as well as getting people in shape for the high school team. A middle school competitive team would be ideal, but it would be very difficult to start if surrounding schools don't have teams.

I would venture that if you can get the popular girls running, the guys will follow suit.

Even unpopular girls help. It is almost impossible to have a bad boys team if your girls team is good.

Another way to get some people out could be to explain how doing a sport (like XC) looks good to colleges.