Jones College Prep XC coach rests top 3 runners in regional, fails to qualify team.
Jones College Prep XC coach rests top 3 runners in regional, fails to qualify team.
Most of them ran pretty crummy too.
It wasn't because he rested them, it's because the guys who actually ran did not perform.
Ron Tabb wrote:
Jones College Prep XC coach rests top 3 runners in regional, fails to qualify team.
http://www.ihsa.org/data/ccb/188390.pdf
Ask me if I care.
Bunch of preps don't get to go to preppy state and stay in a preppy hotel? Cry me a river.
Already Awake wrote:
Ask me if I care.
Bunch of preps don't get to go to preppy state and stay in a preppy hotel? Cry me a river.
Do you care?
So they qualify the 4 who ran and made the cut-off, but the 3 who sat don't go to state, and they aren't entered as a team.
http://www.dyestatil.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=44774&do=news&news_id=444453
There was drama in the Boys race. #12 Whitney Young received a win from Keduse Worku and a fifth place finish by Sam Rivera to lead the Dolphins to the regional win with 49 points. Michael Obroin finished fourth to lead #23 St. Ignatius to 70 points and second place. Worku won the individual race in a sprint holding off Von Steuben’s Jaimie Marcos. Both were recorded with the same time (15:21). The drama came in figuring out the other four teams that would advance to the Niles West Sectional. Von Steuben finished third with 101 points. Then came Fenwick (118 points), Lane Tech (119 points), and Illiana Christian (119 points) with Joes Prep missing by three points. At the finish, one of Von Steuben’s runners was disqualified moving Jones into sixth with Von Steuben. After the results were published, it was noticed that one of Von Steuben’s runner’s timing chips did not read at the finish. Officials were notified of the error and went to do a second video review. Von Steuben was moved into third moving Jones back into seventh. Jones College Prep did qualify four individuals, but did not run three of their top five runners including #1 runner Jeremy Adams.
Read more: DyeStatIL.com - News - DyeStat Illinois – 2016 IHSA 3A Regional Recaps
Already Awake wrote:
Ask me if I care.
Bunch of preps don't get to go to preppy state and stay in a preppy hotel? Cry me a river.
Kind of sounds like you do care. REALLY sounds that you're on the way of becoming a bitter person, too. Might do what you can to halt that process.
There was alot of confusion on who qualified as the final team. At the postrace announcements, Jones and Von Steuben were announced in a 6th place tie, with both advancing to Sectionals. An hour later, the host officials found a way to disqualify Jones. They informed the Jones coach that due to a scoring error, Jones finished 7th and had not qualified. They also attempted to disqualify runners were advancing to Sectionals.
Jones was led to believe that they advanced to Sectionals AND there were individuals announced as individual qualifiers during the awards ceremony...only to be told an hour later that a scoring error was changing that result and taking that away. Only after all the fans left did they change the results.
Then they claimed the awards weren't official. It is a travesty to the student athletes and all the fans that they had achieved something they strived so hard to accomplish, leave the meet and then essentially had the rug pulled out from underneath them later, saying that the host officials made an error and that they were out. I cannot imagine the devastation of these student-athletes after the fact. The fact that it was a rival school doing this makes it all the more suspect, as they are removing their fiercest competition before the Sections competition for the student-athletes.
This is an AWFUL job by IHSA and meet officials. The announced teams and athletes should be allowed to compete at Sectionals.
Separate those two issues. Officials are correct to review the results to verify the scores, regardless of what the initial results were. XC results are always subject to revision early on in the process. But the coach is to blame for resting his runners as if he were a college coach. With them in the race, they would have qualified easily. The officials are not going to sympathize with a coach who has rested his best runners. The coach will likely have learned his lesson and not do this again. He is likely upset enough and doesn't need others to pile on. Too bad for the kids who didn't get to run and won't move on to the next level.
Sounds to me like coaching arrogance, "hey look, we're so great that we don't need to run our top guys for silly little regional meet". I miss the days of old when high school coaches quit acting like little coaching gods and just ran their teams with the kids in mind and for the sake of fair competition. Sorry, I have seen enough at the high school level, too many coaches running their programs like little kingdoms.
I heard two of the three runners were ill, one didn't attend school on Friday, and the third had a minor achilles strain. I've seen several cases where coaches don't run some if their top 7 at regionals out of arrogance, but I don't think this is the case here.
another perspective wrote:
I heard two of the three runners were ill, one didn't attend school on Friday, and the third had a minor achilles strain. I've seen several cases where coaches don't run some if their top 7 at regionals out of arrogance, but I don't think this is the case here.
This isn't a college 10k. No need to "rest" anyone. Above quote is probably right.
Only time you need to hold out a kid is if it's two back to back races like Thursday & Saturday.
Sadcoach wrote:
Sounds to me like coaching arrogance, "hey look, we're so great that we don't need to run our top guys for silly little regional meet". I miss the days of old when high school coaches quit acting like little coaching gods and just ran their teams with the kids in mind and for the sake of fair competition. Sorry, I have seen enough at the high school level, too many coaches running their programs like little kingdoms.
From what I've seen in Ohio, this will become a more regular happening. I have seen many teams do this type of thing over the last three years. It was only a matter of time before this came back to bite someone.
How is it a travesty? They went back to review the results after a coach filed a complaint, made the corrections and the right teams and indivuals move on. The host team can't dq without a ruling from a IHSA official.
Regular Poster wrote:
Already Awake wrote:Ask me if I care.
Bunch of preps don't get to go to preppy state and stay in a preppy hotel? Cry me a river.
Do you care?
Yeah, I do.
Jones is ranked #22 in the state. They should be running for the state championship. The kids who busted their asses all season long running 50, 60, 70 mile weeks really need this - especially the seniors.
Footlocker regional is 1 month and 50 miles away, they should be well rested by then. Best to move on.
C.O. Jones wrote:
Jones is ranked #22 in the state. They should be running for the state championship. The kids who busted their asses all season long running 50, 60, 70 mile weeks really need this - especially the seniors.
Then they should have qualified. Unfortunately, they didn't.
Yeah! What kind of state championship doesn't have the 22nd best team!
Sadcoach wrote:
Sounds to me like coaching arrogance, "hey look, we're so great that we don't need to run our top guys for silly little regional meet". I miss the days of old when high school coaches quit acting like little coaching gods and just ran their teams with the kids in mind and for the sake of fair competition. Sorry, I have seen enough at the high school level, too many coaches running their programs like little kingdoms.
I have watched this alarming trend for over a decade now... at both the prep and collegiate levels. One of the most successful high school X-C teams in my area, O'Fallon, IL, rested all their top runners in the county meet and routinely rests some of their top runners in either Regionals or Sectionals. Obviously they have some depth now since their school population. is over 2000 and they have a great Middle School X-C feeder program at work.. I don't know how many times their Top 7 competes in a season now... but it may be less than a dozen times.
After working closely and going over lots of old scrapbooks with the writer of my authorized biography the past few years... no doubt, we over raced back in the '70's and '80's. My senior year, I ran 24 races from the first meet in August until the State championships in November. I still set a course record at the state meet that still stands today. We did not have NXN or FL Nationals back then in H.S. Instead, after state my senior year, I ran a couple road races and then the AAU (now USATF) National (Sr. not Jr.) X-C Champs because they were in Chicago that year. I called it a fall season at the end of November. Yet, I never felt "burned out" from this schedule. I started back competing in February and did not stop again until very late July that coming summer. And, I "doubled" routinely during the regular track season... both indoors and outdoors.
If we over raced back then... I believe the pendulum has swung too far to the right now and too many kids/programs under race and have a hard time reaching a true "peak" both physically and mentally. And, then you run into instances like Jones above where the coach tries to "rest" some of his top runners and it backfired this time. I hope other coaches "learn" from this. The kids need to learn how to "compete" and it is just as important as training. Success comes in the "balance" of just the right proportions.
On the other hand, I attended a regional 2A IHSA X-C Champs locally last Saturday and saw an error in their results tabulation/awards ceremony that, thankfully, was caught before the end of the awards by myself and another coach. Somehow the volunteer scorers overlooked the top finishing "non team qualifying individual" in 6th place that morning. I am not sure how it happened when chip scoring was being used. But, human beings still have to interpret the results and therein lies the potential flaw. Any school chosen to host a regional or sectional champs needs to recruit trained volunteer officials and double check their work before the awards ceremony. The student-athletes deserve no less.
There is still something to be said for posting a paper copy up on a bulletin board for 5 minutes before the actual awards ceremony so that any potential mistakes can be identified and rectified before handing out the awards and announcing the teams and individuals moving on. Maybe coaches only allowed to see this posting so it can be scanned and reviewed quickly without a crowd pushing around in front the bulletin board making it hard to read fast. Host schools in state qualifying CAN and MUST do better.