Doug Soles calls out NY/FM

Maybe Cali coaches should get off their asses and start motivating their middle school XC coaches to do a better job. Until they start coaching better they'll continue to be stomped by FM.

totorious wrote:

rojo wrote:

That chart is a bit scary. Thank goodness, I didn't coach HS women. It would be so hard to get many of them to accept they are at their peak in 8th -10th grade.

It's only scary if you can't understand how to count, as clearly there were much more runners in 10th-12th than 8th-10th. All George was doing was saying how many girls were from each grade on their national team each year. Over the 11 years he detailed, the results were:

8th grade - 3

9th grade - 9

10th grade - 19

11th grade - 23

12th grade - 23

If you thought that they were listed in the order they finished then you are even dumber than I thought - it was very clearly listed in ascending grade order each year.

Are you not concerned that rojo thinks that women are at their peak in 8th-10th grade. I forgot that all world record holders are high schoolers! Women aren't supposed to improve after that, FM is a great school that peaks their runners in the years of their lives when they're supposed to peak!

might be rojo wrote:

Maybe Cali coaches should get off their asses and start motivating their middle school XC coaches to do a better job. Until they start coaching better they'll continue to be stomped by FM.

Not all middle schools have XC programs, and not all XC programs have competent coaches (this is not just about California, but the nation as a whole). Similarly, not every area has a youth running club.

Plenty of areas around the nation, kids are introduced to XC for the first time their freshman year, and many of those areas track is only a sport for 10 weeks a year. That is a massive difference in how well they have been trained, and how far they can advance their training by the time they are seniors.

Level Field wrote:

"2. No other national championship allows some teams to play by certain rules, and others to not utilize those same rules."

Some states prohibit high school coaches from working with their kids out-of-season. Schools who are have the out-of-season coaching advantage would also be eliminated, according to the same rules argument?

I don't get what is so hard to understand. He is proposing that there are only 9-12th graders at the actua nxn race. That's it. And, he acknowledged it would not have made a difference this year. And he complimented the coach and program. And he has the guts to post on here and interact with us.

I admire both programs and would be happy to have my daughters run for either one.

Want to get pissed?

Coach in PA and have teams come done from NY that are allowed to run MS runners at invites where you can only enter HS runners.

For the third time I will state the lurking variable that has remained unnoticed in this whole thread.

FM is not better at distance running than GO (at least not to the extent we see at NXN).

Just look at track results year in and year out.

Great Oak girls are better on the track than FM.

So it is NOT about youth advantage, or program advantage, its simply a matter of the surface they run on. Of course no one (in CA) wants to admit to this, because it makes CA look soft, but it is the truth.

Could you provide the original Albanian this post was translated from so someone can decipher?

random6 wrote:

Want to get pissed?

Coach in PA and have teams come done from NY that are allowed to run MS runners at invites where you can only enter HS runners.

People are kind of glossing over the fact that NXN is not sanctioned by state high school athletic associations. This is technically a club championship.

Sure, the typical practice is for high school teams to become club teams just for the NXN races, but I don't see anywhere in the rules where it says Great Oak couldn't bring middle school girls to the NXN races if they wanted to. Grace Ping ended up being allowed to run even though she currently lives in a state where she's not allowed to get bumped up to varsity as an 8th grader.

The Rocket. wrote:

For the third time I will state the lurking variable that has remained unnoticed in this whole thread.

FM is not better at distance running than GO (at least not to the extent we see at NXN).

Just look at track results year in and year out.

Great Oak girls are better on the track than FM.

So it is NOT about youth advantage, or program advantage, its simply a matter of the surface they run on. Of course no one (in CA) wants to admit to this, because it makes CA look soft, but it is the truth.

Maybe- but what about the effect of different periodization (different priority placed in xc vs. track)- maybe year-round xc training does not lead to optimal track performance. That effect would be hard to separate from the "surfaces" factor.

Yet, many states prohibit a school's in season coach(es) from working with their team or athletes during the offseason...this is a HUGE issue that is seldom discussed and needs to be "worked around" in many states.

Texan but not registered name wrote:

Level Field wrote:

"2. No other national championship allows some teams to play by certain rules, and others to not utilize those same rules."

Some states prohibit high school coaches from working with their kids out-of-season. Schools who are have the out-of-season coaching advantage would also be eliminated, according to the same rules argument?

I don't get what is so hard to understand. He is proposing that there are only 9-12th graders at the actua nxn race. That's it. And, he acknowledged it would not have made a difference this year. And he complimented the coach and program. And he has the guts to post on here and interact with us.

I admire both programs and would be happy to have my daughters run for either one.

Not exactly. He also didn't like that FM gets to work with their middle school teams whereas Soles can't do that until they are freshman. It wasn't just about who is toeing the line. That's a notable difference, because one piece I take issue to and one is sour grapes.

Thread Follower wrote:

midwestern miler wrote:

If NXN wants to limit the national meet to only 9th-12th grade, I'd understand. Trying to eliminate opportunities for coaches to work with middle schoolers and complaining about the fact that they do so is pathetic.

Yet, many states prohibit a school's in season coach(es) from working with their team or athletes during the offseason...this is a HUGE issue that is seldom discussed and needs to be "worked around" in many states.

Needs to be discussed by whom? I'm well aware of those issues and it further demonstrates that you can't control for all variables to make everything perfectly equitable.

I think Nike would be pretty stupid to limit the national event based on the lowest common denominator. They have a good product. Why would they want to cut out talent from the race? And imagine the backlash from teams from regions allowing middle schoolers to race up, because you'd also have to deny those teams' access to the regional events.

Moreover, the states that limit younger runners from "competing up" are often areas that don't support middle school running programs. For example, I live in the south in a moderately progressive, fairly good sized university city. Exactly none of the public middle schools here have cross country programs.

Bottom line, we shouldn't penalize the kids in NY or other states where they have an opportunity to compete mainly because other states and localities offer their kids inferior athletic opportunities.

midwestern miler wrote:

Thread Follower wrote:

Yet, many states prohibit a school's in season coach(es) from working with their team or athletes during the offseason...this is a HUGE issue that is seldom discussed and needs to be "worked around" in many states.

Needs to be discussed by whom? I'm well aware of those issues and it further demonstrates that you can't control for all variables to make everything perfectly equitable.

How about the High School Coaches that find this an issue? State High School Associations and the NFHS seem to constantly be tweaking rules, and this seems like an easy enough set of issues that should be able to be agreed upon with proper communication.

Apparently I should've clarified that when I said I would understand NXN implementing this at their national meet I meant that I would understand them implementing it at all of their meets (so the region meets as well). So states who allow middle schoolers to run varsity would not be able to bring those below 9th grade to the region or national meet until they are of age. Doesn't seem that outlandish to me, nor does it seem to be punishment to tell an 8th grader that has been racing with the team in NY all year that they don't get to go on and run at the regional and/or national high school meet until they are in 9th grade. They will still get 4 opportunities to do so.

That said, I don't have a huge issue with how it is done now, but I understand that gripe. Does it not make sense to limit competitors in a high school race to high school runners? Should they open it up to elementary school runners and college runners? While I know that sounds like an absurd stretch, I'd like to know why it seems reasonable to have a set cutoff as 7th - 12th grade for a high school race.

Unlike your area, we have middle school programs around where I live and they aren't allowed to compete in high school races - admittedly maybe that is shaping my opinion.

But you are right, Nike has little incentive right now to restrict it's allowed competitors. I doubt enough disenfranchised teams would boycott NXN to try to force change (and I'm not saying they should).

I'll Bite wrote:

midwestern miler wrote:

Needs to be discussed by whom? I'm well aware of those issues and it further demonstrates that you can't control for all variables to make everything perfectly equitable.

How about the High School Coaches that find this an issue? State High School Associations and the NFHS seem to constantly be tweaking rules, and this seems like an easy enough set of issues that should be able to be agreed upon with proper communication.

Yes, if high school coaches feel that there are unjust regulations in their state/country then they should ban together and convince governing bodies that they are being unreasonable.

What does that have to do with NXN?

Coach Soles, please post an honest estimate of what percentage of your girls team you would lose, were they forced to choose between XC and Soccer. I'm sure that percentage overwhelms whatever advantage FM might have due to including 7th/8th graders in their training group. Couple that with your student body being twice the size of FM's... and your whining about unfairness is just embarrassing. Please stop.

Generally the reason middle school athletes are allowed to compete on varsity is because too many schools in that state would have trouble fielding complete teams without this opportunity. Not surprising that a school with nearly 1,000 students per grade would be against a policy like that.

Ever hear of O.J. Mayo and Bill Walker? They played in Kentucky when they were in 7th and 8th grade with O.J. Mayo making first team all state. They then moved to Ohio and played together 3 years winning two state titles. Before their senior year, Walker (now known as Henry) was ruled ineligible because he was too old, so O.J. Mayo went back to his original hometown of Huntington, WV and played on a nationally ranked team for his senior year. He played a full 6 years of high school basketball being awarded first team all state in 3 different states. That earned him his huge multi million dollar contract to play at USC before taking a paycut and turning pro.

The hard part is this event takes teams that compete with different rules all year and then at the last minute qualifies them for a championship race.

That being said, I've never understood why middle-school athletes compete in high school state championships anywhere. It should be 9-12 if you're going to call it a high school team.