I was a club soccer player and that was my only sport until high school. Then the cross country coach came and spoke to the high school soccer team and said that cross country may be something we would like to try as we may find ourselves doing well. He also agreed to work with the soccer coach and understood soccer came first so a bunch of us figured why not just try.
He made the runs fun, we met at local parks and he let us know weekly how we were improving. Once racing started he was genuinely excited for all of our performances and made a big deal out of every pr and would post a xc news letter with performance of the week, kick of the week, improvement of the week and it made us feel special even if we weren’t the top runner. He had parents host team dinners and after my freshman year I decided to train with them during the summer as did some of my teammates. He had summer incentives for mileage reached but we also did fun team trips like a beach bbq and a kayaking trip. I’ve decided to focus more on cross country and track now because he’s made it fun and I’ve had a lot of improvement. Also even when “slow” kids came out to practice to see what it was like he welcomed everyone despite their ability and it made them come back and now a few of them are some of our best runners.
Also the person who recruited the most people got free team spirit wear and the second place person got a gift card to Starbucks etc. sounds silly but it made us reach out to people.