NXN this year was good for the sport. Change my mind.

I think the wildcards were an awesome addition. I saw several of the up front during the race. I mean come one what a great race.... It was definitely a great race. Is Footlocker broadcast anywhere for free?

More than anything else, I would say this year demonstrated the importance of attracting transfers to your program if you want to do well at NXN. Few of the podium teams would have earned their places without very talented runners transferring into their schools. I don't know about Wayzata or Dakota Ridge, but each of the other 4 podium teams had transfers, and of them, only Great Oak's transfer was not a key scorer.

Is this trend good for the competitive balance of the sport?

I think as long as NXN gains popularity, fast young runners will be incentivized to transfer to these successful schools to get more attention and take a shot at a title.

State Competition may die out for these powerhouse teams when it becomes almost silly to try for a perfect score. The sectional, regional, and state meets will get in the way of training for the national qualifying meets. Some of the elite hockey, soccer, and softball players have already abondandined Hs competition in favor of club competition.

Foo Foo Achoo wrote:

I think the wildcards were an awesome addition. I saw several of the up front during the race. I mean come one what a great race.... It was definitely a great race. Is Footlocker broadcast anywhere for free?

On the other hand, the wildcards didn't finish all that much higher than the AQ athletes.

On the boys side, the wildcards finished #7 (didn't run FLS) , 13 (FLMW #13), 19 (FLNE #1), 20 (FLMW #3), and 65 (FLS #1). For the supposed massive improvement that adding more Footlocker qualifiers that opted out of NXN was supposed to yield, that's hardly any difference at the top. They only averaged 24.8 place.

On the girls side, the wildcards finished #8 (FLMW #5), 21 (FLW), 37 (FLMW #9), 47 (FLW), and 53 (FLW). That's an average of 33.2 place. Granted, part of that may be because several of the top athletes selected apparently opted to not accept (per the milesplit article posted earlier this week), but again we see that the athletes who qualified through NXR did as good or better on average than the FLN qualifiers (or potential qualifiers in the case of FLW athletes).

It's a nice idea to add the extra qualifiers, but in the end it didn't really seem to add that much other than add evidence to the idea that NXN was already the stronger meet. That is something that several posters on here and other places had already been suggesting, though that was always debated with the general consensus seeming to be that FLN was actually better at the top... but now those NXN supporters seem to have more evidence in their pocket than ever before.

Predictor wrote:

State Competition may die out for these powerhouse teams when it becomes almost silly to try for a perfect score. The sectional, regional, and state meets will get in the way of training for the national qualifying meets. Some of the elite hockey, soccer, and softball players have already abondandined Hs competition in favor of club competition.

I don't buy that.

Yes, some select individuals can afford to not worry too much about state level competition, and maybe some select teams that are already far beyond their in-state peers, but whenever it is a competitive situation I just don't see teams and individuals backing off in favor of waiting an extra week to peak. If those teams don't win state, they are decreasing their odds of making it to nationals via At-Large selections, so unless they are far and away a top-2 team in their region that would be a dumb move. For individuals, it's the same except it's top 5 in their region instead of top 2. That's not a smart bet to make.

And for the individuals, if that was the case, we would have already seen it happen for FLN decades ago.

Footlocker was always good for the sport. Individuals want to do well at their state meet. It’s the power hungry coaches who try to recruit national class teams that are too good for the state that I am referring to. That is what NXN is unintentionally creating. To keep things in tact, Nike should do away with regionals and hold a national meet comprised only of state champion teams. If they don’t care about the revenue from the regionals as some here have suggested, that would make perfect sense. They could seed the national meet depending on how many teams enter. They already do that for all of the regionals so it would sure cut done on the amount of work required. They won’t do that though because they have a long term financial strategy in place to dismantle Footlocker and the state associations. They intend to continue adding to the bloated numbers at the regionals by expanding the number of regional meets instead of doing the opposite.

Agree 100%.

The problem with that is that there are multiple divisions in each state. Also it would water down the comp without having elite individuals.

They are trying to get rid of footlocker and I hope they do. Let’s have the best focus on just one nationals imo.

I’m not a fan of Nike as a corporation but their approach to nationals is spot on.

Nike already has to sift through hundreds of team entries in each region to decide which get into the championship race. It would make for less work to just do it once at nationals. They could publish their own weekly rankings of the top 50 teams so that there are no surprises when nationals roll around. Like I said, they don’t really want to do what is best for the sport so they will instead continue to try to get more and more people to pay to compete at their regional meets. I would like to see them rely on the state meets as qualifiers to show that they support the state associations. I realize that some states like Michigan have an issue with that but I think it would work itself out with the rankings that Nike could create.

There approach to Nationals is exactly wrong, watered down regionals and at-larges to runners who will now go after hype to promote an at large invite will be unbearable in future years. (it's already aweful how some runners are shameless self promoters, with certain niche media more than willing to oblige). This is not what is needed at the high school level.

Also Nike has shown to not even stick to there own rules and I don't trust they run a fair meet. Do they even bother with a USATF sanction? Footlockers consistent fair approach is exactly right.

State associations won't allow a takeover and XC isnt big enough to go it alone. Some state associations already don't like what's happening as they don't like the potential precedence being set for other sports most notably football.

FL is king of highschool XC and always will be, (the irony of it all is go into by FL store and it's 75% Nike gear....)

(Full disclosure - I have runners who have done both meets with my highest placer being at NXN though hoping that changes next week)

What an absolutely silly, uninformed post! The person who actually controls the purse strings for NXN values FL as a way for more kids to experience the high level that each event provides.

“ bloated numbers?? “. Not a chance. Expanding the number of regional meets ?? Again, not a chance....

Truth be told, I have had FL qualifiers, including a FL Champion and an NXN qualifier. I believe that both events have their value for our sport but the cachet of FL is fading.

umm this is essentially what NXN was when it was still called NTN back during its early years, then people complained about who was invited and the qualifying process so they changed it to regionals.

how is it good to get rid of regionals and invite state championship teams only? you have no grasp on how many states have multiple divisions and multiple teams deserving of competing at nationals.

XC Dude wrote:

More than anything else, I would say this year demonstrated the importance of attracting transfers to your program if you want to do well at NXN. Few of the podium teams would have earned their places without very talented runners transferring into their schools. I don't know about Wayzata or Dakota Ridge, but each of the other 4 podium teams had transfers, and of them, only Great Oak's transfer was not a key scorer.

Is this trend good for the competitive balance of the sport?

I haven’t followed that closely, but is it true that the boys winning team had 3 transfers in their top 5?

If so, that’s ridiculous. That’s more like a college program that recruits.

Yes and they lobbied to get 2 teams in.

Easy to rank the top 50 teams on a weekly basis published for all to see. You have to be state champ to get to nationals. Done. We are in the heartland region where they have to sift through hundreds of teams for the championship race so I assume it happens at the other regionals also. That’s a lot of unnecessary work but it’s all about the thousands of paying customers at the regionals.

It is true that 3 of the top 5 boys had transferred to Loudoun Valley, but they sought out the coaches and not the other way around. Given the success LV has had, where would you choose to attend school if you were a HS runner and your family relocated to Virginia (as two of the transfers did)? Kind of a no-brainer, I think. If the Hunters weren't such good coaches, they could easily ruin good runners and kids wouldn't want to go there, but that obviously isn't the case.

I actually have more issues with transfers from within the state because I think (at least in the short term) it really skews the playing field. Showing up at a major invitational to watch the LV boys win both the Varsity and JV meets can be awe-inspiring, but also depressing if you're on another team. The sheer volume of talented and committed runners at LV allows them to a train at a higher level -- a college-like experience compared to other schools where the top guy/girl is often running on his/her own. So again, you can't really blame aspiring runners for wanting to go there. Hopefully, rather than complain, perhaps other coaches will try to emulate LV's success and improve their own programs. Mark and Joan are very open about their training methods, and they've also been extremely generous in the past working with athletes who don't attend their school. I know a handful runners now at the D-1 level who came to them for advice and remain very grateful.

Predictor wrote:

State Competition may die out for these powerhouse teams when it becomes almost silly to try for a perfect score. The sectional, regional, and state meets will get in the way of training for the national qualifying meets. Some of the elite hockey, soccer, and softball players have already abondandined Hs competition in favor of club competition.

For individuals : This is already the case for swimming. In the case of swimming, it's very rare for any high school age kids to be fast (finaling at states as a freshman) without being part of a club prior. Is that the same for running? (I'm truly asking) How many say state point scorers as freshmen were first time runners? Also, unlike running , USA swimming has an orderly process. High school is an afterthought. In swimming "everyone is a transfer," as no one lives where they club swim. (and one editorial note: if you are including private schools in nxn, then please stop with the transfers win stuff. There were at least two private schools at nxn, and all their kids are transfers. I know the Boles swimming recruited internationally, and produced some world class, Olympic swimmers. I'm surprised that they haven't gotten around to a rich running alum doing that for xc).

For the school : nxn is so awesome to bring together a band of kids that go to school together - classes, cheer basketball and football games - and have them, and their team mates go to, participate in, cheer on, and in some cases, podium. The drama of even the nxn winner is great. Kudos for Nike (and yes, it's self-serving on their part) putting this on. I'd be curious what percentage of their running marketing budget goes to the nxn series.

XC Dude wrote:

More than anything else, I would say this year demonstrated the importance of attracting transfers to your program if you want to do well at NXN. Few of the podium teams would have earned their places without very talented runners transferring into their schools. I don't know about Wayzata or Dakota Ridge, but each of the other 4 podium teams had transfers, and of them, only Great Oak's transfer was not a key scorer.

Is this trend good for the competitive balance of the sport?

No.

This transferring trend is not good for State High School competition.

Thankfully, more and more states are having students who move school districts sit out parts of their season if they move school districts to fight against this.

(Now, that seems unfair for the kid whose parents just moved and all he wants to do is play JV football. But, the parents who are so invested into their kids amateur athleticism have ruined that for everyone.)

Bottom line, you want your state high school level of competition to be even, fair, and intensely competitive. Dominant teams are not good for the sport (Alabama CFB, Golden State NBA, even North Central takes away from the enjoyment of D3 CC) because it's no longer interesting or competitive. As a young middle schooler or underclassmen, you want to grow up with the goal of a state championship being a possibility and something to aspire to. But in Virginia, it looks like a Loudon Valley victory seems to be your reality for quite some time.

I would be very frustrated if I was another Virginia CC/Track coach that Loudon Valley is allowed to take whoever they want on their team. But at the same time, I assume that coach is allowed to do whatever the LV coaches are doing.

Also, nothing against the Hunters or the program they are running, they are a class act, they have done a lot for the sport, and they are following the rules just like any other coach likely would in their situation.

But, I do not feel like the rules in their situation is the best case scenario for the State Level of competition.

If you want to put together a super team and compete at a national level, great, expand into the club level of athletics just like other sports have.

But the State Level should remain to be competition between teams composed of athletes within the school district.