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

I'm a parent of a non transfer kid who runs for LV. Zero running experience prior to LV.

re the original post "is nxn good for the sport?"

- my kid was screaming when LV won. It wasn't apparent from the live stream that valley would even podium. So different than reading about it afterwards. I doubt we'll watch nbn (yo producers of the live stream : I get you want to show the early finishers writhing in pain, but show us the rest of the finishers too. Split screen maybe?)

- my kid ran ran at nxr. My kid has lots of regional and national level competition experience from another sport, so this was cool to compare. Nike put on a good meet. Vhsl (Virginia high school sport body) is minor leagues in comparison. Without nxr, my kid wouldn't have experienced post season. That's the down side to being as deep as LV is.

- the hunters preach health, health health. Especially for new runners, there's no bone mass, and they've kept my kid healthy. Coach Joan critiques them when they run their "sets" (CVs?) faster than asked.

We feel blessed that we randomly ended up living in one of the zip codes that go to LV, and that we had a taste of this crazy xc sport, via some of the best coaches in the USA. And that LV is good enough to make nxn. We didn't know nxn existed before running.

So count us a new to running family who had their eyes opened by nxn. Nxn Good for the sport? For this family, yep!

Wrong approach wrote:

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.

I agree that at-large invites for individuals may not be the best thing. I'm more on the fence about that than the rest of it. On one hand, with both NXN and Footlocker trying to draw the best athletes, it is good in theory to extend at-large invites to help create a meet that has all the best in one place (as both meets intend). On the other hand, there are consequences to the decision and some aren't necessarily good for the sport. This wouldn't be a problem if there was only one meet, but that's not the case, so... trying to find the best situation is inevitably going to yield some unintended consequences. I think I'd prefer that NXN not have at-large individuals (and maybe even not have at-large teams), but that's just my opinion.

I don't understand the idea on this thread that NXN is intending to water down their regional meets, though... not sure what has ever implied that is what they are or would go that route. You and Predictor (if you aren't the same person) are the only ones I've seen suggest that kind of theory, and I just don't buy it. If they wanted to do that, you'd think they already would have.

Rank them duh wrote:

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.

Easy? Have you tried ranking the top 50 national teams, most of whom haven't raced each other, on a weekly basis yourself, let alone get together with a group of other people who have different opinions and hash out an order?

I think we have different definitions of easy. I can't imagine how much time and effort that would take to do properly.

It would be interesting to see the financials reported by Nike. I doubt they make much profit from their NXN series. The financial gain they make surely comes through branding and ingratiating themselves to their target market, not from entry fees to regional meets.

Two schools in my state have scooped up all of the good runners in an effort to qualify for nationals. Neither have made it yet but both are close every year and they dominate the state meet. Kids consistently show up at these schools after 8th grade and often have to sit out our 1 year. Remember that there are thousands of schools in the country, not just LV.

NATIONALS should have THE STATE CHAMPION TEAM FROM EACH STATE, PERIOD.

That is all.

it is simply obvious wrote:

NATIONALS should have THE STATE CHAMPION TEAM FROM EACH STATE, PERIOD.

That is all.

No. No way. Not even close.

The 3rd best team in CA could win several state meets easily.

XC Dude wrote:

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

Unless there's some trickery I don't know about, LV's roster does all live within the school district. It's a large district, to be sure, but it is a public school. The DC/NoVA area just has a very transient population. One of their transfers is from a military family, and IIRC, the transfer was more due to the career of the father than the son.

State associations are vulnerable to "gaming" the system with recruits too. You often see private schools with scholarship money to blow seeding high-ceiling runners away from public school in the northeast. Private schools not beholden to district lines appear at the same state meets as everyone else.

NXN wrote:

The boy's race was exciting to watch. It had all of the best teams and athletes in the same spot. I love Footlocker and all it stands for, but this year's NXN showed the potential of having one true high school championship race.

Footlocker is like the dream mile of XC to me while NXN to me is more like the the team title with some of the best runners sprinkled at the top. Just my opinion.

side note I really would love to see Tuohy go after the FL course record which still holds more weight to me than the NXN one just because of the history. Even the old Florida FL course holds more weight to me. Just my opinion though.

it is simply obvious wrote:

NATIONALS should have THE STATE CHAMPION TEAM FROM EACH STATE, PERIOD.

That is all.

Think about what you are saying. An XC meet with 50 teams in 1 race. You cannot have that many. It also wouldn't be as good of a race without regionals because most years Alaska's state championship team probably wouldn't be top 10 in the state of California. It's about having a representation from all around the country, without sacrificing the quality of teams in the race. In 2007 New Mexico had teams finish 2nd and 3rd on the boys side. You telling me that the 3rd place team in the nation would not have been allowed in because technically they didn't win state?

ric flair woo wrote:

it is simply obvious wrote:

NATIONALS should have THE STATE CHAMPION TEAM FROM EACH STATE, PERIOD.

That is all.

Think about what you are saying. An XC meet with 50 teams in 1 race. You cannot have that many. It also wouldn't be as good of a race without regionals because most years Alaska's state championship team probably wouldn't be top 10 in the state of California. It's about having a representation from all around the country, without sacrificing the quality of teams in the race. In 2007 New Mexico had teams finish 2nd and 3rd on the boys side. You telling me that the 3rd place team in the nation would not have been allowed in because technically they didn't win state?

There are very few states that only have 1 state champion. Most states have classes/divisions. Some states have 6 or 7 state champions per gender.

Okay let's say it all at once now:

"Show me the money"

Nike will never get rid of the regional system now that it brings in so many kids and $. Not to mention product placement and athlete interaction. NXN probably loses money, while the regionals make the money.

I agree that these schools with transfer kids is the start of what I see in soccer, swimming, basketball. I argue all the time with my fellow HS coaches, our competition is not each other, but the private coaches that are quietly recruiting more and more kids (who pay more money than HS user fees) and having more and more specialization.

Colin Bennie is a great example. Qualified for NXN as a senior in HS. Turned it down, to be a high school hockey captain and start practice. Went to Syracuse, won a national title and all-american. There are parents who got it. They deserve a prize for realizing the benefits of HS sports.

If you're going to remove the regional meets then you're turning things into a vote and too many politics... keep the system the way it is. You want to go to nationals you earn your spot...

The Nike Regionals do NOT make money. Not even close.

As far as the event in PDX, the costs are immense... airfare for well over 450, hotel rooms, meals, buses, graphics, gear, course rental and construction and a myriad of other things, brings the cost of production into many millions of dollars.

Your argument fails because there are years where CA has the top 5 teams in the nation yet several of those teams don't get to compete at NXN. A system whereby they rank the top 50 teams on a weekly basis would truly put the best teams on the starting line for NXN instead of some crappy team from Georgia getting to go to nationals when they possibly wouldn't be top 15 in CA.

I'm missing something here, people (maybe it's just a person with a couple of screen names) are suggesting that a meet with one state champion per state, with no regard to their competitiveness nationally, would be better than the current regional system???

As people sit around today arguing about whether Oklahoma, Georgia, or Ohio State deserved to make the college football playoffs , people are arguing that subjective rankings (the old NTN set-up that had more complaints than the current set-up) is better than the regional meets???

I also think it's comical that people think Nike is in the regional meets for the profit the meets generate. That's a serious view??

77*

LV teamed wrote:

Yes and they lobbied to get 2 teams in.

They lobbied to get two teams into NXR, which, of course, is a weaker meet than NXN.

Loudoun Valley had 9 boys in the NXR championship race, and in the Open Boys' 5k race (non-championship) a Loudoun Valley kid won and another finished 5th. That's 11 LV runners. Of course, two different races are hard to compare -- going solely by the clock doesn't work. Nevertheless, if you take those two kids and add them into the big race based on time, and you break the 11 runners into two teams, then I think LV's second team would have (could have) finished in something like 6th place overall. That's also assuming that LV's A team would still have been distinctly ahead of (better than) the the first B team finisher.

I haven't crunched the numbers carefully, so this could be off, but obviously the overall LV boys' team this past XC season was impressively deep. (And one or more other schools were also deep.)

I read the contentious thread on the subject of allowing one team or two teams in the NXR championship race. It appears that coach Marc Hunter was correct in his feeling that his B team would still have been one of the elite teams in the Southeast championship mix. They would not have been good enough to make NXR, but they'd have been a top regional team.

I can understand why Nike wouldn't allow a second team.

Many posters want to get the best at nationals instead of the best from each state. To be consistent, you should also then support LV entering 2 teams and you should a system of rankings which would get the best teams to nationals even if they are all from the same region. LR posters are dumb.

It seems that about 1/2 of the posters believe that it was bad for the sport so it was bad for the sport.