F-M and Loudonville—One big similarity

soupyguy wrote:

Not all wealthy wrote:

Not all Saratoga's kids are wealthy. There are some run-down sections of their school district.

Danbury CT is a tough town - the kids on their team refer to it as "D-Block". They went to nationals once or twice.

I dont think Danbury is a good example. Compared to other towns in Fairfield county (like Greenwich, Darien, Wesport, etc) it might be considered poor. The downtown part is run down but most people living there are working middle class and nobody considers it a tough town. If there was a inner city school that went to NXN that would prove your point better.

I assume that North Central is one of the poorer schools to ever qualify for NXN and would be a better example. About 50-55% of their school is on the free/reduced lunch program (for poorer students) throughout their stretch of NXN appearances. To be fair, Danbury isn't all that far behind (looks like they have around 45% of their school was on free/reduced lunch in 2015).

Oh? wrote:

I assume that North Central is one of the poorer schools to ever qualify for NXN and would be a better example. About 50-55% of their school is on the free/reduced lunch program (for poorer students) throughout their stretch of NXN appearances. To be fair, Danbury isn't all that far behind (looks like they have around 45% of their school was on free/reduced lunch in 2015).

The questuon is how many of the free lumch crowd is doing XC? there are a lot of 2 track schools where you have a white upper middle class track (0% free lunch) and a poorer ethnic section (100% free lunch). It has been a long time since I was in Danbury but there were nice sections. I am sure there were bad ones.

It is definitely harder to have a distance program in Urban areas. You end up with more limited access to good facilities. But in the end it is mainly about a coach who can get people out and get them to work (just about anything works when you cam get the kids to run an hour a day all year long for 4 years).

False Loudonville, Ohio. Learn your geography.

Loudonville, NY.

"Neither does Joan Hunter… though being a stay-at-home parent definitely has some demands."

The hunters have 9 kids. I'm sure that's more than. "some demands". I'm not a mom but that's borderline "mom ist"?

This discussion, which is a Form of nature v nurture is interesting. What is it?

- the demographic of the Loudoun Valley zip codes? (valley kids are asked to prioritize the team over jobs)

- the transfers?

- the coaches and specific training?

- the terrain?

- the drew hunter effect?

My sense is that there's truth in all of those, that created the back to back record setting wins.

Until someone did an analysis of these, all of this is interesting conjecture.

Read the interview. She says that she's able to spend a lot of time writing training plans because she doesn't have a job outside of coaching.

Go back and read what you wrote.

https://www.constant-content.com/content-writing-service/2007/07/regime-vs-regimen/

Oh? wrote:

soupyguy wrote:

I dont think Danbury is a good example. Compared to other towns in Fairfield county (like Greenwich, Darien, Wesport, etc) it might be considered poor. The downtown part is run down but most people living there are working middle class and nobody considers it a tough town. If there was a inner city school that went to NXN that would prove your point better.

I assume that North Central is one of the poorer schools to ever qualify for NXN and would be a better example. About 50-55% of their school is on the free/reduced lunch program (for poorer students) throughout their stretch of NXN appearances. To be fair, Danbury isn't all that far behind (looks like they have around 45% of their school was on free/reduced lunch in 2015).

How could you possibly know within 2.5% accuracy how many students are on the free lunch program? If you have this kind of ESP you should be coaching, you would never have to guess on anything.

The Overexplainer wrote:

Oh? wrote:

I assume that North Central is one of the poorer schools to ever qualify for NXN and would be a better example. About 50-55% of their school is on the free/reduced lunch program (for poorer students) throughout their stretch of NXN appearances. To be fair, Danbury isn't all that far behind (looks like they have around 45% of their school was on free/reduced lunch in 2015).

How could you possibly know within 2.5% accuracy how many students are on the free lunch program? If you have this kind of ESP you should be coaching, you would never have to guess on anything.

I must have ESP. Or i know jow to do a google search. Seriously public lunch stats are public info.

In addition to having great coaches and talented kids there has to be talent within the schools and the coaches have to be able to get those kids to come out and commit themselves. Once a program becomes successful more kids will come out and the talent level increases as well.

not all do wrote:

everyone in ny can move athletes up. Not everyone chooses to move 7/8 graders up. Some feel it is not developmentally good for the athlete to do so. Some athletes are so small (see current fm 8th grader) a lot of schools would not move them up. Its the cost of chasing a national championship, you overlook whats best individually and you do what is best for the program.

I know. I coached in NY. In 20 years I moved up 4 girls (all were one year older than the typical 8th grader) and 0 boys.

The Overexplainer wrote:

Oh? wrote:

I assume that North Central is one of the poorer schools to ever qualify for NXN and would be a better example. About 50-55% of their school is on the free/reduced lunch program (for poorer students) throughout their stretch of NXN appearances. To be fair, Danbury isn't all that far behind (looks like they have around 45% of their school was on free/reduced lunch in 2015).

How could you possibly know within 2.5% accuracy how many students are on the free lunch program? If you have this kind of ESP you should be coaching, you would never have to guess on anything.

It is public info...

Yeah, that all sounds simple and nice, BUT how successful is your program?!

If your team isn't great or consistently crushing the competition nationally, then your opinion on the matter is fairly irrelevant. It's not just workouts, it's motivation, team dynamics, getting the kids to FULLY buy into your system. THat's difficult.

I think it has more to do with athletes and parents buying into the system so that you actually give 100%, run in the mornings, run on the weekends, and don't whine when asked to give hard workouts. Successful programs have a positive circularity where new students easily buy in. Without Drew Hunter to be the model athlete buying into the program they might not have seen as much success in future years with kids aspiring to repeat that success.

Can we be careful about we call success? Against the wall training usually works in high school before kids have matured. But these athletes aren't doing well in college. I think the "success" of these programs is more greediness of egotistical coaches who turn high school from a developmental stage into the peak of these kids careers. Not something to be celebrated

Shoebacca wrote:

I think it has more to do with athletes and parents buying into the system so that you actually give 100%, run in the mornings, run on the weekends, and don't whine when asked to give hard workouts. Successful programs have a positive circularity where new students easily buy in. Without Drew Hunter to be the model athlete buying into the program they might not have seen as much success in future years with kids aspiring to repeat that success.

The " drew hunter effect " reminded me. The hunters have a fun AAU program, as well, the middle school that feeds Valley (who don't or aren't allowed to do sport in HS), have a mile run of the top 10 kids right before school let's out. Coach Joan is there to ask the kids if they want to sign up for xc.

Back to the OP saying "ooo, the kids parents are rich, that's it." I think that there are too many factors to conclude that a single factor is "it".

Teacher wrote:

False Loudonville, Ohio. Learn your geography.

I saw three girls softball state titles and one softball title for loudonville , but nothing that indicated a power XC program.

be careful wrote:

Can we be careful about we call success? Against the wall training usually works in high school before kids have matured. But these athletes aren't doing well in college. I think the "success" of these programs is more greediness of egotistical coaches who turn high school from a developmental stage into the peak of these kids careers. Not something to be celebrated

I would like to learn more about this. Many posters say that you have to focus on development in high school, and not train hard. I want to be able to cite the science or theories that prove it is important not to be the best you can be in high school- what sources do you recommend?

Also, can you say what % of potential should be the goal in HS, how much improvement should be left for 18 to 22, and how much improvement should be left for after age 22? Or maybe it would be expressed as, "don't run more than X mile" or "don't go faster than X" for each distance- but some kind of guidelines so the coaches know when the kids are squandering their college potential.

Thanks!