Best and worst state championship courses?

VA has a good state course. It has a nice wide open start, a decent amount of hills and turns while maintaining good footing and a nice long finishing stretch.

My only gripe is they don't allow spectators on the course and instead encourage you to bring binoculars to watch from a hill next to the course.

I'll second MIS at Michigan being less than ideal, I think it would have been awesome to run state at portage, always been my favorite course.

With that said, I'm sure other states are much worse

I have to vote for Washington's state meet course as one of the worst. It's on a golf course with plenty of ups and downs and turns (which is fine, I guess).

http://wiaa.com/ardisplay.aspx?ID=1784

The big problem is the lack of spectator access. They changed the course for 2018 to try to provide a more spectator friendly atmosphere (it used to be even worse, with a chunk of the middle of the race way out on the far side of the golf course where no spectators were allowed), but too much of the course is still inaccessible to fans. One thing that should make a state meet cool is the intensity of it with spectators lining the course, mere feet away as the runners flash by, followed by the mad spectator dash to their next good viewing point. Yet on this course, after the first 100 meters, most of the rest of the first mile is run in dead silence because spectators are not allowed on that part of the course. After that, even in the areas where spectators are allowed, they are never close to the runners, so that intensity it lost.

It's just a bummer that a state like WA that has so much quality in it and so much passion for the sport is stuck with a state meet course that drains the intensity out of great races.

Louisiana, if I'm not mistaking, alternates the state meet between Northwestern university and Highland park in baton rouge. This year, at Northwestern, it was 32 degrees, raining, and the whole course was about foot or so deep in mud. 4-5 guys broke 18 and barely did so.

New Jersey Holmdel Park hands down due to the infamous Bowl

CoachB wrote:

For the people saying Rimrock....I've seen video from the '97 NCAA meet. That place looks pretty cool.

Rim Rock Farm is beautiful. It was one of the best courses in the country. It is not a cupcake either.

PS: It was the 1998 NCAA meet at Rim Rock. Div I and Div II were both there on the same day.

LA xc wrote:

Louisiana, if I'm not mistaking, alternates the state meet between Northwestern university and Highland park in baton rouge. This year, at Northwestern, it was 32 degrees, raining, and the whole course was about foot or so deep in mud. 4-5 guys broke 18 and barely did so.

It does not alternate between NSU and highland. It is in Natchitoches every year but there are plans to potentially relocate the meet and reduce number of classifications.

Only beef with the CA course is the curb you step off a few hundred meters into the race that is not visible to many of the runners. There are falls here every year and it does unfortunately impact a few kids and teams races. At least one person lost a state title because of it.

Nebraska has the best course I've seen, and I've seen Rim Rock.

It's essentially one big loop of a hilly golf course. No repeating loops, no crossovers, no doubling back. The final 600 meters or so runs parallel to the starting area, so you can stand in one area and see the start/finish, and runners at several other spots on the loop. Visually you don't have runners moving both directions much, so it's a simple race to follow.

You guys are all morons. Blah blah blah with the excuses.

Listen,

The reason venues stuck in beautiful states like WA is.........

PARKING, CONCESSIONS, AND MONEY.

of course you could find a place with big trails. Beautiful loops and a farmers big field that would allow you to park. But nope, it's the parking tickets, hot dogs, and kick backs. They will always suck.

vermonstah wrote:

I have heard nothing but good reviews of the Cross Country course in Thetford, Vermont which has been home to the VT championships since 92 and which has hosted the NE Champs a few times (I believe). Varied, tough but fair.

It's a great course for a field of about 100 or so, so perfect for the Vermont state meet. It's a cluster-f##k for New England's when they try to cram 250 runners onto it.

Plus, the snooty pr1cks at Thetford Academy think that they're too good to let us use their bathrooms. Jerks.

New York moves theirs around every year. So it varies from legendary (Sunken Meadow, Bear Mountain) to boring (SUNY-Utica, Queensbury) to unknown (some obscure golf course in Section 7 or 10) or something inbetween.

False. It's not the beat course, but it's fine. They aren't that sharp of turns, I think you're just nit-picking. I was able to see 3 spots pretty easily without much jogging the finish straight isn't easy to get to if you're trying to see the 2 mile split, but it's so crowded anyway that it doesn't matter.

NJ sucks. It's not one of those pussie courses like the southern states or ca has.

Louisiana for worst

Sugarhouse park has one good size hill, and is otherwise mostly rolling hills, with some flats the last mile. The course is mostly grass, with a little dirt, the final 100m is on a track. The park is at 4500 feet. The course record (3 miles) is 14:42 (Casey Clinger).

Another vote for KY on the worst list. The course has been sub-par since they moved to the horse pastures (2009?) The location of the finish line has changed multiple times over the years and the course is likely over 5k. In addition to the holes and multiple sharp turns, the course is not spectator friendly as you have to watch from afar, behind a fence. It’s a shame they left the old course (also at the horse park) which was spectator friendly, a little faster, and less monotonous. Now the course has almost no history behind it and it’s useless comparing times from year to year because of slight course variations.

Move the meet where? Highland? I haven't heard anything good about any of the Lafayette venues, and I know for a fact there aren't any good courses in New Orleans. Highland could probably handle the logistics, but I'm assuming the people in Natchitoches know how to put in a bid that works financially for the LHSAA Executive Committee, and that's what matters. The only way you get something like that moved is for another city to put up a better financial arrangement, or to do something that ticks so many people off the member school principals vote for a new rule (as happened with wrestling, when all the NOLA/BR schools got so sick of going up to North LA for the state meet even though all the good wrestling schools are in the south). As a coach, I don't mind going up to Natchitoches. It's a fun trip for the kids on the team and I'm happy to get two days off from teaching.

I've heard about the proposal to go to 4 divisions, but I don't see how that has any chance of passing. What's the last time the LHSAA reduced the number of trophies it hands out in a sport? The principals have zero incentive to vote for fewer classifications. They like winning trophies or being able to say that Johnny or Sally finished in the top 10 at the state meet.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to work something out to move the meet to the Friday/Saturday before its current date, though. Theoretically, you could have 12 races in a day if you start at 8:00 and run one race every 45 minutes.

Rim Rock Farms in Kansas takes my vote. I have been to 30 state meet courses and this is by far the best one. It was designed to be the best and it is maintained like the best should be