Nike holds an extra regional in New York, right on the same course and same day as another regional, so they don't need another venue, timing crew, event staff or signage, adding all the resulting spectacle, entry fees and merch sales to their booty haul on that day with minimal excess cost and effort to them.
What about any of that leads anyone to believe any changes will be made? 😏
Everyone read this multiple times....
The NY region isn't going away. Nike basically holds two regionals for the price of one.
It was a great day at Bowdoin yesterday. Just let it be. All the teams and individuals that made NXN from each region deserve it.
Curious... why would combining the NE/NY regions change anything that happened yesterday at Bowdoin? Wouldn't it still have been a great day?
Many thanks to Rich G. for posting and sharing some of the ideas being considered. Personally, I do think it's time to combine the NE/NY regions, but I'd be more in favor of 2 auto bids per region with more at-large selections, maybe 8 per gender. That would result in a national meet of 24 teams/gender. That's a good sized national meet and 28 on the Glendoveer course might be too crowded? The best regions can change over time, but this would allow more flexibility. If the NE/NY region came to prominence again, they get their share of the at-larges. It's a win-win in my opinion. Finally, I like the 5 individual qualifiers per region, especially since some areas of the country can do both NXR and FL regionals, whereas other don't have that option.
Regardless, I'm thankful that NXN exists. It's been great for the sport.
Every region has its down years. People seem to be upset that NY gets 2 auto bids. They had a team finish 10th last year. How good should a region be every year to hold its rights to be a region? It's a terrible precedent to attack and break up a region because we don't like their current success or failures. Combine NE/NY - the problem is the NE is excellent this year, so what does it do?
Every region has its down years. People seem to be upset that NY gets 2 auto bids. They had a team finish 10th last year. How good should a region be every year to hold its rights to be a region? It's a terrible precedent to attack and break up a region because we don't like their current success or failures. Combine NE/NY - the problem is the NE is excellent this year, so what does it do?
I agree about regions having down years, but is it really necessary to have NE and NY separate? As a combined region, they are not stronger than some of the existing regions and even if they are up again in the future, at-large selections would reward that depth, just like it helped the SW region this year. Just my 2 cents.
4 At Large Teams are selected by our committee to create a meet with 28 total teams (closer to the NCAA size)
Individuals would drop to Top 3 Individuals on a non-qualifying team (try to give a little love to our buddy Footlocker so possibly more individuals will return to the individual championship).
220 runners total on the start at NXN
In this situation, the boys would have been:
NW: CDA, Crater, Franklin
CA: San Clemente, Dana Hills, Great Oak
SW: American Fork, Herriman, Riverton
South: Carroll, Bentonville, Austin Vandegrift
MW: Downers Grove, Plainfield North, Plainfield South
Heartland: Stevens Point, Wayzata, Dowling Catholic
Rocky Mountain, Great Oak, Niwot, and then I'm honestly not even sure.
I think that would be a ton better, however, lots of really good guys would be left out. Not sure why dropping it by 2 guys per region to get to 220 really helps. 236 guys with 5 guys qualifying like it is now isn't some insanely large field.
The NW would have left out Jack Meier and Noah Laughlin-Hall. California would have left out Jason Parra, Aydon Stefanopoulos, Eli Fitchen-Young, and Joshua Bell. SW would have left out Kyle Steadman and Will Brunner. The MW would have left out TJ Hansen and Aden Bandukwala. The Southeast would have left out James Partlow, Ethan Edgeworth, and Colin Eckerman.
It's a lot of good guys that add to the quality of the field that would be staying home.
We have been looking for feedback on the 220 vs 236….I agree that it’s not a huge difference, we may just need to make the course at Glendoveer a bit wider in spots.
4 At Large Teams are selected by our committee to create a meet with 28 total teams (closer to the NCAA size)
Individuals would drop to Top 3 Individuals on a non-qualifying team (try to give a little love to our buddy Footlocker so possibly more individuals will return to the individual championship).
220 runners total on the start at NXN
Really like this idea - I think that instead of having 3-4 teams each year that are obviously not quite NXN caliber, there would really only be 1 or maybe 2.
I also like the idea of allowing footlocker to be it's own thing while keeping NXN the true team national meet. Maybe this could even persuade footlocker (due to less of their individuals being poached) into changing dates to allow more athletes to run both.
We have been looking for feedback on the 220 vs 236….I agree that it’s not a huge difference, we may just need to make the course at Glendoveer a bit wider in spots.
What about 2 auto teams from 8 regions plus 8 at-large?! And keep 5 auto individuals per region plus 5 total at-large individuals? That's a field of 213 (24 teams plus 45 individuals). That said, if the powers that be want 3 auto, please don't go from 5 to 3 individuals per region. I'm afraid with such a limited pool, that some top-notch individuals might put their post-season eggs in the FL basket, where maybe their odds are better at moving on to a national meet.
Regardless, much appreciation for sharing the possible changes in the works and listening to us in the peanut gallery!
We’ve entertained the idea of more at larges with the 8 region scenario like you mentioned. Our hesitation is that puts even more emphasis on our selection process (which results in hundreds of emails from parents/coaches wondering why they weren’t selected) instead of trying to make it cut and dry at the region qualifiers as much as possible. We’d like to keep individuals, but are also talking to Footlocker about how we can give a better process and product to these kids.
That's an excellent point about the added expectations/pressure on the selection committee. Difficult enough as is and having more auto qualifiers from that standpoint makes a lot of sense.
Ok, but where do you add a Region? Reality is that California is still the strongest region, but it would be weird to have 2 Regions in California. maybe add one State to southern California and one State to northern california
Ok, but where do you add a Region? Reality is that California is still the strongest region, but it would be weird to have 2 Regions in California. maybe add one State to southern California and one State to northern california
Just for the sake of something different to think about, what about a "rotating" single state regional? Use the same or similar criteria used to pick the 'at large' teams to determine which state had the most athletes/teams that were legitimately qualified to be competitive at NXN, but didn't auto-qualify due to a strong region, and "award" them the single state regional for the following year.
For the record, I'm a NY "homer-girl", and I don't think the NY regional should've ever been implemented in the first place. This is high-end competitive racing. If you can't qualify for NXN because teams from another state are better than you, run faster.
Ok, but where do you add a Region? Reality is that California is still the strongest region, but it would be weird to have 2 Regions in California. maybe add one State to southern California and one State to northern california
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