Footlocker is a joke!!!

rojo wrote:

I disagree. For the casual fan, no one cares about HS sports. College football fans just want to know who the stud RB is and how many TDs he had. Same thing in basketball. Who is the next big recruit for Kentucky or LeBron?

Notice how you accidentally mentioned a team while arguing that people don't pay attention to teams?

And for the most part, no one pays attention to the NCAA championship in the great majority of its sports. The entire point of sports, particularly in HS, is not to be watched or make money. The debate over the value of events like FL or NXN for the sport should not be about 'the casual fan'. Silly starting point.

poiuy wrote:

Bottled Fresh wrote:

^^^This. Footlocker is quality from the front to the back: the best of the best.

Same could be said for the NCAAs. Might as well make it race for the top 40 runners and leave the hacks at home. Too many guys at the college level get free gear, free travel, and will never amount to anything (running-wise) after college.

Ummm, no. Being #6 or #7 of a D1 program that makes NCAAs means you are a way better athlete comparatively than the back end of NXN. Look at home many scorers exist in the top 50 at NCAAs and how many in the top 50 at NXN. It is not even comparable. These kids work hard, but many of them don't work any harder than kids not at NXN they were just lucky enough to live in a certain school district.

ummmm.... no wrote:

poiuy wrote:

Same could be said for the NCAAs. Might as well make it race for the top 40 runners and leave the hacks at home. Too many guys at the college level get free gear, free travel, and will never amount to anything (running-wise) after college.

Ummm, no. Being #6 or #7 of a D1 program that makes NCAAs means you are a way better athlete comparatively than the back end of NXN. Look at home many scorers exist in the top 50 at NCAAs and how many in the top 50 at NXN. It is not even comparable. These kids work hard, but many of them don't work any harder than kids not at NXN they were just lucky enough to live in a certain school district.

My point was it's all relative. These are kids on the best HS teams. That's all. And, in my opinion, a national cross championship should have a team component.

And you could argue that the 6th and 7th runners at a good D1 program were just lucky that they are on one of the better teams. Lots of faster D1 guys on lesser programs don't get to run at D1 nats.

Honestly, I just don't understate the criticism of NXN. No one disses club nationals, yet look at the quality of many of the participants. All relative, right?

great oak and Fm lmao

F-M girls.Great Oak boys.

Trialswatcher wrote:

Real quick, no cheating, what team won NXN on each side?

Ohh, I Thought so ..LOL

Yeah, where are they from? Why can't they use their real high school names. SO FIN G LAME. Nike needs to change that stupid rule.

DS wrote:

Yeah, where are they from? Why can't they use their real high school names. SO FIN G LAME. Nike needs to change that stupid rule.

Its not Nike's rule to change. Most states don't allow HS teams to compete after the state meet as representatives of their school. So Nike makes it a "club" team competition, but requires that each team be comprised of athletes from the same school to prevent all-star teams competing. It's a true HS team national championship. The "club" teams pick their own names, and granted, some of the clubs could pick better names. But FM competes as Manlius so that's pretty obvious.

For those that are saying that FL attracts better top tier talent, I have to disagree. On the boys side this is true, but on the girls side NXN seems to be attracting the better talent over the past 5 years. The battle 2 years ago among Efraimson, Cranny, and Baxter was one of the best HS girls XC races in the last decade. The year before that it was Baxter and Cain, and Baxter won the year before that. Last year it was Ostrander. This year was Rainsberger. Clearly, the girls talent at NXN has been better than FL over the past 5 years - in terms of the overall winner.

These are both great meets. Neither is a true national championship though.

But what are we talking about? Is our goal to produce the best runners in the world, or is it to encourage kids to be fit?

It's obvious which meet does each one of those the best.

I would like to see both meets prosper, but do not call them the national championship. Do not make our sport into the MMA or WWF. Our sport is real, let's keep it that way.

Perhaps they should make the NXN the qualifier for the National Footlocker Meet. Take the top 40 at NXN to the FL meet. Then, and only then, can you call it a national championship!

it burns the eyes wrote:

You're obviously about 16 years old with zero sense of history. You're blinded by all the glitz, glam, and free gear that nike throws out. Footlocker (Kinney) has stood the test of time, and I expect will in the future. Incidentally, pick up a book once in awhile. Your punctuation and sentence structure is atrocious.

..punctuation and sentence structure ARE atrocious. Thanks for the nice example of irony, though.

I prefer the one that doesn't have a bunch of morons spamming the boards each year about how much the other one sucks.

Footlocker is very atypical cross country in that cross country does not have all-star formats like football, basketball, and baseball do. That is exactly what Footlocker is. It's always been an all-star game...for 30+ years.

As far as the experience, I simply can't see how you compare Coronado to Portland. NXN is definitely a more classic race vibe the whole time. (You can choose to see that as a positive or negative.) Footlocker is like being on a vacation most of us could never afford to take for two days and then racing at the end of it.

I always recommend athletes choose Footlocker. It's not even a close call. That may change some day. The only reason I could think to choose NXN is my athlete this year would have placed higher at NXN than she will at Footlocker. All things considered, that's not worth the switch.

I don't see any problem with having both. If I was one of the best individuals in the nation, I would surely go to footlocker. If I was lucky enough to have great teammates and qualified for NXN, I would go there.

I think distance running lends itself more as an individual sport. You aren't reliant on teammates or a coach to play you or not play you. You usually get out of running what you put into it. In team sports that isn't always the case. While xc does have a team aspect to it, it is really a collection of individual runners that make up the score. For 99% of the schools in America, they have NO chance of ever competing at NXN as a team, but EVERY school has a chance to have that one exceptional runner that can compete at footlocker.

If you think footlocker is a joke, then just don't watch it. I'm sure you can find something else to do for a couple hours on a Saturday.

Vendetta guy wrote:

runn wrote:

I watched Nike live- it was impressive- great camera work and great coverage.

I like the team aspect- Footlocker dropped the ball on that. They could have added it and refused.

199 runners vs 40 runners

The best teams with some of the top individuals vs great runners who happen to be on a poor team.

Nike's got it.

Runn, you've had a vendetta against footlocker for years and constantly predict its demise. It hadn't happened yet. Every year, the FLN champion is indisputably better than the NXN champion, and the top-end talent is better too. Sure, if I were the 7th man who ran 17:15, I'd love NXN, but if I were an elite HS runner, I'd know footlocker had the better competition. Note: I was much closer to being that 7th man than an elite.

I don't have a vendetta. I just think that the team aspect is important to XC.

Footlocker had the chance and refused- that's not good for the sport.

I've had one individual qualify for Nike I don't think I'll ever had a team but I still want to support the team aspect.

I think the problem is the people who hate Nike (OK, I get it) but be objective- XC is a team and individual sport.

I wish FL would just get with Nike and give us on legitimate championship that crowns the best individual AND the best team.

Nike comes closest to that.

This. I had a kid run this year and we had to get permission from the state for him to take the over $1000.00 (retail) worth of merchandise.

It is NOT a high school sanctioned event so he technically did not represent our school- although our club name reflects our school name- and I mean a DIRECT reflection of it.

Liverpool was called Liverpool, it's the kid's choice.

Team aspect of XC goes all season long. Why does it need to go into the post-season? Who wants it to go into the post-season? – A shoe marketing company, coaches unable to separate team from individual because team is more important to them as it elevates the coaching aspect, and many many team runners lacking the ability to compete nationally at Footlocker.

Kinney-Footlocker brought together the best-of-the-best in a special format highlighting the individual and celebrating their talent. Team aspect was excluded for a very good reason. Nike’s initial proposal was to scrap Footlocker and change it to an NCAA championship format race. Nike wanted to scrap the history, the location, the uniqueness and individuality of Footlocker. The proposal was given with smile on their face while jingling coins in their pocket. Nike knew the proposal would be rejected. Make up your own minds about the aftermath.

I applaud NXN and their participation numbers. The NXN web-cast was very good. But the web-cast mirrors the NCAA web-cast as it follows the lead runners and the winner as he or she crosses the finish line. Visually following a team race has always been a concern. Viewers can see the individuals who cross the finish line one, two and three and know who won the race. Ironic that a team-promoted concept focuses on the individual during the actual event. NXN got that part right.

One could argue that NXN lacks diversity since the same teams qualify frequently. The Manlius girls are amazing. But name two Manlius girls from this year’s team. Name any Manlius girl from a team several years ago. Anybody know the coach’s name? I assume most coaches will know the Manlius coach, but not the girls themselves. Coaches celebrate coaches. Coaching factories will continue to dominant NXN. Anybody think Manlius, Great Oak or Saratoga girls will be on the NXN podium in 2016?

Coaches preach team-team-team. Individuals get lost in the team-team-team. Some individuals believe in team first. Others do not. Kinney-Footlocker celebrates the individual post-season. There is no mystery why Footlocker rejected the NCAA concept. Footlocker is post-season high school. The NCAA Championship is in-season college. High school is not college!

Manlius certainly dominates the girls side, but the boys race has seen 11 different winners in 12 years. One could also argue that the NCAA lacks diversity since the same teams qualify frequently. How many different men's programs have won nationals in the past 30 years? Not many.

Honestly FL's coverage was an embarrassment this year. Absolutely atrocious

Trialswatcher wrote:

Real quick, no cheating, what team won NXN on each side?

Ohh, I Thought so ..LOL

Great Oak boys, F-M girls?

runn wrote:

This. I had a kid run this year and we had to get permission from the state for him to take the over $1000.00 (retail) worth of merchandise.

It is NOT a high school sanctioned event so he technically did not represent our school- although our club name reflects our school name- and I mean a DIRECT reflection of it.

Liverpool was called Liverpool, it's the kid's choice.

In my state (Oregon) we are not allowed to have our team name represent our school. We were fined by our State Association in 2005 for using our school name at NTN.