Hunter improved after high school. Bogucki ran some good times in indoor and seems to be coming along fine. Peter Morris is redshirting. No one else good has competed in college yet. The jury is still out, but I’d be surprised if the verdict is anything other than: well-coached in high school; some improvement in college, but less than high schools that undertrain kids. Less likely than some other schools to quit or burn out.
Pretty straight forward, if this is including girls you have FM as the best long term program and it is hard to top when Saratoga qualified four girls to footlocker when that was where all the individuals went.
As far as boys I doubt any boys team has put in two years like this. Of course York has won more titles or CBA but the Hunters haven't had as many seasons to work with. I would argue that it is all the more impressive that they have had so much success immediately especially since it doesn't seem like they have some sort of crazy training that just burns out or breaks kids.
Transfer High, who cares.
yeah but the talent in recent years has been down. winning is not as impressive as it would have been 5 years ago
Do you really think the talent has been down? I have been thinking just the opposite, I was on a team at NTN back when it was NTN and I feel like the competition has really intensified since that time period. It is hard to compare times in XC even with speed ratings but looking at some of the track times the top teams can string together now it is pretty impressive.
I'm not saying it is the best it has ever been because I haven't done the research to support that but just at a glance I would say that if it isn't stronger it is at least the same.
This thread is useless without a metion of MEAD 1993 !
Mead was certainly one of the greatest programs in history. What a stretch they had. And the 93' team arguably was the greatest HS XC team ever. Although many can likely argue this.
American Fork of a few years ago had some phenomenal performances on the track which may never be duplicated (3-guys around 4:04 or faster)
Lots of great teams and certainly LV is one of the best in this current stretch.
York anybody?
It would be fun to rank high school programs based on high school success only vs. the long term college and post college careers of their athletes
I was waiting to hear Meads name. I agree they belong in the conversation even though it was a while ago that they want so many consecutive titles out of Spokane .
Lol people seem to forget american fork ran 16:41 in the 4x1600 a couple years ago. And they did so with a 4:25 guy on the team...their top 3 runners that year were ALL better than Affolder, and Clinger wasn’t too far off Hunter, especially in cross. Yes there was a drop-off after those 3, but when you have 3 guys running 4:04 or faster, you can expect a gap...not to mention they may not even the greatest, because Great Oak ran 7:35, 10:00, and 16:52, won NXN (in one of the strongest years ever), and put 3 guys under 4:10 in the mile. And you can’t argue that they didn’t have depth; they ran 17:04 in the 4xmile with practically a B team, and their top guy running 12 seconds off his PR.
Definitely LV. Did you see Hunter showboat at the end of the 4xmile? They were just playing. Caoaches told them to leave room for the future LV teams. Affokder will go down as one of the greatest ever and Hunter will be close.
Barry Tinkle wrote:
The Truth Hurtz wrote:
No. 2 years of success and one super-elite runner doesn't make them the best all time.
Were they supposed to win NXN when they were all freshman or something? A HS team's window to be great is usually only 2-3 years and then kids graduate.
The Truth Hurtz wrote:
Not to mention, how much of the country really runs during indoors vs. outdoors?
Besides California, do any states not run indoor? I really don't know. But it seems like most states do.
Florida and Texas don't
I think you should not consider post HS careers when thinking about the best HS team. Do people think Christian Laetner was a good NBA player, no. He sure was a hell of a college player though. If yu want to consider college then you are talking about which programs develop the best runner not what team or school is historically the best. These are separate things being measured.
Clearly LV has had a very very good run of late and is up there as one of the best teams/seasons. I think when looking at overall significance it is too early to say if they will be an all time great program. You have to put schools like York, FM, Mead and CBA into that discussion though ass a result of the level of achievement and the longevity of sustained success. I know for instance that CBA has not lost a dual meet since before most of you were born, fall of 1973. York had some amazing successful runs as well if I recall.
dbsquirtNXC21 wrote:
Barry Tinkle wrote:
Were they supposed to win NXN when they were all freshman or something? A HS team's window to be great is usually only 2-3 years and then kids graduate.
Besides California, do any states not run indoor? I really don't know. But it seems like most states do.
Florida and Texas don't
last time I checked Tyrese Cooper (florida) runs indoor meets and carter cheeseman (texas) was the national champion indoors
The greatest in America. Clearly there are greater schools overseas.
Jgt11 wrote:
Let's wait until we see how the LV team does in college. If they can be this good without burn-out then definitely GOAT team.
This post is about HS though.
Can't people understand what a team is? It is the current team, right now. It is not a program or a coach. It doesn't matter what LV did last year of the year before. It is not a post high school performance. It doesn't matter if none of the guys ever run again after June. It is just comparing LV's team this year to any other previous HS team. These comparisons are made frequently in other sports.
Joplas wrote:
The greatest in America. Clearly there are greater schools overseas.
Can you name a few?
Wrong, Pocatello High.
Affection for Affolder wrote:
They are the best ever because they have Affolder and the Hunters. The coaches are the best and Affolder is the best.
Hard no on this one.
Hopefully Noah doesn’t break Kate Murphy's heart