CBA qualified for NXN 10 times in a row

Just to put this out there, I am really not sure what you are arguing. All CBA kids suck in college? Every high school kid is supposed to be great in college? All other top HS programs have the most successful collegiate runners?

All reasonable...

That being said, I do not know a college program who would not be happy to have a 1:51 guy, nor a program who would not take Blaise Ferro in a heartbeat, injuries and all. College coaches continue to recruit CBA kids so not sure your point there. Pretty sure you have no idea what mileage they run, but I do not believe it to be more than 65 at the high end by their senior year, so once again, nothing crazy...

I'm not trying to say these are the most talented or successful kids ever at all, but man you really seem to not know how this sport works if you actually believe​ everything you have said.

Oh and btw Blaise has basically been hurt since his sophomore year of HS which he was in no way overtrained by then, so despite his injuries, he has continued to compete at the highest of HS and NCAA levels.

Keep up the good work

There are many teams who would not be happy to have a 1:51 guy taking up a roster spot. In the Big Ten, Iowa had 1:46 guy, 1:46, 1:48, 1:48, 1:51 in 2019. So no, they would not even take a 1:51 let alone be happy about it. Other teams may take him only if they have some real openings because he is not going to ever score so he is just taking a spot from a 46 400 or 14 minute 5 k.

Big Ten snob wrote:

There are many teams who would not be happy to have a 1:51 guy taking up a roster spot. In the Big Ten, Iowa had 1:46 guy, 1:46, 1:48, 1:48, 1:51 in 2019. So no, they would not even take a 1:51 let alone be happy about it. Other teams may take him only if they have some real openings because he is not going to ever score so he is just taking a spot from a 46 400 or 14 minute 5 k.

Rutgers is in the Big 10. 8th on the performance list is 1:48.61. 20 guys under 1:50.

Martinek ran 1:51 exactly once, and has never run 1:52. The majority of his races are 1:54 - he ran 1:56 low on a flat 200m track in high school.

Sounds like a nice D3 runner. I don't think most of the former D3 LR community really has a clue about how fast D1 guys are and how hard it us to earn any scholarship at all.

For the amount of good runners CBA has had they haven’t had a huge amount of college success. There are a handful of outliers, but for the most part CBA alumni end of injured, irrelevant, or on a road bike. It is simply just hard to make the jump to college running. Most good high school runners struggle to maintain the same level of success they had in high school at the college level. CBA’s failures at the collegiate level just get more attention because they are a well known program.

Making NXN 10 years in a row is an incredible accomplishment that should be celebrated. It shouldn’t be tarnished due to the lack of collegiate success by former members of the program.

Gone but not forgotten wrote:

For the amount of good runners CBA has had they haven’t had a huge amount of college success. There are a handful of outliers, but for the most part CBA alumni end of injured, irrelevant, or on a road bike. It is simply just hard to make the jump to college running. Most good high school runners struggle to maintain the same level of success they had in high school at the college level. CBA’s failures at the collegiate level just get more attention because they are a well known program.

Making NXN 10 years in a row is an incredible accomplishment that should be celebrated. It shouldn’t be tarnished due to the lack of collegiate success by former members of the program.

But each kid gets to NXN probably only 2 or 3 times as not many freshmen or sophomores are in the top 7. No one athlete gets to feel the benefit of qualifying 10 times - only the coach.

However the athletes go on to have lackluster running careers after that. They have 2 cool years in high school, then 4 years of struggles in college and most don't run after college.

FM in NY does the same thing, but at least their burned out athletes have some national championship rings from high school. Other men's teams could qualify many years in a row if they wanted to burn athletes out too.

be reasonable wrote:

Just to put this out there, I am really not sure what you are arguing. All CBA kids suck in college? Every high school kid is supposed to be great in college? All other top HS programs have the most successful collegiate runners?

This happens to every good program. If you train properly in high school, your improvement later on will be less. If your a Pat Porter/ Brian Sell running a 4:30 mile in HS off 30 mpw it isn't shocking that you get a huge improvement if you actually train. If you are running . 4:20 mile off 70 mpw, it isn't shocking you don't get much of a improvement boost when you go to college and bump the mileage up to 80. You can out train your competition in HS. In college, no so much.

You want a really good HS XC program. Get 20 kids out every year. Get them to run 50mpw as freshmen and sophmores and bump it up a bit more as Juniors/Seniors. You may or may not get the superstars but you will have a steady stream of 9:40/16:00 guys that make you very competitive. Get a couple of low sticks and you go from competive to winning. Obviously this is a lot easier said than done.

No need to be sanctimonious. The athletes may only go for two or three years, but it is still an accomplishment for them as they are carrying on the tradition of the program.

This is ridiculous. There are like 35,000 high schools in America. How many of them have tons of college athletes excelling in college? The fact of the matter is the majority of elite runners are just genetically superior with good coaching. Kids at great programs that run 9:10 in HS probably are not swimming in talent and they just trained hard and had teammates that could push them. At a crappy program they would probably be #1 on the team running 9:50 and wouldn't even get a chance to run in college. It isn't like if these CBA guys went to a different high school they would be 13:40 guys in college. Also, most runners in college will never run at NCAAs and that is fine. They probably love track, love their team, but also have a great college life outside of track and their HS track credentials opened doors for them.

Thank you. The best post this thread has seen.

High school coaches are crazy for developing their athletes in order to win. They should hold them back so that they can't even participate in college.

learn to count wrote:

FM in NY does the same thing, but at least their burned out athletes have some national championship rings from high school. Other men's teams could qualify many years in a row if they wanted to burn athletes out too.

Are you suggesting that there are high school coaches out there that know that they could be making NXN many years in a row, but are deliberately undertraining their kids so that they don't?

That's good coaching. Hold em back for a future when they don't run for you. I am a great coach because our kids could make it every year if we burned them out in HS.

Hi Miles wrote:

High school coaches are crazy for developing their athletes in order to win. They should hold them back so that they can't even participate in college.

Don't be disingenuous. What CBA is doing is the equivalent of a football coach sending his star quarterback into a game with a concussion. You might win in the short term, but the athlete is wrecked for the long term.

High school sports should not be win at all costs.

If you don't think it's possible to coach a successful XC team without jeopardizing the health and long term potential of the athletes, then we should all be thankful that you aren't a coach.

Dose of Truth wrote:

Hi Miles wrote:

High school coaches are crazy for developing their athletes in order to win. They should hold them back so that they can't even participate in college.

Don't be disingenuous. What CBA is doing is the equivalent of a football coach sending his star quarterback into a game with a concussion. You might win in the short term, but the athlete is wrecked for the long term.

High school sports should not be win at all costs.

If you don't think it's possible to coach a successful XC team without jeopardizing the health and long term potential of the athletes, then we should all be thankful that you aren't a coach.

No, that would be like having your star runner race with a stress reaction.

Training an athlete so they can be the best version of themselves is just good coaching. If athletes don't get much better in college it is because they were close to their top ability because of good training in HS. A 4:10 miler in HS who only runs 4:05 in college might only have the talent to be a 4:05 runner and he was running to the top of his genetic ability at 17.

Sadly I feel that many high school coaches are simply better than the college coaches their athletes end up going to. Many college coaches appear to be better at recruiting than actual coaching.

Motion Sick Mick wrote:

Sadly I feel that many high school coaches are simply better than the college coaches their athletes end up going to. Many college coaches appear to be better at recruiting than actual coaching.

I think you are giving/taking too much credit to both parties. There are often fit issues (i.e. a guy that thrives on high mileage getting stuck in a low mileage program or vice versa) that effect outcomes. The guys that are successful in HS have good fit with their coaches. They may or may not with their college coaches and that isn't really either the athletes or coaches fault. I sure don't blame Michigans coaches for Webb's regression. They had a program that worked well for a ton of other athletes. Just not him.

And then their is the luck factor. The injury/peak performance line is very fine. German Fernandez had some good performance at Ok St before the injuries got to him. It is easy to blame the coach for them but who knows if it was just bad luck or out of their control (i.e. 2 nights of GF only getting 6hours/sleep).

Hey boys its me, Mikey Neeson. I remember going to the Bison Opener in 2018, and seeing all the CBA boys. I remember seeing Brian Dengler swaggering around as if he owned the place. He came up to me and said, quote, "Hey, the names Dengler, Brian Dengler, and I'm gonna show you the CBA way today." Well guess what BI-RON?! WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!! That's right!