About 10 years ago I had one of my few runners who had a chance to make the State Championships running the steeple in the State Qualifiers. For most of the race my runner and the Saratoga runner were back and forth in front. The last 200 a runner from another school passed both and earned the spot to the State Championship. I happened to be in the same ski club as the father of the Saratoga runner and after the race I was talking to him. He was okay about his kid not making states but it was like being in the reception line of a wake. At least 15 other Saratoga parents came up to him. Many moms were in tears, one dad asked him how he was holding up, another dad told a story about how his daughter missed states a few years earlier. One dad told him “Your daughter needs a you now. You have to be there for her now.” There were plenty of hugs, and tears. When you have the parents so invested in the team they are crying when another kid doesn’t make States you are going to have a hell of a time getting rid of the coaches.
Second story, when Kelsey Chimel was a a senior , Saratoga was trying to get 3 girls to qualify for the State Championship in the 3000. Chimel had the “super standard”, a second girl had the at large standard and the third girl had neither, so the only way the 3 make it is if the slowest girl wins, the girl with the at large standard gets second and Kelsey gets third. The 3000 starts and the Saratoga girls go into the lead running in the formation they need to get all 3 to the State Championship. The problem is that a girl from Ballston Spa latches on to the back of them. After 4 laps the Ballston Spa girl goes into the lead and suddenly the Saratoga girls start racing, Chimel starts racing, the second fast girl starts racing, and pretty soon they are separated from the slowest Saratoga girl and the Ballston SPA girl and a hundred yards ahead.
With a lap to go the Ballston Spa girl dies and the slowest Saratoga girl is in third but they are in the wrong order for all 3 to make States. Chimel has a huge lead and gets 20 yards from the finish and Kranick orders her to stop right there, he tells the the second girl from Saratoga stop at the same spot and they stand on the track about 15-20 seconds for the third Saratoga girl to pass them , then they start running and finish in the order to get all three to the state championship.
I was there. Total unsportsmanship that day. This is exactly what I am talking about with saratoga. Should have been DQs. Chmiel starting running backwards too if I remember! It was nuts! I predicted this behavior too before the race. My runner was put in "slow heat" which was ridiculous. Officials said, "shen did not have an outside box to fairly put all athletes on the start line". It totally ruined my strategy to run like that ballston spa runner.
Yes, I am whining here. Sue me. But your athlete trains all season for a chance. Between crazy Toga antics and complicit officials, it was nuts. Same garbage in 3200 for Toga boys most years too. Toga boys relented if they had super standard under new coaches once Toga boys/girls distance was split.
Fyi....years that I very closely studied FM and Toga girls teams was 2012 to spring 2023. Both programs were strong during this period. There were many high quality runners for both programs during this window. My analysis of how to defeat these programs waned after June 2023 when I exited the scene. See, this is normal. You coach for a few years and exit. It is rare to be in the game for decades - especially year round for relatively low pay.
Wow. Bro, you need to let it go. They were fast!! That’s the analysis. Maybe you should seek some therapy
You are right. I have been in therapy for years now. Therapist suggested I should step away from coaching. She was right. Lol!
About 10 years ago I had one of my few runners who had a chance to make the State Championships running the steeple in the State Qualifiers. For most of the race my runner and the Saratoga runner were back and forth in front. The last 200 a runner from another school passed both and earned the spot to the State Championship. I happened to be in the same ski club as the father of the Saratoga runner and after the race I was talking to him. He was okay about his kid not making states but it was like being in the reception line of a wake. At least 15 other Saratoga parents came up to him. Many moms were in tears, one dad asked him how he was holding up, another dad told a story about how his daughter missed states a few years earlier. One dad told him “Your daughter needs a you now. You have to be there for her now.” There were plenty of hugs, and tears. When you have the parents so invested in the team they are crying when another kid doesn’t make States you are going to have a hell of a time getting rid of the coaches.
Second story, when Kelsey Chimel was a a senior , Saratoga was trying to get 3 girls to qualify for the State Championship in the 3000. Chimel had the “super standard”, a second girl had the at large standard and the third girl had neither, so the only way the 3 make it is if the slowest girl wins, the girl with the at large standard gets second and Kelsey gets third. The 3000 starts and the Saratoga girls go into the lead running in the formation they need to get all 3 to the State Championship. The problem is that a girl from Ballston Spa latches on to the back of them. After 4 laps the Ballston Spa girl goes into the lead and suddenly the Saratoga girls start racing, Chimel starts racing, the second fast girl starts racing, and pretty soon they are separated from the slowest Saratoga girl and the Ballston SPA girl and a hundred yards ahead.
With a lap to go the Ballston Spa girl dies and the slowest Saratoga girl is in third but they are in the wrong order for all 3 to make States. Chimel has a huge lead and gets 20 yards from the finish and Kranick orders her to stop right there, he tells the the second girl from Saratoga stop at the same spot and they stand on the track about 15-20 seconds for the third Saratoga girl to pass them , then they start running and finish in the order to get all three to the state championship.
I was there. Total unsportsmanship that day. This is exactly what I am talking about with saratoga. Should have been DQs. Chmiel starting running backwards too if I remember! It was nuts! I predicted this behavior too before the race. My runner was put in "slow heat" which was ridiculous. Officials said, "shen did not have an outside box to fairly put all athletes on the start line". It totally ruined my strategy to run like that ballston spa runner.
Yes, I am whining here. Sue me. But your athlete trains all season for a chance. Between crazy Toga antics and complicit officials, it was nuts. Same garbage in 3200 for Toga boys most years too. Toga boys relented if they had super standard under new coaches once Toga boys/girls distance was split.
ive got no problem with coaches and athletes strategizing to the get more athletes to states. but when it turns into literally stopping in the middle of the race, that's not cool.
also, ridiculous that there would be a SLOW HEAT in the state qualifier race in the 3000. How many athletes do they allow to qualify? for a state qualifier, it shouldn't be more than can fit into a single heat, IMHO
ALSO, not that hard to make an outside box with a roll of athletic tape
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
As the rest of the girls were finishing the 3000 a coach from another school ran onto the track and demanded that the starter disqualify the two Saratoga girls who stopped. The urban legend is that the starter told him “ you can’t disqualify them, Art Kranick told them to stop.” I’ve heard that story 4 or 5 times over the years. whatever was said , the two weren’t disqualified.
I was there. Total unsportsmanship that day. This is exactly what I am talking about with saratoga. Should have been DQs. Chmiel starting running backwards too if I remember! It was nuts! I predicted this behavior too before the race. My runner was put in "slow heat" which was ridiculous. Officials said, "shen did not have an outside box to fairly put all athletes on the start line". It totally ruined my strategy to run like that ballston spa runner.
Yes, I am whining here. Sue me. But your athlete trains all season for a chance. Between crazy Toga antics and complicit officials, it was nuts. Same garbage in 3200 for Toga boys most years too. Toga boys relented if they had super standard under new coaches once Toga boys/girls distance was split.
ive got no problem with coaches and athletes strategizing to the get more athletes to states. but when it turns into literally stopping in the middle of the race, that's not cool.
also, ridiculous that there would be a SLOW HEAT in the state qualifier race in the 3000. How many athletes do they allow to qualify? for a state qualifier, it shouldn't be more than can fit into a single heat, IMHO
ALSO, not that hard to make an outside box with a roll of athletic tape
Oh boo hoo, u wouldn’t be crying if they both tripped and lost 20 seconds
I was there. Total unsportsmanship that day. This is exactly what I am talking about with saratoga. Should have been DQs. Chmiel starting running backwards too if I remember! It was nuts! I predicted this behavior too before the race. My runner was put in "slow heat" which was ridiculous. Officials said, "shen did not have an outside box to fairly put all athletes on the start line". It totally ruined my strategy to run like that ballston spa runner.
Yes, I am whining here. Sue me. But your athlete trains all season for a chance. Between crazy Toga antics and complicit officials, it was nuts. Same garbage in 3200 for Toga boys most years too. Toga boys relented if they had super standard under new coaches once Toga boys/girls distance was split.
ive got no problem with coaches and athletes strategizing to the get more athletes to states. but when it turns into literally stopping in the middle of the race, that's not cool.
also, ridiculous that there would be a SLOW HEAT in the state qualifier race in the 3000. How many athletes do they allow to qualify? for a state qualifier, it shouldn't be more than can fit into a single heat, IMHO
ALSO, not that hard to make an outside box with a roll of athletic tape
Yup....due to many complaints, they finally put athletic tape on shen track to return to a single heat. Between no outside box for 3k to making 800 start in wrong spot in lanes in June 2023, it shows the officials have lost control.
Final note - we all mourn someone's death. Yes, this thread morphed. It morphed because of the highly unusual tactics those outside the Saratoga bubble experienced for DECADES.
I was in awe of their program. I understood why parents in the program mostly accepted it. Most who did not accept it then left the program (blood and lane were 2 big ones).
I appreciate the lost 'art' (pun intended) of old school coaching of 'my way or highway'. It is literally as simple as that.
So, it creates a culture of calling Toga program under the kranicks as the 'evil empire'.
We are in a different era now. You cannot coach hs and middle school age kids with abandon anymore.
Shame on usatf for not making a decision sooner. It makes the entire situation worse.
Saratoga schools administration, nysphsaa, and city of saratoga government's recreation department are both the true culprits here. They allowed this behavior to exist for decades. Reprimands are not sufficient for a season to season job. Nysphsaa sets athletics policy. They definitely had the authority to step in regarding year round practices. The city of saratoga recreation department was complicit by promoting a free summer running program. In my town, I tried something similar. They said absolutely NO!!!
Unrelated question to the thread, but why were toga and FM girls teams so dominant but not the boys teams? Did they just ignore the boys teams and focus more on the girls training? I could never understand it
Unrelated question to the thread, but why were toga and FM girls teams so dominant but not the boys teams? Did they just ignore the boys teams and focus more on the girls training? I could never understand it
Didn’t the Kranicks stop coaching the Saratoga boys team sometime in the 2010s?
The boys team won in 2005, and qualified for NXN in 2012 and took 12th there
Because young hs/middle school girls when girls hit puberty then get lanky and lean before their other parts catch up. If you’re willing to beat them into the ground running many of them will be fast and if you keep their training load high they will continue to have delayed development (at the expense of their health). It’s why you’ll see their fastest cohort is the undergrads and the few senior class who stayed pre-pubescent. It’s also why they underperform in college or just burn out and quit. Boys don’t have the same developments milestones so they growth as a runner is more linear
basically they are willing to exploit their puberty to the runners detriment to win
This thread is not about FM, but if we are going to go there let’s discuss the differences. FM trains 6 days per week not 7, doesnt tie kids to cars, doesnt do mass vitamin infusions, trains kids responsibly, teaches healthy living and eating habits, has a caring and knowledgable coach with legendary success, actually stops kids from competing or training at all if they arent living in a healthy way. And had the misfortune of a “journalist” duping a weak and messed up young woman with an unstable homelife to go on the record in a BS hit piece to blame all of life’s problems on her running experience at FM. The other girl literally admitted that her eating disorder started before she ran on the varsity team and before she knew the coach. And then she praised her coach for stopping her from racing when he found out about it.
The founder of this website was the first person to bring up FM into this thread. See post 24
I was there. Total unsportsmanship that day. This is exactly what I am talking about with saratoga. Should have been DQs. Chmiel starting running backwards too if I remember! It was nuts! I predicted this behavior too before the race. My runner was put in "slow heat" which was ridiculous. Officials said, "shen did not have an outside box to fairly put all athletes on the start line". It totally ruined my strategy to run like that ballston spa runner.
Yes, I am whining here. Sue me. But your athlete trains all season for a chance. Between crazy Toga antics and complicit officials, it was nuts. Same garbage in 3200 for Toga boys most years too. Toga boys relented if they had super standard under new coaches once Toga boys/girls distance was split.
ive got no problem with coaches and athletes strategizing to the get more athletes to states. but when it turns into literally stopping in the middle of the race, that's not cool.
also, ridiculous that there would be a SLOW HEAT in the state qualifier race in the 3000. How many athletes do they allow to qualify? for a state qualifier, it shouldn't be more than can fit into a single heat, IMHO
ALSO, not that hard to make an outside box with a roll of athletic tape
Shut the f@ck up you loser. You lost on here and such balls as a coach.
To be honest, I don't have a problem if some guy tied a rope around someone's waist 40 years ago and was thinking pulling her in the car would help her run faster. From what I could tell, it didn't sound like she got injured. Correct me if I'm wrong.
And just stating that I know nothing more than you and what I read in this article.
Would you still be okay with that if it was your child tied to the truck? I bet the answer is no! If it’s yes . . . . you’re probably a really bad father.
Also, in this article, the person who was tied to the trucks mentioned that she is still worried because some of the team’s new coaches were trained by the Kranicks.
Another former Saratoga runner mentioned : “There is a sense of relief knowing that future athletes will not have to endure the same mental and physical suffering that we experienced”
Since I’m sure there are lot of NY state HS Xc fans on here, what happened to the FM girls and Bill Aris? I mean they won 11 of 12 national titles. That’s amazing.
Funnily enough, “that one year” when FM didn’t win (2013), NXN was won by the same team that won it in 2025. Wayzata