Maybe 10 years ago there was Rocky Faure, he was an absolute beast from Wyoming. Ran 1;48 and 406 in high school and qualified for footlocker IIRC. Can’t think of anyone else good from Wyoming beyond that
I ran at the State meet in Florida. The course is absolutely not short. And there were 27 people sub-16. Not to mention the 11 TEAMS that AVERAGED sub-16:40, which you're claiming would win individually.
This would be an interesting little project for anybody with some time on their hands. I would urge us to be be more scientific about it. To start, forget about using XC as the measuring stick. I would use the state 1600 results instead and correct for altitude. Then use some sort of aggregate data that lessens the effect of outliers. Finally we need to figure out what we're actually asking. If we just care about which is weakest in absolute terms then forget everything I said and pick Mississippi or whatever. To make it more interesting I would rather see which is which state has the biggest discrepancy between expected performance (based on overall population or maybe participation numbers (which would be a lot harder to find)) and actual performance. My guess would be similar to others that it's gonna be some of the populous southern states that end up at the top of that list. Like Texas is almost as big as California population wise, but doesn't seem to produce a comparable crop of runners. Places like AK probably punch above their weight even if on an absolute basis they are relatively weak.
I think Florida and (to a lesser extent) Texas suffer from weather issues in the distance events. Florida's state meets in XC and track occur in early November and early May, which are usually still very warm and humid months. So it's hard to say what some of these kids could do if they went out to California in March...
Doesn't like exactly a cake walk to win state up there.
I was just in Anchorage for business last weekend. Saw the state cross meet was going on in town so stopped by. Let's just say those days are over. Two (2) boys broke 16 (not by much) and no one else was close. And only one (1) woman broke 19:30 (9:16). And six (6) total women broke 20. Yeah, sure, the course is always a sloppy muddy mess on XC ski trails...so let's look at their track marks: Those two guys were 9:32/4:26 and 9:31/4:27 guys from last track season. And that girl ran 5:10/11:19. All seniors. No one else in the state was close to these runners. Whoof. So I did some asking around as to what training standards were like. Typical answers were something like "yeah, our women don't run more than 25 mpw and men more than 35mpw because we don't want to hurt them/burn them out." Heard about that from several coaches/parents/spectators. And "well the state champs just train too hard so they're going to be burnt out when they go to their big DI schools." I didn't have the heart to tell them those aren't DI kids. Trevor Dunbar & Allie O please come back, AK needs you to show them what runners actually are!
Your top two are mostly true (although Alaska actually has a lot of good individual runners) but Connecticut is very solid. Definitely a couple tiers below the powerhouses, but better than the rest of New England (except maybe Mass). If you want the real crap look at the low-population states like the Dakotas and Wyoming. Per-capita the worst states are probably the southern states, even Texas is pretty weak considering its population. Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, and (excluding Jesuit) Louisiana are all just plain awful despite having decent populations.
Kansas makes Missouri look like a powerhouse. I would guess, per capita, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are the worst. Especially when you consider how strong Iowa and Colorado are (relative to population size).
Your top two are mostly true (although Alaska actually has a lot of good individual runners) but Connecticut is very solid. Definitely a couple tiers below the powerhouses, but better than the rest of New England (except maybe Mass). If you want the real crap look at the low-population states like the Dakotas and Wyoming. Per-capita the worst states are probably the southern states, even Texas is pretty weak considering its population. Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, and (excluding Jesuit) Louisiana are all just plain awful despite having decent populations.
Kansas makes Missouri look like a powerhouse. I would guess, per capita, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are the worst. Especially when you consider how strong Iowa and Colorado are (relative to population size).
I coach at a university in Kansas, so I do a lot of recruiting around this area. Disregarding populations and per capita, the strength of all the states I primarily recruit from (or at least look at a little bit) probably go:
CT had 4 boys at Eastbay / Footlocker last year and have three different individual winners on the woman’s side. Population 3million. CT Championships are on a real cross country course so very few sub 15 golf course times.
Doesn't like exactly a cake walk to win state up there.
I was just in Anchorage for business last weekend. Saw the state cross meet was going on in town so stopped by. Let's just say those days are over. Two (2) boys broke 16 (not by much) and no one else was close. And only one (1) woman broke 19:30 (9:16). And six (6) total women broke 20. Yeah, sure, the course is always a sloppy muddy mess on XC ski trails...so let's look at their track marks: Those two guys were 9:32/4:26 and 9:31/4:27 guys from last track season. And that girl ran 5:10/11:19. All seniors. No one else in the state was close to these runners. Whoof. So I did some asking around as to what training standards were like. Typical answers were something like "yeah, our women don't run more than 25 mpw and men more than 35mpw because we don't want to hurt them/burn them out." Heard about that from several coaches/parents/spectators. And "well the state champs just train too hard so they're going to be burnt out when they go to their big DI schools." I didn't have the heart to tell them those aren't DI kids. Trevor Dunbar & Allie O please come back, AK needs you to show them what runners actually are!
The proof that Alaska is the softest is simple…. It’s when someone says”remember how Trev or Allie went to HS in Alaska!?” And you do a double take because like no way that’s right and then you’re like… oh yea they did. How?