strongest to weakest states for cross country

The Only Ones Left wrote:

Pennsylvania is pretty amazing, as most everyone there is a senior citizen. Of the few high school kids, on a per capita basis, they do extremely well.

Cross country meets in Pennsylvania do have an amazing number of officials, though, from several decades. There's hand timers, backup hand timers and electronic timers, and guys all along the course.

The chute area looks like the attendees at a windbreaker sales convention got lost.

True that! Its old people and damn ghetto kids.

And yes theres a bitchload of officials. And theres always that one cool official, the other officials and the one douche official.

One main thing abotu PA you forgot: The hills. Damn! cant we ever run somewhere flat?

Only fast course Ive ever raced at was lehigh.

States is hell. The aloha hills are just horrible, and so is the fact that theres not one flat part and its just rolling hills until poop out. There was what? 6 kids under 16? And 1 guy went to NXN and 2 to Footlocker with 2 at 11 and 13 at NE.

Lol gotta love how Hebda ran like a 15:5x at states and then got 16th at FL.

thinker of things wrote:

Oklahoma is very weak. Winner of the 5k state champs won in 16 flat on a relatively flat course.

You obviously know nothing about the OK state course. Stop talking.

HSXC50 wrote:

What are the strongest and weakest states for high school cross country? I have been wondering this for such a long time and have never found a list or opinions on the subject at all.

need more criteria.

Most years, IMO...

On the strong-side of the spectrum:

Per Capita, overall, individuals... Colorado takes the cake. Probably pretty easily...

Per Capita, overall, teamwise... Colorado again probably at the top.

Regardless of population, overall, individuals... California wins.

Regardless of population, overall, teamwise... again, California probably wins.

Boys only -

Per Capita, individuals - Colorado edges Washington, Indiana and New Mexico.

Per Capita, teamwise - Washington.

Regardless of population, individuals - California

Regardless of population, teamwise - California edges Illinois

Girls only -

Per Capita, individuals - Colorado.

Per Capita, teamwise - Delaware or Colorado... probably Delaware (1-2 nationally strong teams each year with 1/5 the population, that makes it pretty even as CO tends to have 4-9 national quality)

Regardless of population, individuals - California or New York... take your pick.

Regardless of population, teamwise - New York or California, take your pick (NY much stronger up front most years, CA with the better depth beyond the top 5 or so teams recently).

Phenom Man wrote:

Papa Newts wrote:

The midwest destroyed at Footlocker.

Guys from the West and Northeast have to choose between footlocker and NXN, so they didn't have their best runners.

1. Cali

2. New York

3. Illinois

4. Texas

Notable states. Indiana has a lot of good runners up front in Futsam, Walden, and Martin. Jersey always has a good cast of teams and individuals. Florida has improved. Washington, especially the Spokane area, is good at producing top of the line guys. Any other state worth mentioning? I'm not focusing on the population.

The midwest has a history of winning footlocker as a team even before NXN

fdsasdfs wrote:

Phenom Man wrote:

Guys from the West and Northeast have to choose between footlocker and NXN, so they didn't have their best runners.

1. Cali

2. New York

3. Illinois

4. Texas

Notable states. Indiana has a lot of good runners up front in Futsam, Walden, and Martin. Jersey always has a good cast of teams and individuals. Florida has improved. Washington, especially the Spokane area, is good at producing top of the line guys. Any other state worth mentioning? I'm not focusing on the population.

The midwest has a history of winning footlocker as a team even before NXN

True, the Midwest historically won every now and then...

pre-NXN Regionals, the West won 14 of the 27 team races (1980 onward). Midwest won 7, and the Northeast won 3. Ever since the start of the NXN Regionals (which only the Midwest states and the NXN-South region states can participate in both), the Midwest has won 3 out of 4 (the West winning in 2009 being the only exception). 75% of the time is much better than 37% of the time, to be sure.

The West has always, more often than not, been the strongest region (winning more team titles than the other three regions combined!). The Midwest has always played second fiddle. It must be nice for the Midwest to have a chance these days ;) of course, it would have been better if FL just gave California it's own region, rather than having such a super-region as the West is...

Kind of funny the states being thrown out for NXN stuff...the TEAM numbers, on the MENS side ONLY:

Total Team Appearances By State:

CA 22

TX 16

WA 13

NY 12

ILL 12

MN 9

NM 7

NJ 7

UT 6

Average Team place at nationals by State:

WA 6.46

CO 6.50

ILL 6.92

NM 7.29

MO 8.00

NJ 8.29

NY 8.58

UT 9.50

RI 10.00

OR 10.75

Admittedly California's team average has been held down by getting more teams in and those lower teams holding the average down a bit...

Phenom Man wrote:

Papa Newts wrote:

The midwest destroyed at Footlocker.

Guys from the West and Northeast have to choose between footlocker and NXN, so they didn't have their best runners.

1. Cali

2. New York

3. Illinois

4. Texas

Notable states. Indiana has a lot of good runners up front in Futsam, Walden, and Martin. Jersey always has a good cast of teams and individuals. Florida has improved. Washington, especially the Spokane area, is good at producing top of the line guys. Any other state worth mentioning? I'm not focusing on the population.

midwest destroys foot locker EVERY year ya tard. Even with Ferwandez and Puskedra, the west still lost. And its not like guys from the midwest didnt have to choose between FL and NXN as well

On the individual side of things, for Footlocker:

Region Champions-

MW 16

W 9

NE 5

S 2

State Champions-

CA 8

MI 5

IL 4

We'll probably need to shift tracking this to the Nike meet from now on, but until now the best in the nation has come out of FLCC.

CoachB wrote:

What would really be interestng is which states produce the most studs per capita.

Woodbury, Pennsylvania is your answer. Everybody knows that.

sc runner wrote:

As for South Dakota being a weak state, while I'll admit that there are some very weak times that qualify for state in the smaller enrollment categories, Yankton, Sioux Falls, and Rapid City consistently produce very good high school runners year after year.

SD has a very consistent track record and considering the small size (app 700,000 peeps) it really isn't too shabby. One only has to look at the podium of the boys FL this year with a Jr from Rapid standing on it. While depth can't compete with the Cali's and NY's etc of the world, that is a "size of the population" issue.

Recent standout High Schoolers include Kavan, Bies, and the Eckert sisters. Going further back how about DeHaven, Jimmerson, Grumpstrup, Kambestad on the boys side. And Darley on the girls. There was also a fairly decent guy named Mills who was born and raised until 12 in SD....

The other thing to remember is coaching and training atmosphere have a lot to do with development. It is easy to run year round and receive outstanding coaching in TX and CA, in SD, ND, WY, well, enjoy the 12below run this week!