Doug Soles calls out NY/FM

The Rocket. wrote:

Great Oak nearly broke their own state meet record this fall and still couldn't compare to FM. That is crazy.

Makes me wonder how much weather and course is a factor. I wonder if FM would be as dominant if the championships were held at Woodward Park in CA. I still think FM has the edge, but I think the difference is exagerrated when these girls have never run on grass/mud all year and are expected to do so at NXNs every year.

And there really is no grass fields in Temecula so there really is nothing Soles can do with this problem.

It's not a matter of "softness" its a matter of specificity.

SaltMines wrote:

The salt is real. Doug Soles is not happy about FM training 7th and 8th graders. I wonder if he considers having close to 4k student an unfair advantage against some other schools?

http://www.milesplit.com/videos/160935

Under the circumstances (the timing) I would not have said it, but I agree. All sports have reductions appropriate for age groups, it has nothing to do with talent or capability. When I coached a youth club, my age 13-14 girls could have won a H.S. state XC championship in most states. Middle school girls XC should race the 2 mile or 4k against girls their own age. They are going to have 4 years of H.S. running, why rush it? Pre puberty girls are naturally aerobic and any H.S. that can include middle school kids has a good chance of finding one or two 7th or 8th graders capable of scoring. Girls like Jordan Hasay or Brianna J for example, could competed for a national H.S. title as an 8th grader; imagine their local high school having those girls on their team. FM has an unfair advantage; however, FM would be a great team even w/o using middle school kids.

Yes NXN should have guidelines that apply to everyone that dictate what grades are eligible to run at their national championship, and it would be reasonable for them to set these guidelines in conformity with the majority of states.

However, it is not reasonable to whine about high school coaches being able to work with or coach middle school kids.

Here is a breakdown since 2006:

2006: 1 (8th grade), 2 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), and 3 (12th grade)

2007: 1 (9th grade), 3 (10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2008: 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2009: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2010: 2 (10th grade), 4 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2011: 1 ( 8th grade), 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2012: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2013: 3 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2014: 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2015: 1 (8th grade), 3 (10th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2016: 2 (9th grade), 4 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

It seems to me that all good high school programs are tied into a good middle school program. The biggest advantage to me is the size of the school. I.E. if a high school gets 1 or 2 top girls per 1000 students and 5 to 10 average to above average girls, A school of 4000 should get 4 to 8 top girls, and 20 to 40 average to above average runners. Logic to me. has to be the coaching!

midwestern miler wrote:

Yes NXN should have guidelines that apply to everyone that dictate what grades are eligible to run at their national championship, and it would be reasonable for them to set these guidelines in conformity with the majority of states.

However, it is not reasonable to whine about high school coaches being able to work with or coach middle school kids.

Agree!!

If they want to change the rule about kids not in high school competing, then they need to do it NOW and not in between the regional and final. This would be a good year since I don't believe any 7th graders ran.

As for FM, they didn't have any girls on their team that was in 8th grade. They had 3 freshman and 4 juniors. (Everybody back next year)

Notwithstanding what I said above, if a state wants to allow middle schoolers to compete up, that's a state matter, but you can't have a national championship where some high schools came bring their specific state rules into the meet. Also, when you allow middle schoolers to compete up, you cannibalize middle school XC, the AAU, USATF age meets and take away opportunities from high school girls.

TrackCoach wrote:

, when you allow middle schoolers to compete up, you cannibalize middle school XC, the AAU, USATF age meets and take away opportunities from high school girls.

Because so many middle schoolers are good enough to compete at a higher level. You are talking about so few it is negligible.

Ok. We were talking about this thread on our weekly 12 noon conference call. Our staff members hadn't really been following it . When I asked them why a woman's team would dominate more than a men's with the same coaching, one of them said, "I know why but I'm not putting it on the messageboard."He told me his thoughts and I said, "I'm not afraid to say that."He basically said, "Men/boys sports is much more competitive than women's sports. So if you get a group of girls/women are all in, there is a much more likelihood you'll dominate than on the men's side where there are a ton of crappy boys that are still into it. Men are just more into sports than women so it's harder to dominate with culture."THat may not be PC but I do think the superior depth of men's sports sports is undeniable. It's an interesting theory.

That chart is a bit scary. Thank goodness, I didn't coach HS women. It would be so hard to get many of them to accept they are at their peak in 8th -10th grade.

But many girls don't improve and are worse as a 12th grader than 9th grader so starting younger certainly helps. But my my point is if we are going to top this rule, then where do we draw the line. Do we also draw a line on school size, etc.

I think the consensus here is that GO's size mitigates the rule differences. Manlius had no 7th or 8th graders in it's top 5 who demolished the field, so that undermines Soles' concerns as well.

Coach Soles wrote:

I will go on record as saying that I made these comments well in advance of the meet, only Milesplit was forced to take that interview down by a company that didn't want the middle school rule discussed.

.

Coach Soles,

Can you shoot me an email ?

. I'd be fascinated to learn how they are letting their editorial side be influenced by an advertiser. The lack of honest disclosure of their many conflicts of interest drives me nuts and I'd like to know what you are referring to.

-Robert

I felt he was very much a gentleman in this interview. He expressed his awareness of the situation, nothing else.

These are great coaches and this fella, Soales, also appears to be quite intelligent. That was a good interview.

We are in a school district that tries to select runners starting in elementary school. Then they place these select few kids in a program with this new-age sheiet doing anything but running. The end result is a crappy HS team for both boys and girls.

GO and all other schools at the top are there for a reason and their coaches deserve respect.

Speaking as a female, I don't think you're wrong that more boys are seriously into sports than girls. HS boys fields are usually much deeper than HS girls fields.

However, I don't think that is the main reason for FM's success. Many/most girls are probably the fastest they will ever be from 7th-10th grade before puberty starts to slow them down. The fact that FM gets girls into serious training during this time to capitalize on that speed is why they are so good as a team year after year.

It's only scary if you can't understand how to count, as clearly there were much more runners in 10th-12th than 8th-10th. All George was doing was saying how many girls were from each grade on their national team each year. Over the 11 years he detailed, the results were:

8th grade - 3

9th grade - 9

10th grade - 19

11th grade - 23

12th grade - 23

If you thought that they were listed in the order they finished then you are even dumber than I thought - it was very clearly listed in ascending grade order each year.

Just to compare apples to apples, here is Great Oaks NXN rosters over the years.

2006: Not entered

2007: Not entered

2008: Not entered

2009: Not entered

2010: 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 4 (12th grade)

2011: Not entered

2012: 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2013: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 ( 11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2014: 1 (9th grade), 3 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade)

2015: 1 ( 10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 4 ( 12th grade)

2016: 1 (9th grade), 1 (11th grade), 5 (12th grade)

So in the 6 years that both teams were entered, FM had 16 girls that were 10th graders or less, while Great Oak had 12 that were. Doesn't seem to be that much of a difference. In Great Oak's first 4 years of the 6 years they have been in the number was 10 to 10!

As a HS girls coach, I do think that there is typically more depth on the boys side on the national level. I think it's harder to predict at the state level. Our girls have 5 different sports to choose from in the fall (7 if you include competitive cheer and dance team), where the boys only have 3. The talent is spread among a lot more activities on the girls side.

That being said, I don't believe women peak in grades 8-10. If you look at the past few years in our division, 70% of all-state girls are juniors or seniors. That doesn't really line up with the theory that girls are getting slower with age. I do notice that my girls tend to have a "down" season for 3-6 months at some point during their HS career, but we can usually get them through that with some patience and strength work.

totorious wrote:

rojo wrote:

That chart is a bit scary. Thank goodness, I didn't coach HS women. It would be so hard to get many of them to accept they are at their peak in 8th -10th grade.

It's only scary if you can't understand how to count, as clearly there were much more runners in 10th-12th than 8th-10th. All George was doing was saying how many girls were from each grade on their national team each year. Over the 11 years he detailed, the results were:

8th grade - 3

9th grade - 9

10th grade - 19

11th grade - 23

12th grade - 23

If you thought that they were listed in the order they finished then you are even dumber than I thought - it was very clearly listed in ascending grade order each year.

A lot of you seem to be missing the point that aerobic development takes time. It's not just that an 8th grader can be an impact runner immediately, but they have an extra year of conditioning under their belt. On top of that they are likely to be slowing their rate of physical maturation which gives them another year or so of having a little-boy body to run with and ferritin is likely to stay higher with less supplementation.

The FM girls openly said on stage at NXN that each of them has been running with the team since 8th grade, although it sounds like some of them may have in 7th as well.

Imagine a national gymnastics championship where most states only worked with 9-12th graders, but NY could have 7-12th graders compete. What do you think would happen? The strongest girls team in NY would dominate, whereas the boy's team's would barely be effected.

Personally, I don't think this requires a long discussion. NXN is a HIGH SCHOOL national championship, which is supposed to be 9-12. I have been involved in other sports and as far as I can tell, no where else are middle school kids allowed to even compete in H.S. invitational tournaments. Btw, I would not have a problem if a kid was a 13 yo high school student so long as they are classified as a high school student.

If NXN wants to limit the national meet to only 9th-12th grade, I'd understand. Trying to eliminate opportunities for coaches to work with middle schoolers and complaining about the fact that they do so is pathetic.