How to successfully coach high school cross country at a low socioeconomic status school?

I coach at a fairly wealthy school wrote:

You want to bring in enough money to have nice uniforms, matching shoes, new tents for the meets you go to, be able to travel somewhere for summer camp, be able to travel to a mid-season meet on a plane, etc.

How many schools in the country fly on a meet in a plane? I feel like if that's your teams concern you're doing really, really, really well.

I went to one of the best private schools in the country and we never flew to a meet on a plane. My teammate who went to Foot Lockers and Penn flew to a meet but otherwise we just drove everywhere.

Law_5 wrote:

Rich kids? PPS has got Lincoln and Grant, which aren't exactly poverty schools. PPS, as a district, doesn't really care about sports, any sport. The District's athletic department is about as far away from the central office as it can get. What message does that send to everybody? School after school, sport after sport, school after school, the coach is either a teacher who just wants the extra duty pay, and they got the coaching assignment because union members get first crack at the coaching jobs, or it's someone not on school staff that has no other contact with the kids than just for a few weeks during the season. The result is high turnover in coaches. ....

That's a tough nut to crack. Even if someone were to dive in head first and tackle a team in one of these bad areas and have some degree of sustained success, you are going to have other, "better" opportunities come up. Unless one has a personal dedication to that school, you're going to move on to the situation where you have more support, better facilities, kids that can drive themselves to and from practice because they actually have cars.

While my experience is dated, mid to late 70s, our team was made up of a bunch of scrappy poor kids (no shaming because we had free or reduced lunches). I remember most families, not all, were from broken homes, and the ones that weren't seemed almost embarrassed to talk about how good their home life was.

When our coach coerced us to come out for the team he did so because he said he liked our toughness and told us that we would be State Champions one day. I still remember to this day, looking over at a friend of mine, whispering "I think he's nuts!" And not only that, but if we did as he told, we could actually start dreaming about college. This was a compelling argument because, up to that point, nobody had put much faith into us or our collective futures.

Fast forward to today and the missing element seems to be "scrappiness". In the 70s we loved nothing better than sticking it to the rich kids. Our coach instilled in us that, because of our current "predicament", we were mentally tougher and could handle anything the rich kids could dish out (ala McFarland). He pursued us a lot like Army recruiters would, not like a coach would.

In addition, we had summer mile shirts, sub 10 minute 2 mile patches, State Champion regalia, etc. These were like the uniforms and medals the military gives out to reward positive behavior. Make it a band of brothers and entry into this mentally elite society takes full commitment.

We were very successful at the state and national level. Not all of us got college scholarships but all of us graduated with a degree from college. After the success we had as runners it was an easy gulf to span to have success in college and beyond.

So my advice to coaches is to recruit, recruit, recruit, by that I mean, recruit not just for numbers but for a certain attribute, nurture their compromised mentality (all that exterior toughness usually is hiding a vulnerable, beaten down kid) and run a lot (1,000 mile summers). Most of these kids won't have a lot of talent but mental toughness and 10 miles a day will go a long way in this sport.

We all had jobs, we ran home, stored our stuff in a cross country room under the bleachers, and expected at least as much from our teammates as we did ourselves. There was no better compliment from our coach after a tough workout or race; ["nickname] was one tough SOB today!" He didn't have to be particularly fast but if coach singled you out as tough that meant you were.

To get started you have to get some short kids with crooked noses and a chip on their shoulders.

Of course all that said and done, I've found that it is materially better to have a stable home life to be a good runner. Up til 2 am before a weekend race dealing with family drama is definitely harder than being in a safe, protective, supportive, loving environment. I can already see my kids having a distinct advantage over the emotional mess I was in high school. But don't tell that to your runners, let them find out decades later that they were fooled by Coach.

Holyoke (MA) High School has become perennial state meet team qualifier in Massachusetts. Holyoke is ranked 348th out of 351 cities/towns in the state in per capita income.

Boo Pig, that was an awesome post. I have to say that it got me a little choked up. I coach at a low ses school too, and there is something bigger going on with the team than running. I've only been doing it for 8 years, but I'm starting to see the power of the alumni culture. Most of my kids were never world beaters, most don't run in college, but many are the first in their family to go. I keep in touch and our kids are finding life success that they didn't think was possible until they took up running. I love that story from coach b about the kid who helped his family pay off their house and is now a minister. We are blessed to coach in these schools. Our influence goes beyond championship banners - though those are still the goal!

Thanks wejo for a great thread. It might not create the next McFarland, but it's nice to celebrate the successes and grow as coaches.

That was golden too. Thanks jefe!

In the late 1960s Boys High (Brooklyn)--they had James Jackson, 1:50 for 880 ("Jimmy Jack")--and Andrew Jackson (Queens)--Julio Meade, 9.5 100 yards, 20.9 220 yards, 46.8 440 yards--both had low income kids, and both were excellent in x-c. Doug Terry at Boys and Milt Blatt at Andrew Jackson did an extraordinary job of mentoring these kids.

The Show Me State wrote:

Is this the West Plains Zizzers?

I think so. I can't think of any other program in the state that fits the description. They are at 50% free/reduced lunch. I think the demographics at Potosi were similar when they had their great teams 10-15 years ago.

I have found it interesting that the girls team hasn't had quite the same level of success as the boys (especially in the past 5-10 years). Is there a difference in their style of training that is more effective for boys than girls or does their culture appeal more to boys?

Are you talking about Arcadia Valley per chance?

I am in fact talking about the Zizzers of West Plains.

I'm not a member of the team, nor have I ever been, but my relationship with the coaches has taught me a lot about how they do things and how we should do things as coaches. Mileage, workouts, etc., all of that can and should differ from program to program, but I believe that there are a few constants that should exist on every team:

We HAVE to teach them how to win and lose in productive ways. At lower income schools, I believe the job becomes even more important in that we have to give them OPPORTUNITIES to win, as these may come seldom to these kids. Four years is short in the grand scheme of things, but to them, it'll hopefully feel like a lifetime of winning.

We HAVE to teach them lessons regarding character and how to succeed outside of life and the sport. As coaches, we may be the only models of this positive character.

We HAVE to give them a team and a culture to be proud of. A team filled with pride, trust, and confidence will almost always beat a talented team with no confidence or chemistry. That's just how competition works.

Notice that none of these things have anything to do with being incredibly knowledgeable about the science of sport itself - it's all in how we lead them and prepare them for afterwards. Cross country can be the vessel for that preparation. But that's just my two-cents.

I'm still interested in hearing from more coaches/athletes who have had experiences with these types of teams in the past - few of the posters on here have actually said anything about how to succeed with these teams.

Get Morning Mile programs instituted at the feeder school level, starting with elementary school. I guarantee you that you will have "talents" up and down the line from 100m to 2M and XC coming down the pike in a few years. What I saw in helping out at a Title I school was a bunch of kids just walking around but more than a few doing essentially sprint repeats for 20-30 minutes every day, and a few kids running the whole time and soon becoming a force at the middle school level. When an adult runs with the kids, I found, it encourages many of them to run quite a bit more and to race the adult and each other, getting therefore a great start to their training (but try to make sure they reverse directions every day or two).

Montesquieu wrote:

In the late 1960s Boys High (Brooklyn)--they had James Jackson, 1:50 for 880 ("Jimmy Jack")--and Andrew Jackson (Queens)--Julio Meade, 9.5 100 yards, 20.9 220 yards, 46.8 440 yards--both had low income kids, and both were excellent in x-c. Doug Terry at Boys and Milt Blatt at Andrew Jackson did an extraordinary job of mentoring these kids.

Both teams were not excellent in XC, a few runners were but these teams only excelled on the track. At the time Andrew Jackson was like a suburb, the streets in Cambria Heights were desolate compared to today. Jimmy Jackson had "success" coaching Boys And Girls XC but as I pointed out earlier success in NYC is getting 5 girls to average 21 minutes.

xcvxcvxcv wrote:

Get "Morning Mile" programs instituted at the feeder school level, starting with elementary school. I guarantee you that you will have "talents" up and down the line from 100m to 2M and XC coming down the pike in a few years. .

This is how I started running. My gym coach started a morning running program so we could have a bunch of kids run in a local 5k. We started this in Feb, the race was in April. I won a trophy and kept running for the next 40 years.

I wasn't a kid inclined to do peewee football or little league baseball, soccer didn't exist as a kids program in my area back then.

First, you move your family into a small house in the middle of the worst neighborhood. Then you ingratiate yourself with the community by doing hard manual labor for the parents of your team for free. Then you find really unorthodox ways of training, like running up and down garbage piles. Do all of this, and you should have a state championship cross country team.

Oh, wait. Wasn't that a movie?

Let me throw in my experience from coaching at a low socioeconomic status school for 17 years. You can categorize your kids into 3 groups. The first are native born kids from a one parent household and generations of poverty . These kids have two big things going against them. First, coming from poverty they almost accept they are going to fail and trying anything different just isn’t going to happen. They will play basketball or football but nothing else. The second factor is since they only have one parent , peer group pressure plays an enormous factor in their lives, and since most of their peers are from poverty the peer group pressure is to not try anything different and not succeed. The ultimate insult is to be a “Try-hard”.

There was this one girl in school who I was sure would be state champion in the 400. I talked to her in the hall with her friends present about doing track and convinced her to go out. As soon as she said she would do it, one of her friends said real loud, “You are going out for track...???” And everyone in the group laughed. She changed her answer right then and decided to not go out. I have so many examples of that sort of thing happening .

The second group are native born kids with two parents. Almost always a little better off financially , headed to community college, willing to try things BUT still subject to that same peer group pressure but able to resist it better. They are your bread and butter. Win their hearts and minds and they will carry your team.

Last group are foreign born kids, kids from Mexico, Caribbean , Asia . Those kids are a lot more motivated to try different things and the first group’s peer pressure doesn’t bothered them in the least. These kids have less wealth than the first but a family structure that focusing on them succeeding. One draw back is many of the kids from Asia come from backgrounds that don’t value sports. This kids will work as hard as you want.

To succeed, you need to focus in getting groups 2 and 3on your team. Group 1 is going to be very tough to cultivated.

Some amazing posts on this thread. Impressive breadth of insight from many sources.

I think the main thought I have now with dealing with low SES schools in XC is the idea of what constitutes 'success' is indeed similar to what ALL good coaches try to impart to the athletes, but the outcome, ultimately, is probably not going to be vying for state championships, in cross country at least.

That's just the cold hard facts about how distance running works at the HS level demographically in the US generally.

If you can get a team to trust one another and the program, commit to consistent training and hard work, believe they can improve long term, handle with equanimity losing and succeeding, then you have successful program that has given the kids a meaningful, hopefully also entertaining life experience. Some might even be changed by it.

Getting just a few kids from a demographic that wouldn't normally go out for a grind sport like XC with little social cache is a HUGE win.

This is one of the best LRC threads in quite some time. Thanks Wejo for the organizational push.

I have coached for 17 years at a suburban high school in Illinois. We have had a lot of success on both boys and girls side, qualifying each team to NXN and being state champs here. In the last ten years, though, our demographics have shifted rapidly as has the landscape/makeup of our teams. Since 2001, we have gone from 13% free and reduced to 56% this past year. Demographics have shifted from 69% white/18% hispanic/7% afri-american to 39% white/44% hispanic/7% afri-american.

We are interested if anyone else has experienced such a shift and how you dealt with it. We are working hard to adapt and remain at a high level of success, but the ground under our feet is rapidly changing. A recent demographic survey of CC in Illinois shows us far outside the norms now of the average demographics of teams that even make it to our state meet.

All of the relationship comments and culture builders above were really perceptive. Anyone been part of such a shift? Any advice about how to actualize students who may not have tried running before high school?

Really enjoying the genuine interchange of ideas in here.

These 3 broad categories are pretty accurate, but I'd throw a couple of caveats in there.

1. Not every kid will fit neatly into one of your boxes. Be prepared for the Native born, single parent kid who actually is very motivated.

2. Do not conflate native born with white. We have plenty of native born....3rd....4th generation brown kids walking around the hallways here.

3. Foreign born or first generation kids can be much more difficult to get out for the team, as there are often cultural barriers that place sports at the bottom of the life priority totem pole. I'd agree that once you get those kids out and get them to buy in, they are great for your team.

I was talking about these three categories.