XC teams that defy the wealth barrier

envious. our 9-12 pop hovers around 240-260. Football and soccer soak up around 60 of the 120 boys.

I'm taking some kids to NXR NW. All of the families sending their kids are well off. On the flip side, I had a kid tell me he can't go because it's too expensive. Same thing happened with another kid the year prior. It's enough of a situation that I've considered fundraising for next year.

I myself couldn't afford the running camp in HS -- another parent loaned me money for the trip. It was embarrassing but I paid it off in installment payments with my part-time summer job --- just for the privilege of attending some fancy running camp near Brown University. I couldn't have felt more out of place with raggedy running clothes and worn out shoes.

The poor families are hanging on -- so they can't invest the time, energy, money into their kid succeeding in running (it takes a village....). German Fernandez was an exception. The town he lived in had a median household income of $44,668. His family bucked the trend and helped him succeed. Now, his sister too. This is why I was a huge fan of his in HS, college.

Compare that to the NBP crew. Thousand Oaks vicinity had median household income of $119,207 (2006). The stark difference between the hispanic population incomes in central valley to the rich suburbs of the big cities is HUGE. That is why it's a really, really big deal when you get talent coming out of the less affluent sections of CA (those kids tend to have a higher ceiling given proper equipment, nutrition, and coaching).

The California CIF state XC state record is still from a poor kid from central valley sans super shoes. Munch on that!

XC is a sport that requires the highest levels of commitment and self determination. Other activities like Soccer and Basketball attract kids from a young age due to chasing a ball (like most sports do). Distance running requires a ton of self motivation. This is often instilled through family values, so honestly its not surprising that often the most successful XC runners come from wealthier families where extreme hard work is a characteristic that runs in the family. Wrestling is a sport that generally falls into this same category as well.

I keep seeing the argument "XC is the cheapest sport to participate in, you just need shoes..." from people who apparently never played on a football or basketball before.

That is true in football and basketball too.

You don't have to pay for the pads in football, or the basketball goals. Most schools even provide you, especially for football, with the practice uniform along with your game uniforms.

Also went to Jesuit. Compared to the rest of New Orleans, sure, it's "rich"--but that's a low bar. Compared to other schools across the country where the majority of students have married parents who are both employed, it's pretty normal. Plenty of kids driving hand-me-down Accords and Camrys, not new BMWs and Audis. Most of these families would sending their sons to public schools if they lived someplace functional like TX/GA/VA.

Years ago a team I coached qualified for NXN by winning an NXR. Of the 7 kids on that team, all 7 were from middle class families who lived in a middle class town The school had about 1300 students at the time. Many if not most of the teams who beat us at NXN came from schools of 2000+. That's just what happened.

Schools from affluent or middle class areas do have more opportunity to travel and race against the best competition they can find. We did that.

Because athletic ability appears to be randomly distributed among the general population, factors other than ability alone ought to influence the quality of an xc team:, coaching, team size, feeder schools/clubs, quality of other programs in the area, recruiting within the school itself.

Fifteen years ago, football had the strongest, most powerful male athletes in my school. Now it's baseball. Guess which program is recruiting the strong, powerful male athletes to play.

An interesting thing about LRC is how you can say the same thing, in different threads and get a v different upvote/downvote response.

I'd love to know if there's a survey for mean household a) income b) wealth for national XC participants. I'm sure it would bear out what you were saying

An interesting thing about LRC is how you can say the same thing, in different threads and get a v different upvote/downvote response.

I'd love to know if there's a survey for mean household a) income b) wealth for national XC participants. I'm sure it would bear out what you were saying

But what happens when you say it two times in a row in the same thread?

Maybe because they have more time to do so and they can afford better training gear?

Stevens Point is a smallish, religious, blue-collar town. It's not the wealthiest town but it's not by any means "hood"

website glitch - another quirk of LRC!

I don’t know if I should be impressed or unimpressed with the fact that this is the closest any post in the thread came to directly addressing the race factor. the fact is that there is a huge correlation between affluence of a school/area and its racial composition. In the US this means that, generally, poorer areas tend to have more people who are carrying more fast twitch vs slow twitch muscles and thus are not as likely to do well at distance running. if you looked at which high schools do best at 100/200/4x100 you’d probably see a distinct lack of wealthier schools. and don’t give me Bullis as a counter-example because they recruit regionally and give scholarships.

Just looked at last year’s CT state open in CC of the top 10 in boys teams 9 came from wealthy towns. All of the top 10 girls teams came from affluent towns.

I grew up in a blue collar town in CT and I had a successful d1 college career. I along with the 5 of the top 7 on my team had part-time jobs during high school. coach used to drive 5 of us home after practice. We never made the state open as a team but 3 of us ran in college.

We did 30 miles a week during high school vs the 60 that the private catholic high school team did 6 miles from our school. If we had to do those miles we would not of had enough kids to compete as a team. catholic school had 50 kids on the team. Wealth matters in all high school sports even running.

Taylorsville UT haven’t won a state championship in any sport since 2007, until 2024, when their XC team won the Utah 5A state meet, and at NXR they took 4th (edging out some nationally ranked teams), and they took 10th at NXN.

In 2023 they took only 4th at the Utah 5A state meet.

...and home of Point Beer, the best tasting value beer I've ever had. Local price, tastes like expensive Euro brew.

The only running they do in ghettos and trailer parks is from the cops. They play basketball and football because it’s their only shot to get out of their hell holes. Those in suburbia run for health and get decent pay careers with their intellect.

Another running they do is late