Injured runner not allowed to return to team for State qualifiers, wins FL West

I have given up on trying to convince people like "Mr. Mountain and figuring" that the coach did the right thing. These are the kind of people that go through life miserable, thinking the world revolves around them and not accepting personal responsibility. For most people, being part of a team is a great thing and something people strive for, while people like this want nothing to do with any kind of group or team because it is too much responsibility. I just hope they have or get a job where being part of team is not required. I am sure any kind of boss they have will always be the bad guy because he will expect certain things out of them. The nerve of that boss expecting you to come in to the office almost everyday and the nerve of this coach for requiring that this girl show up for some of the practices. Such evil people in the world putting such unreal expectations on all of us.

Good luck Mr. Mountain and figuring, life will get better when you relax a little and begin to understand that being a responsible person is a good thing, not a thing to be avoided. Hopefully you will get to that point soon or it is going to be a long, miserable life.

Mr Mountain wrote:

Clueless? wrote:

and didn't cave to a talented runner with no sense of team. .

Thanks for proving the point I have been making.

I didn't realize you agreed with me that the coach did the right thing by not caving in to this athlete. Thanks for finally coming around. You can disregard my last post about you since it seems like you are finally getting the point, that being part of a team is a privilege, not a right and we all have certain responsibilities.

Cross country has always struggled with the individual v. team dynamic. I think that it is quite possible in this instance that both sides are "right" from their own perspective. Obviously it comes down to a lack of chemistry/communication between the coach and the athlete, and the athlete went her own way, with great success. The system (which includes FL) worked. The coach is able to keep the integrity of their team structure while the athlete succeeds on an individual level. If I was a college coach recruiting this runner I would carefully consider her personality/needs as it meshed with the goals of my program and my personal coaching style.

Props to the girl for following her own path and overcoming the obstacles in her way.

As for the coach/team, if they are truly a quality program, they will succeed despite losing their star runner (much as when Saratoga lost Nicole Blood)

this is like that girl from Pennsylvania (Pennsbury) who ran Footlocker Northeast instead of NXN Regionals and cost her team a shot at qualifying for NXN. They would have qualified with her, they were state champs etc and had beaten a team that did. Instead she went for individual glory and did not eeven qualify for Footlocker.

Bitter Coach wrote:

"Come track season, however, Nacouzi was injured and when healthy didn’t practice or race most of the season. Sell said she allowed Nacouzi to run at the league finals, where she finished second, but not at the NCS meet because she missed two months of practice."

The coach keeps getting the girl injured, shredded knee already in highschool, and only runs her at the league meet for the coaches benefit because she wants petty revenge for the girl getting healthy by avoiding her coaching. Great coach.

States need to allow students to run at the district/regional/state meets without being part of their school's team.

No, states do not need to allow students to run at the district/regional/state meets without being part of their school's team. They don't.

Cross-country is a team sport. It has developed as a team sport over the past 100+ years in this country and around the world. Footlocker (a wonderful event) is an obvious exception to this.

Some coaches need to be better coaches, but the system works for almost everyone, most of whom (a) will not run in college or (b) will not compete after college. And that's fine. High school athletics do much more to develop young people into healthy, motivated, and dedicated adults than they do to develop the next Olympic team. I would rather see a high school athletics program that nurtures and challenges young people as people than one that wins Olympic medals.

Would you let an independently coached/trained runner from Oregon compete at the Pac-10 championships or the West Regional for NCAAs independent of his/her team?

I competed against individuals when I was in high school. It's because their schools had no teams, either for that season individually or at all. They ran because they loved running, but every single kid I can think of in that situation became so much happier once his/her school started a team/expanded into more seasons.

When I was in school, the rules were simple: show up to practice or you didn't compete. You needed a certain number of practices to race, and a certain amount of races to compete in any post-season competitions. This makes sense -- this actually protects athletes from coaches who could exploit an injured top athlete to win at all costs.

When my teammates or I were injured, we still came to practice. Any injured athlete had to check in with the coach and receive a modified workout plan. Of course our coach tailored things for us -- but he tailored our workout plans, not his expectations with regards to attendance or commitment. Some times it was the weight room. Some times it was hours of icing. Some times it was a physical therapy appointment. For our injured team captain in his last season, it was coaching the rest of the hurdlers. If the injury was bad enough, the season ended because our health came first. No one trained on their own through an injury and expected special treatment.

My school has produced state champions, Olympic trials qualifiers, NCAA All-Americans, and more state meet medals than I can count. And that's really nice. But it's comparatively unimportant.

High school is a critical time for development for youth, and good coaches -- really good coaches -- have to be educators first.

you dumb ass. your caught up in details, go re-read your law books. maybe you should switch majors. This is not a slam dunk more like a missed free throw. Did she ever complain that she was being denied the right to participate because she was female? How is the boys team treated? Are they allowed to miss practice and still compete? I really really hope you are a troll

SaImon wrote:

Let the kids run. A high school coach does not have a greater cause.

Incorrect.

Coaches in many states, perhaps all, are now required to attend the National Federation's coaches' certification class. This class states, unequivocally, that high school coaches DO have a greater cause... exactly the one this coach chose to uphold. None of us knows the full details, but from what I read (especially the comment by the teammate) and what I know about the NFHS's expectations of coaches, this coach did it right. The fact that you don't agree doesn't change that.

Figuring wrote:

The coach couldn't produce a winner. Julie did it on her own.

Actually, it sounds as if Julie didn't give the coach a chance to produce a winner. But she did give the coach a chance to demonstrate values like integrity, loyalty, and trust.

As others have stated, the beauty of running is that you line up, they shoot the gun, and the first person to finish wins. If Julie would prefer to do that on her own, then she can form the JTC track club. Nobody is stopping her from participating in the sport outside the realm of the high school team, and she'll have plenty of races available to her. But to compete inside that realm, there are expectations from NFHS, state, district, school, coach, and teammates, which it appears she was unwilling to accept.

Ghost of Ashenfelter wrote:

Figuring wrote:

The coach couldn't produce a winner. Julie did it on her own.

Actually, it sounds as if Julie didn't give the coach a chance to produce a winner. But she did give the coach a chance to demonstrate values like integrity, loyalty, and trust..

Actually the coach did produce a winner in Julie the previous year, as evidenced by the following paragraph from the article.

"Practicing with the team wasn’t an issue a year ago when Nacouzi took the league and North Coast Section titles, the latter in record-setting time. After finishing second at the state meet, Nacouzi made the field for the Foot Locker National Championship race".

So the previous year she ran with the team and took second at state and qualified for Footlocker. Obviously the coach knows how to coach.

J.R. wrote:

Has it crossed anybodies minds that the girl really didn't care about running on a team and the only reason she joined the team was because that is the only way she would be able to compete in those regional and state meets?

Why do you think a lot of top level tennis players and swimmers have nothing to do with their local high school teams? The inferior level really does nothing for the athlete trying to excell at a much higher level.

The first paragraph is like saying that I joined the military because I wanted free medical care and the chance to save money by shopping at the commissary, I shouldn't have to follow rules or fight in a war if I don't want to.

The second paragraph proves the opposite point you're trying to make. If you are too good for the school team, then go to IMG's tennis academy. But that doesn't allow you to play against Central High School or in the Sectional tournament. You made the choice, we wish you a long and prosperous career. Many of the posters here have suggested this girl could take the same route if that's what she would prefer.

What arbitrary rigid rules?? This is not must make the last 8 practices and stay for every minute of them. It's make just HALF of the practices. For every sport at my school you would be off the team for making less than 75% let alone 50% of practices. No one's forcing her to be on the team.

Trust me. My life is quite the opposite of miserable.

I have been on teams in my life and when I was in school, I was always the leader of those teams. Why was I the leader? Because I took initiative to gather the groups together to practice in the offseason and usually worked harder than everybody else to be successful. I was also one of the best players on the team because of this hard work and the best players usually end up being team leaders. The problem with team sports and coaches are that the best players aren't always given the opportunity to play. Somebodies daddy is on the school board, or mommy is at every practice in the ear of the coach. The coach just doesn't like someone for whatever reason. There are many reasons the best players aren't given an opportunity. When you run, it is all about you and the time or place. The harder I worked, the better I got. Everybody got an equal chance and whoever was the fastest won. Because of how hard I worked, I was soon winning a lot. That is why I gravitated to more individual sports.

Working for a company is the same thing. If you work harder, you are often not paid anymore or given more opportunities than those who "know people". It didn't take me long to figure this out and that is why I have been successfully self employed the last 20 years.

While you say team is more responsibility, the majority on that team have far less responsibility because they are dependant on everyone else and know they can get along doing the absolute minimum. Five avg runners will always beat one great runner and four poor runners, but in the end, only the 1 great runner will ever accomplish anything and the other nine will be no better than avg. I have always chose to strive for greatness over avg.

If this sport of running xc was only able to be done properly in a team concept, then every state that has championships would not include individuals whose team did not qualify for the competition.

People really have to be careful when just blindly following every law or rule somebody makes up without examining those laws and rules to decide if they are appropriate. Just because you are doing that does not mean you disregard the laws and rules that have been proven to be necessary.

Doubt It wrote:

Doesn't read like a highschool student to me, 99.9% odds the coach wrote that pretending to be one of her own runners.

I agree, or a similar twit.

What is really crazy is when people say runners doing their best are not supporting them team, when it's the other way around.

A few crazy control freak whackos on teams, probably not everyone, are ironically the ones who are not being supportive.

If you want to go to NX then go to NX. I've not seen any FL runners tell their team to not go to NX. But then the whackos, usually stupid coaches, say the runners who excel are not being good for their team??? How utterly stupid can you get.

These people should NOT be allowed to be coaches. Also I agree that being on a team should not be a requirement to compete in league, district, state and/or national competitions.

Mr Mountain wrote:

I have always chose to strive for greatness over avg.

Was spelling not on the list?

J.R. wrote:

These people should NOT be allowed to be coaches. Also I agree that being on a team should not be a requirement to compete in league, district, state and/or national competitions.

And I bet you would make a great coach.

Why is it so difficult for a high school athlete that is part of a team to show up for practice and still do some extra running on their own. That is what most top runners do and is what this runner did in the previous year when she was 2nd at state.

I would almost guarantee that the people that think it is okay to miss over half the practices have never coached in their lives. The people who have actually done it are the ones supporting this coach for not caving into the special treatment this star athlete wanted.

her story reminds me of the best runner on my college team. in xc, you sometimes get real individuals who embrace the solitary character of running and do not want to be part of a team, but still love to compete, and they are sometimes the best. Then too this girl was far more talented than her teammates and practice was of little use to her. In fact, we don't know the workouts the coach had them doing but they probably contributed to her injuries. She is obviously better off without the coach. And then she missed a lot of practices because of injury. The coach had already made arbitrary choices concerning her competing in track. She could compete at leagues, but not at postseason meets?? Sounds to me like the coach was protecting herself but not her athlete, and that the coach was selectively treating Nacouzi better than the other athletes but without any rhyme or reason. Someone like this obviously needs to train on her own and compete at the end of the season, just as my teammate needed to train on his own and then show up and get xc and steeple all american awards.

This girl is going to become a serial bank robber or felony parking violator. She has no moral compass. Barnyard fowl will flee in her presence and she will just laugh.

"I wanted some money, and I guess I forgot that people don't like guns pointed at them when they are at work."

Bryn_R wrote:

Mr Mountain wrote:

I have always chose to strive for greatness over avg.

Was spelling not on the list?

I didn't have time to check grammer, puntuation, and spelling of my anonymous posting on the internet. I was hoping a teammate could step up and do that for me.

Thanks

well, as long as she's talented enough to only show up to practice whenever she feels like it. the rest of the the team should be more grateful; she IS the team