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

It’s not that different from any other school. You have go work to recruit kids, get as many as you can, build a program and continue to improve.

I teach at a Title 9 middle school. We had a top 5 average of 12:20 for 2 Miles in XC including a kid that ran 10:30. We went 1-2-3 at our county meet (it’s a terrible county btw). We generally finish in the top 20% or so of big races.

I think teaching at a majority black school would be much harder. Our mix is about 1/3 each of white, black, and Latino.

Madera. Fucking. South. Those kids are tough. Those kids wake up before dawn to work in the fields, go to practice, and then go back to the fields until nightfall all summer long. Does the program have a nice middle school feeder system? Sure. Is California's high level of competition an easy way to bring out the best in athletes? Maybe so. But ultimately, the kids, the coaches and the families are all bought in to embracing their struggle rather than trying to skirt it.

I like this thread because most people that have posted are being realistic and sympathetic.

However I truly believe that it is possible to win anywhere. It might just take longer to do it in tough situations. ( The old if you get one good runner, you'll get two. Then if you get two you'll get three rule certainly applies here. ) By this I mean that you must get that special distance runner who is willing to recruit his fast friends. You can be competitive with three very good runners in cc.

I would definitely share details of training with the captains or oldest runners immediately upon practicing with the team. You are the expert but if you give them input they might listen to you and then you have the beginnings of cooperation and the all important culture.

I got flamed for suggesting recently that it was even noteworthy that an all-black XC team had a high finish at State. Glad there is some actual dialogue going on about it now.

waltertompatton wrote:

I like this thread because most people that have posted are being realistic and sympathetic.

However I truly believe that it is possible to win anywhere. It might just take longer to do it in tough situations. ( The old if you get one good runner, you'll get two. Then if you get two you'll get three rule certainly applies here. ) By this I mean that you must get that special distance runner who is willing to recruit his fast friends. You can be competitive with three very good runners in cc.

I would definitely share details of training with the captains or oldest runners immediately upon practicing with the team. You are the expert but if you give them input they might listen to you and then you have the beginnings of cooperation and the all important culture.

It is NOT always possible to win anywhere. I coached in Tennessee. Our entire county is primarily free and reduced lunch. And even though our team DIDwin boys state one season, I truly believe it's not possible to win just anywhere if you just "try longer". I got lucky having just a few kids that matched the socioeconomic demographics of the traditional winners in our state. They bought in. We worked very, very hard. We literally did the impossible. Much, good discussion has been offered about the struggles of coaching in this sort of environment, so I won't offer more. Know this though: it's unbelievably tough if you want to win, the hardships of these families is often heartbreaking, and the mores and values of a poor uneducated populace can be infuriatingly frustrating.

Do I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride winning at a school like ours? You better believe it. I often believed if I had the demographics of some of the other schools, we would have NEVER lost. Coaching in this environment though is unbelievably difficult.

Tybout wrote:

Parents decide where to live largely based on which schools provide the programs and services that their kids need/desire. Coaches decide where to work based on which schools provide the athletes and the support necessary to field a good team. As a result, kids who want to run and coaches who want to coach will just vote with their feet and meet at certain kinds of schools.

The kids who want to run XC are still getting the opportunity because they are free to attend schools that have better programs. Truthfully, it's really just inefficient for a good coach to work at a low SES school instead of using their talents at a school with kids who want to run.

Where I coach, students have no choice to be at a different high school. We're the only high school within a 45-minute drive! Also, nobody's ever run competitively before joining our program, so they certainly wouldn't choose a school based on that.

My local running group, Rogue Running in Austin Texas, publishes a weekly podcast about all things running. Last year, they interviewed Mike Barnett who coached Luling (Texas) high school to seven straight state championships. It's definitely worth a listen: http://runningrogue.libsyn.com/episode-26-chasing-excellence-with-coach-barnett

Don't have time to listen to the podcast now (getting ready to go watch the big game), but will archive it for later.

One of the things that I think is true for all coaching, but especially for coaching low SES kids is that athletes love real, positive feedback given in a real way. I'm not talking about a random "good job" thrown in here and there and I'm not talking about just complimenting kids for running fast in a race or crushing a workout.

Give honest compliments to kids for doing the little things right. If you know a kid is time managing well and getting homework done in enough time to get a good night's sleep, point it out. If a kid pays attention and does the drills right, point it out. When kids give great effort in practice, point it out, but also point out the kid that takes his easy run at the right intensity also. Point out good lifestyle choices and mature decisions.

The next step after that is to create a team culture where kids feel comfortable pointing out the good things their teammates do, but also learning how to appropriately address the negatives.

If you create a positive environment where kids know their accomplishments will be appreciated and that positive behavior is rewarded, you are well on your way to building a great team.

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. 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).

I apologize for jumping on a pretty old thread, but I was roaming around and ran upon this and wanted to say that this is absolutely crucial. I actually ran for the program Boo Pig is referencing along with my siblings. It all started in our very small rural school system(5 K-8 schools that feed into high school). Very poor kids and families, but the coaches there started it all. We had a group before school called the "Morning Maniacs". We would go run anywhere from 1-3 miles every morning with our coach on his bike. Kids anywhere from 2nd grade(when I started) to 8th grade. We had fun and we had a bunch of middle schoolers in our area breaking 5 in the mile, breaking 11:00 in the 3200. By the time we got to high school, if they chose to run, on a team of 20 guys total, we would have almost 15 guys running sub 18:00. The progression by the time they graduate high school is amazing when they commit and buy into the training. Running sub 18:00 freshman year and well under 16:00 by graduation was not really a dream, we knew we could get there. Then the culture and tradition motivated and inspired us in high school. Any school can do it. It doesn't matter how big the team is or how poor the runners and school are.

PeanutButterJelly: I hope I get a chance to talk to you.

I also worked on an Indian Reservation, but only for one school year.

Your letter is a reminder to me that there are situations that are

basically impossible to turn around because of politics and culture.

Believing something just gets you closer to actually obtaining that belief. I've coached in several districts and had

nearly every kind of kid. What ever your situation your kids deserve to win. You must do your best to put them

in that situation.

If you do not believe this is true, look up the name Rod Dixon and talk to him about his programs for kids.

But it does not matter the sport, you must recruit to win. If you merely stand by and let them come to you,

it's likely you will eventually attract losing or never win.

I had forgotten about this thread completely, but then saw it again linked in another thread. Once again, I'm just killing time waiting for friends to show up for a super bowl party. I think I'm about to feel the first real bite of being at a lower SES school. Overall, our team has grown to 72 members (more than 10% of the student body). Our varsity boys qualified for the state meet this year and our girls have been in the top 3 of our section for the past 5 years now.

This past cross country season, I had 3 freshman boys come out that, in my opinion, are highly talented. They were surrounded by a large group of other freshmen with average to above average talent. Some of those frosh had some pretty good motivation and leadership skills. We had a great season. Mixed in with some sophomores who more or less bootstrapped themselves into being solid runners, we took 16 of the top 20 places at our League Championship meet in the Frosh Soph Division.

Earlier in the year, our freshman team had come within 7 points of beating the Freshman team from Bellarmine College Prep (a perrenial nor-cal power, and 3rd at this year's State D1 Championships). At our Subsection meet, we beat the freshman team from Jesuit high in the power merge (Jesuit went on to take 2nd in State in D1). I got really excited about the future for our team. Unfortunately, my two top frosh (twins) struggle mightily in the classroom, and are now academically ineligible. The other boy from that trio, has decided to play tennis this spring (but says things like, "I'm going to be the best runner this school's ever seen"). All three of these boys are from low SES backgrounds. Two are Hispanic and their parents speak little to no English. The tennis kid is white, but his family background is a mess. Older brother was expelled last year for drug stuff.

I can't help but think that, if these boys had more structure at home and parent's that would advocate for them, they would experience far more success over the next 3 years. The two Mexican boys should absolutely be receiving special ed. services, but their parents can't or won't navigate the system to get them. The white kid has the sterotypical "fixed" mindset mentioned above. He sees that he's fast now and believes he'll always be the fastest kid, whether he works for it or not.

Don't misunderstand me. I am fully in these kids court. I've had conversations with the white kid's parents about what fully investing in running could do for his future. I'm going to be referring the twins for special ed services again because, without significant academic support, not only will they probably never be academically eligible again, but they probably won't graduate.

So, yeah....you can win anywhere, but the deck is far more stacked against you when you are at a small rural public school and even more stacked against you when half of students in your school is in poverty.