David S wrote:
Footlocker has the best runners in the country. NXN has some mix of fastest teams and fast runners.
Tully's Foot Locker preview:
http://www.tullyrunners.com/XC2019/FootlockerPreview2019.htmAll 40 FL boys have had at least one 189 Speed Rating this year.
All 40 FL girls have had at least one 141 Speed Rating this year.
As a big FL fan, I like the 8 and 2 idea but more than 2 at larges for the West..
Also maybe hold it a week later so you could double easily.
That being said, I don't think Foot Locker can do.
The reality is any star individual on a good team is going to have to do NXN. And since I don't want to look like an old man unwilling to change, at this point, I'd tell Foot Locker and Nike to work together and just merge the two meets. The winner is the Foot Locker national champion. Label the top 40 in the NXN race as "Foot Locker All-Americans."
It would be a win-win if they would do that and then run it on the San Diego course so we could compare times.
Now never having never seen Foot Lockers in person (I've been to the park once), can people confirm that there is no way the course is large enough to accommodate an NXN sized field?
I'm amazed they haven't been merged already.
PS. I just merged a thread entitled, "Footlocker vs NXN" into this one.
I still like my idea the best. (people typically like their own the best) Invite the best runner from each state. Keep everything else the same. A few kids from NXN probably wouldn't double back but we would have the 40 footlocker qualifiers and probably another 40 from the at state invitations. It would be very exciting to have the best runner from each state competing at the same meet.
westsouthrunner wrote:
What if some people don't care who the best team is. I certainly did not care in HS(class of 2012) and I really couldn't care less now
The same for me. I don't give a rat's ass how any "teams" did at the Nike team event, because the teams are not selected from the top runners from each area.
Also, I like FL Nationals much better partly because, even though they have always had teams, they don't play up the team aspect at the expense of appreciation for the individual runners.
The Nike event is all about coaches and schools, not the runners, which is why although it's a good meet in general, I don't like it because I don't like the format.
In the race last week I was wondering who some of the top 6 runners were in one of the races, and characteristically they panned back to 25th or so and followed a runner for awhile who was on one of the school teams, meanwhile totally ignoring the chase groups up front.
That's something they do constantly at the Nike event, because of the format, and they way they do it is absurd.
Who knows?
David S wrote:
At the high school level, team competitions aren't equitable across divisions, regions, and type of school. We've discussed this again and again. Even at the college level there are three divisions. NXN dilutes talented athletes and benefits students at larger schools with good coaching.
Footlocker has the best runners in the country. NXN has some mix of fastest teams and fast runners.
Yes, that's basically the issue right there. Footlocker's format is much better for those reasons.
Footlocker fixer wrote:
I still like my idea the best. (people typically like their own the best) Invite the best runner from each state. Keep everything else the same. A few kids from NXN probably wouldn't double back but we would have the 40 footlocker qualifiers and probably another 40 from the at state invitations. It would be very exciting to have the best runner from each state competing at the same meet.
I had asked this question many months ago...but the response was that many state winners are not top xc runners, and that many states have mulitple divisions (so mulitple state winners).
Fasttuohy wrote:
No - wrote:
Right, they had a choice and made it. So what????
That doesn't give them any preferential treatment to run at Footlocker Nationals.
Your obvious bias toward Nike's team race is giving you an unwarranted sense of entitlement.
You apparently dont get it. They made a choice and chose nxn as an individual. And not fl. I am not for giving them a 2nd chance. My bias toward the team race is due to xc being a team sport. But if we want more top individuals at fl, find a way for those on top teams. You seem to want a way for more individualsuals to run both. Which indirectly supports nxn as well as fl.
Look at the west name that made FL this year. The best athletes go to NXN.
At first it was sad to see FL die, but I don't think FL will make it much longer.
No - wrote:
fastTuohy wrote:
Individuals at NXN largely had a decision as to which race to run and made it (for those who could not try to qualify in both). many if not most individuals had a choice.
No - wrote:
Right, they had a choice and made it. So what????
That doesn't give them any preferential treatment to run at Footlocker Nationals.
Your obvious bias toward Nike's team race is giving you an unwarranted sense of entitlement.
Fasttuohy wrote:
You apparently dont get it. They made a choice and chose nxn as an individual. And not fl. I am not for giving them a 2nd chance. My bias toward the team race is due to xc being a team sport.
Again, people choosing to run at a lessor team race should not and fortunately does not give them preferential treatment to run at the FL Nationals individual and team championships. If you're truly so interested in teams you should realize and acknowledge that FL Nationals has had team competitions ever since it's inception, and that are much more relevant then the preferential lessor teams at the Nx team meet.
But if we want more top individuals at fl, find a way for those on top teams. You seem to want a way for more individualsuals to run both. Which indirectly supports nxn as well as fl.
Again you STILL don't get it. Most of the runners, maybe 90 percent (?), at the Nx preferential school team meet are NOT in the top 100 runners in the country. ALL of the runners who run at the FL Nationals are in the top 100 runners in the country.
By having their preferential team meet for lessor runners, and LEAVING OUT many runners who are better than those on the picked school teams, Nike is being quite insulting to the better runners who they snubbed and left at home, just because then didn't go to one of the preferential schools that "qualified." The Nike meet has an extremely biased selected process, because the teams are selected based on INDIVIDUAL SCHOOLS, rather than the best runners from different areas of the country.
The latter is what FL National does. Their teams consist of all the best runners, not from certain preferential entitled schools, most of which do not have the best runners, which is what is done at the Nike meet.
I don't have a bias to either race. FL is an individual event. NXN was started as a team event and has now added individuals...Nike has stayed true to their past by keeping the team aspect as a major component and good on them for doing it.
I really like the idea of getting the top 40-50 girls/boys together for a race. I also like the idea of the teams competeing.
But In my opinion, FL has dropped the ball by not recognizing that several top indiviuals are also heavily involved on the team side. Had FL offered a small number of individual invites each year to those athletes that chose to do NXN regionals for the team's sake, then Nike's individual race may never have become so strong. But now FL appears to be behind.
The girls race is going to be very competitive, but 3 of the top 5 girls nationally are not running FL simply because of the qualifier overlap. The boys FL race from a talent standpoint is not even close to NXN when you look at the top 10 runners.
FL is a great race, but they need to make a change for the race to not completely lose it's lustre.
I feel I’ve read this thread. About this time of year. Every year. For 10 years in a row.
Day Zsa Voo wrote:
I feel I’ve read this thread. About this time of year. Every year. For 10 years in a row.
How has it changed over the last 10 years?
History recapped wrote:
Day Zsa Voo wrote:
I feel I’ve read this thread. About this time of year. Every year. For 10 years in a row.
How has it changed over the last 10 years?
got to agree with you on that...this is my first year of really following NXN/FL, yet every thread on here indicates the FL is losing a bit more each year to NXN. Have they done anything to change up FL? Raising your nose and turning a blind eye while someone else starts eating your lunch is not a great business model.
I seriously hope FL makes some changes to stay relevant.
When Ewert finishes 3rd to 2 girls who did not run NXN, Footlocker will reign supreme.
NXN Stinks wrote:
When Ewert finishes 3rd to 2 girls who did not run NXN, Footlocker will reign supreme.
and no doubt you will say they are faster than Tuohy
Did anybody read the analysis that Flotrack did? The top finishers in the NCAA are equally split between FL and NXN. That is misleading though because NXN has 5x the number of participants as Footlocker. The top 20 finishers at Footlocker continue to outperform the top 20 from NXN.
Flotrack fanboy wrote:
Did anybody read the analysis that Flotrack did? The top finishers in the NCAA are equally split between FL and NXN. That is misleading though because NXN has 5x the number of participants as Footlocker. The top 20 finishers at Footlocker continue to outperform the top 20 from NXN.
From the 2017 senior class (boys) we see the following:
14 seniors were in the top 20 at FL. 6 ran in the NCAA XC championship this year and they finished 29/43/50/97/99/202
11 seniors were in the top 20 at NXN. 8 ran in the NCAA XC championship this year and finished 29/36/46/50/64/99/138/163.
Jacobs (1 in FL, 13 in NXN, 29 at NCAA), Kilrea (3 in FL, 5 in NXN, 50 in NCAA), Mendez (9 in FL, 18 in NXN, 99 in NCAA) are common to FL and NXN.
I don't see much a difference although several more from NXN ran in NCAA, that could be due to a better team. Interestingly, the 3 who ran both all finished lower at NXN, even though that race is first.
David S wrote:
At the high school level, team competitions aren't equitable across divisions, regions, and type of school. We've discussed this again and again. Even at the college level there are three divisions. NXN dilutes talented athletes and benefits students at larger schools with good coaching.
Footlocker has the best runners in the country. NXN has some mix of fastest teams and fast runners.
It is sad to see N-ike die, but when they do the sport will be better for all of us.
This trend usually happens throughout history, someone comes up with an idea that benefits the rich, i.e. kids at the biggest schools etc. But eventually more and more people see the flaws in that system. Sure they get to go to a meet, because and only because better runners at smaller schools we aren't on privileged teams are not a part of it, and only a secondary part of it if they run as individuals. There is no TEAM component, unless you happened to go to one of the privileged schools.
Footlocker rules wrote:
Split the regions so that people don't have to travel as far. Maybe bump the number to 8 for each region putting the total at 64.
Yes, one big reason me and my teammates in Texas never ran FL (Kinney at the time, well before NXN) was because the regional race was a long trip away in NC. If it had been in OK or LA or MS if not TX, it might have seemed more realistic.
I just want to add, this is why N-ike will always be flawed,
and this is why FL Nationals will always continue to be the best meet for every top high school cross country runner very year, regardless of what school they have gone to.
Do they have to change? No, they do not. They can change if they want to, but in the meantime FLN continues to be the best and only high school National Championship cross country meet in the country.
By the way, I am fine with N-ike keeping their team meet for privileged school kids, almost all of whom wouldn't have qualified to run at Footlocker Nationals. The more meets where more kids get to compete, the better. I still don't like that it's a preferential meet for kids who go to privileged schools.
Fortunately, Footlocker Nationals is open to everyone who qualifies in one of their regionals.
