Should slow kids be kicked of high school cross country teams ?

I am in the midwest. I never really thought about most if the meets as invites. I think that most of the meets permit any team to enter. We run one to two meets per week. We do about two out of stste during the season and then NXR which is paid for by the families. We take a tour bus and about 50 boys/girls.

back in my high school days, anyone who can't run 40mpw is stuck in "boot camp" training. during this training, you mostly do slow jogs, get trained on proper running form, medium level strength exercises from head to toe, saturday long runs, and drills/strides. you don't get to do intervals or XC invitationals while you're in bootcamp. the only racing you do is the small meets against rival schools in your city and the coaches all agree that these races are just for training the noobies and that they should work together on hitting big PRs rather than actual racing. sub 20 guys typically don't race in these unless if they're trying to pace their slower teammates.

i know that OP is just a troll who is fishing for attention, but just in case they are serious, slow runners are the future of the team and it could take a year or two before they realize their potential. some day 1 noob who has never ran more than a mile before and can only do that mile in 9 minutes may potentially be a sub 16 guy who is crucial to the team as a whole

Why do some high school sports like baseball cut people entirely but it's not ok for XC/track?

I think that's a bit harsh

Because you can only have 9 players on the field for baseball but you can have unlimited runners in most JV races.

The so called slow kids are the smartest, most caring and funniest people I know.

Sports is an outlet for everyone no matter the level or skill.

I hope they bring back C and D basketball. For you youngsters look it up.

Some accommodations have to be made for embedding sports teams in public schools.

Personally I learned a lot about running and the stages of getting into shape every year. I also learned about people and competition including from how the star runner threw a tantrum when I beat him during a training run.

School I went to decades ago had a pack of ninety running x country. We won state every year I was there (six I'm a row at least). At regionals we typically placed 20+ of the top 25. Every year some slow kid made his way into the top seven after discovering he wasn't slow. Practices were fun too.

Where can you run 25 varsity kids? What school?

Got to tell a story about a "slow" kid...

In high school in the mid '70s our coach got the bright idea that if he got a boatload of kids to come out for XC... surely some of them could run. So he pretty much asked everybody in the school who didn't play football if they wanted to try it. Coach got lucky. In his second year he got a swimmer to come out. Guy got second in state off of three months training and won the two mile in track that next spring.

We also got some guys who weren't so great. One guy was named Randy Holtz who we affectionately named "Locomotive". Over the course of a few weeks on long run days we assigned one of ourselves to stay back and run with the "locomotive". Whatever we didn't gain in fitness... we gained in spending time with a wonderful and very funny guy who inspired us and encouraged us in our own running. He called me "Chibonee" which he claimed was some native tribe's phrase for "fast little boy". And at the meets he would holler "Run, Chibonee, run" when I would go by.

Randy played guitar, sang and wrote a funny little song called "Don't Feed The Animals"... which was about going to the zoo and getting yelled at by the zoo keeper. He had the cross country team sing back up for him at the school talent show. He brought the house down.

Being around "Locomotive" was one of my favorite memories not just of cross country. But of all of my high school years. So glad the coach didn't "run off the slow guys". My coach ended up coaching for almost 50 years. He had a bunch of teams that won state and had some state medalists. Boatloads of all state runners. One of his runners later broke 4 minutes for the mile. And I bet he had a bunch of guys like "Locomotive" who made all that running worth it.

Uh no. First of all, our team collects about 24K in fees from parents. Unies are a top at most places. Maybe 50$. If you are paying 200$ you chose to have the best of the best. Second, any program can accommodate people running around in circles. You are not transporting 250 kids to "states". Exercise good.

Its an extra curricular activity. Being against slow runners is kind of like being against gay marriage. You have nothing to gain, and there is no upside to excluding a group from doing what everyone else does. If you are going to be against someone, at least have something to gain? This is worst character flaw in all of us. Denying people just because you can.

We take 9 kids to state at a cost of more than $1000 for transportation and food and hotels.

Even the poorest and smallest schools in the midwest have warmup. What do you do when you are at a track meet all day in March and it is 42 degrees and raining?

Interesting that some of you call out schools for providing gear but then you make your parents pay $24K? That would cut 2/3,of the participants at my school. Most parents could not pay $100 to have their kid in cross country.

We have some very slow kids on our team, but they are great to be around. What purpose does it serve to tell them to go away? How does that benefit anyone?

XC is a meritocracy and everyone learns that very quickly. It sorts itself out.

Honestly, no. If a team, or school, has the means to fund a huge team, then I don’t see the big issues. Back in high school, we probably had around 50-60 people combined on the team. But some of the slower people were my best friends. I mean I would run some days with some of the kids who were in the 25-30 minute 5K range. My high school did cleanups for the U of Arkansas football & basketball team and we were able to afford having that many kids on the team. High school sports, especially cross country, is a way to offer kids to have a sense of belonging. Just because you may not be the fastest on the team doesn’t mean you deserve to be kicked off. That’s just my 2 cents

I could not understand any of this.

You mean "off", maybe?

Hell No. that's absurd. Unless they can't spell or proofread, then they should stay after school and learn more English.

If they do not try their best and are a distraction to the team yes they should be kicked off. If they’re just slow but try as hard is they can, they can stay. Can’t cut someone who has a great work mindset they just simply aren’t that good.