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

I think we need to give up on trying to get Mr. Mountain to understand. He just doesn't get it. That is okay, but I really hope he never ends up coaching someday and even more so I hope he doesn't have children. I can just hear him and his wife having the following discussion: "Honey, the principal called again and they are upset that little Billy wasn't in school today. What the hell is the principal's problem? He is on some kind of power trip or something. Billy has been to almost half the school days this year and now they expect him to show up for even more or they are going to fail him. What kind of crazy society do we live in?"

This thread brings up an interesting situation. (mine)

My daughter is very motivated to run and is pretty good. 18:30 XC as a sophomore. She trains all summer about 35mpw with all training techniques learned on the board and from the great runners and wants to run 4:45 by senior year.

Coach is a nice guy but completely incompetent and insists she run his workouts which are not sophisticated and run about 17-25mpw with nothing but LSD and short track work, no athlete dialogue on workouts.

Coach hurts daughter's sophisticated training and athletic staff acknowledges that he sucks but is entrenched.

My daughter has a state champ in her future and a 250k scholarship if she DOESN'T listen to the coach and no future if she does.

Daughter quit winter track in favor of training program that will get her under 5 this spring.

It is my observation that most coaches in my state suck and don't even bother doing research on letsrun et al.

She wants to run 17:45 next fall and will show up in that shape and run it the first meet but will spend the rest of the season battling weak workouts and arguing that every person on the team shouldn't have the same exact workouts, better runners should be given better programs as a group.

My daughter has really good grades and would like to go to Stanford or Nova but needs athletics too to get in.

What would you guys do??? Lots of kids are screwed like this. It is sad.

Fargo, you do bring up an interesting dilemma. Before I continue though I want to emphasize that this is a completely different scenario than what happened with Julie. Julie actually has a good coach and was able to finish 2nd at state and qualify for Footlocker the previous year under her coaches training. She was injured off and on her senior year and just wanted to do things on her own, even though she had success with her coach the previous year.

In your case, your daughter clearly has some talent and does have a bad coach. Unfortunately there are many bad coaches out there. I do think that you need to understand however that talent and extra work can overcome bad coaching, at least to a certain point. First of all, just because the team is only doing 17-25 miles a week doesn't mean your daughter can't do more. Most top runners do more than their teammates by running in the mornings and/or putting in more mileage on the weekends. She can also do some tempo type runs on her own and not just do short track work. If they are doing too much short track work, she can just back off on some of those days. The fact that this coach is not having them do enough makes it easier to get around his training and add some of your own. It is the coach that makes everyone do 100 mile weeks or intervals everday that are much harder to overcome.

As a former college coach, I will also tell you that most coaches will look at the training background of the athletes they are recruiting. If a runner comes from a school with no other successful runners, that will impress a coach more. If she is willing to do some work on her own to offset a lack of training by the high school, that will also impress a coach.

You also have to be careful about putting too high of goals for your daughter, just so she can get a scholarship. There are very, very, very few girls that run 4:45 in the 1600 in high school and it is doubtful your daughter has that type of talent, with our without good coaching. There are plenty of schools that are also very good athletically and academically that may be better suited for your daughter than Stanford or Villanova. Is that really the only two good schools for her?

There was a girl from my son's high school several years ago that was an amazing runner. She was pretty much the only good runner this school ever had. Her coach admitted he didn't know how to coach that well. She succeeded because of her talent level and doing the necessary training in the summer and extra work throughout the season. She went on to run at a very good college and had a great career.

It can happen, but you need to accept the situation you are in and look for ways around it, not get defeatist and think your daugther has no chance at success because of this coach. Plenty of athletes have gotten around it and so can your daughter. Good luck.

Just had to comment on this thread because I was in a similar situation, but made different decisions than Julie. I completely side with the coach from what we know about this, which is interesting, considering my background.

I was a nationally-ranked high school girl, well under 5 in the mile. The next girl on my team was in the upper 6:40s and was struggling to break 6:30 that season. The coach of course had a one-size-fits-all training plan, where I was supposed to run the exact same workouts in the exact same times of the girl who couldn't break 6:30.

I pushed (and yes there was some friction) to be able to run different workouts, not because I thought I was too good for the team as my coach suggested, but because a sub-5 miler should not be doing the same workouts as the 6:30 miler, who should not be doing the same workouts as an 8:00 miler (yes, we had some of those too).

Each day I would warm up with the team, then run my own workout. When I was injured for a bit, I would be at practice when the team warmed-up, and then would go to the pool/ride my bike/etc.

Another option for me, which was viable, was to quit the team.

Either I would be on the team and go to team practices, or I wouldn't be on the team. I don't see how this is unreasonable.

Requiring a 50% attendance rate, in my opinion, was very very lenient on the side of the coach.

As an aside, my parents would definitely not be supporting me if I decided not to show up at practice. They would be the first ones telling me that there's a reason it's called a team, and if you're in it only for yourself, that is fine, but then don't try to be part of the team.

Clueless? wrote:

I think we need to give up on trying to get Mr. Mountain to understand. He just doesn't get it. That is okay, but I really hope he never ends up coaching someday and even more so I hope he doesn't have children. I can just hear him and his wife having the following discussion: "Honey, the principal called again and they are upset that little Billy wasn't in school today. What the hell is the principal's problem? He is on some kind of power trip or something. Billy has been to almost half the school days this year and now they expect him to show up for even more or they are going to fail him. What kind of crazy society do we live in?"

That conservation, with partial homsechooling, would go like this. "Honey, the principal called again to thank us again for making his school look good with our Billy's test scores. He begged us not to pull Billy completely, even though he knows the school is wasting little Billy's time."

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote:

Would you be ok if she never showed up to practice and got to run at all the meets, regionals, and states?

Are you honestly saying that a coach asking an athlete to show up to 50% of the practice is being unreasonable?

States need to open races to all students of a highschool, regardless of membership on any "team." Yes, it too much to expect students to show up to our failed public schools, or train under loser coaches. There is a reason homeschooling is growing every year, seeing as actually become literate, whereas public education is nothing but a certificate for attendance.

Fargo, I posted before I read your thread. I was in your daughter's exact same situation (see my previous post). I'm now on the other side of this (graduated from a Duke/Stanford/Ivy college) and may be able to offer some insight based on my experiences.

First, the situation just stinks, and I'm really sorry you and your daughter have to go through this. Dealing with it takes a lot of emotional energy and just left me completely drained a lot of the time.

Here's my advice: Run on the team knowing that it's going to be draining, knowing you'll be battling the workouts, and knowing that it will be difficult (though not impossible) to reach your true potential.

If your daughter has good grades and can can, without the help of the coach, create a good training plan that can help her reach her potential without battling the coach and workouts season by season, I would walk away from the team. There are plenty of open and college cross country meets to run in unattached, and if your daughter is that good, she will certainly qualify for national championships that will put her on the radar of college coaches.

Another factor that you should consider, no matter how petty it may seem, is friends. Does your daughter have friends on or off the team that she can continue to hang out with? Running of course takes up a ton of time and I found that most of my social life in high school revolved around track. If I weren't on the team, I seriously wouldn't have had time to have a normal social life. So you just have to weigh that too, since your daughter is what, 14 or 15? She's just a little kid, and as a little kid runner (I was there) it's really easy to get too wrapped up in running, and it's good to maintain perspective. That can either come from you, or from a vibrant social life.

In hindsight, I wish I walked away from the team. It would have saved me four years of battles. My times would have spoken for themselves; in fact, I would have been liberated from running the 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 twice a week (at mid-week dual meets and weekend invitationals) "just to win," meaning I never, ever got to push myself. In hindsight I was being used. My team was scoring 42 points in a meet, and I scored 40 of them myself.

So not knowing you or your daughter, but knowing that she is an excellent student and an excellent runner with her sights set on a Stanford-type school (this was exactly me as a 15-year-old), only knowing that, I would recommend leaving the team and running on your own.

Also, and you can share this with her or not, but honestly in college, academically and athletically, it doesn't matter what you did in high school. It's hard to realize that now, and I never would have predicted it, but what you make of college is just so much more important than what you make of high school. What I didn't know then was that if I excelled at running, it was okay, and if I didn't, that was okay too.

I stopped running for the team my 5th year of college, and I then realized what running for the team made me miss. There is so much more to life and college than running (I know, blasphemy on this board). Looking back on it, I do regret not being able to take full advantage of all the opportunities afforded to me at my Ivy/Stanford/Duke college because I was running.

I chat with a few of my friends who are now professional runners, and although that is what I aspired to be during high school and my first years of college, I now realize that I am so incredibly grateful not to be doing that, to have had that injury that forced me to quit. That's quite something. I never, ever would have predicted I would feel this way at 15.

Also, I would be cautious about going to college only on a running scholarship. A few of my friends were like me, excited about running in college, absolutely hated, hated it, but couldn't quit because they wouldn't be able to continue college there. The places your daughter will be looking at have incredible financial aid, and so I would look at non-athletic money as well. The walk-ons were treated no differently than the recruited athletes at my school. Same everything, but they had the option to walk off if they wanted to and still continue college. I sometimes wished I was one of them. You never know what person you'll turn into in college. College is a place to grow, explore, and change, and you don't want to be wedded to what you were when you were 17.

These are just a bunch of ramblings from a has-been, so take them for what they're worth. Best of luck to you and your daughter.

Sorry for hijacking the thread...

Carry on.

High school athletics is not just about winning, it's about learning to win with integrity, morality, and responsibility. Some coaches are better at teaching this to our youth than others, but the core foundations that we want our children to learn by participating in athletics is discipline, work ethic, sacrifice, camaraderie, and responsibility for their actions.

In this case, you're advocating that someone who has amazing talent doesn't need to conform to the basic fundamentals of a team atmosphere because they give you the best chance of winning. I couldn't disagree more with that type of thinking.

I find your post ironic for a few reasons.

1. You make sure to tell us all that you've been the leader on every team you've ever been on. That you got the team together to practice in the off season and that due to this sacrifice and hard work, you were one of the best players on the team... I find it hard to believe that someone with such dedication could condone the behavior of this athlete who routinely skipped practice, didn't participate within the context of what almost every runner would say are already extremely lose rules (3 of 6 practices a week, seriously), and showed no desire to represent the work that all the other members put in.

2. You then go on to talk about how parents and outside pressure are leading factors as to why the best players aren't always the ones playing. I find this to be contradictory considering the fact that the only person who seems to have the largest problem with this situation is this girls mother, who is clearly blasting away at the school and the coach in order to give her daughter an unearned opportunity to compete with the... ready for it... THE TEAM.

3. You consistently use the word "player", not runner, and "leader" instead of captain. These lead me to believe that the experiences you are referring to are not running related and that your coach or your fellow players didn't see you fit to titled "captain". That right there, tells me something... you aren't a team player. And with that role, you aren't going to get more playing time, and you aren't going start more games because you're individual aspirations aren't in line with the teams. In the case of runners, yes, there is an individualistic aspect to it, but it comes on the sacrifice of coming to practice, leading by example, mentoring younger runners, being a positive influence on the development of the people around you... the coach never said she couldn't train like she wanted, she just said, show up 3 times a week and be part of the team"... it's not that she couldn't do that, she straight up didn't want to... she made the choice, not the coach.

The reality of this situation is this, you can't bend the foundation of what organized high school athletics is based upon in order to let one person give you a better chance of winning. In doing so, you wrongfully send the message that integrity, responsibility, and sacrifice are bullshit qualities that are all trumped by selfishness, talent, and a complaining mother.

Thanks for a couple of nice posts, "another average american". It is nice to see the viewpoint of someone who has been in a similar situation to both Julie and Fargo's daughter.

Hopefully a couple of people with a different viewpoint can post on here as well for Fargo to see, because it really does depend on the person. I absolutely loved running in both high school and college and couldn't imagine having not done it. In high school I was blessed with a very good coach, in college, not so much. But I made the best of it and could have transferred if I wanted, but chose to stick it out. College running can be a great thing, but it is not for everybody. Running on your own in high school can be done successfully and there are kids that have done it, but it would not be easy. Fargo's daughter has to look at a lot of things, but the first thing she needs to do is not just be thinking about Stanford or Villanova and not be setting a 4:45 mile goal before she has even broken five.

Homeschoolers Taking Over wrote:

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote:

Would you be ok if she never showed up to practice and got to run at all the meets, regionals, and states?

Are you honestly saying that a coach asking an athlete to show up to 50% of the practice is being unreasonable?

States need to open races to all students of a highschool, regardless of membership on any "team." Yes, it too much to expect students to show up to our failed public schools, or train under loser coaches. There is a reason homeschooling is growing every year, seeing as actually become literate, whereas public education is nothing but a certificate for attendance.

Again, no. High school state meets are for runners affiliated with their schools' athletics department competing for a team.

So I agree with "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm", the poster who isn't me but has a similar name.

My comments here aren't about the California situation or about bad coaches (although my heart goes out to the father of the young girl with a coach who objectively does not understand how to differentiate workouts, that's really frustrating). My comments here are to some the posters who feel as though they (or the hypothetical or real people they know) shouldn't be subject to the same rules as everyone else.

There is an alternative: the club system. This is exactly what the club system is for: youth athletes who for any number of different reasons do not want to or are not able to run for their schools. There are youth races all over the country for track and field and for cross-country. And there are pay-for-entry road races, too. But there are bad coaches there too, and that's part of life. At least with the club system you can pick and choose with some greater ease than moving school districts.

State meets are run by state-wide associations of high schools. No one has the any entitled right to run in them, it's a privilege you have to earn by following the rules and qualifying based on those rules.

And there are reasons for this. Coaches can use and exploit their runners, but they can also be fired from their jobs and be reported by parents to an athletic director or a school board. Parents can exploit their runners too, and sometimes really disastrously by living vicariously through their children's success and failure. Look: the schools have no business telling me how to raise my kids. But they have every right to tell me that they are more appropriately qualified than I am to coach my child in track. Because it's not just about one person running. When it becomes that, it's not high school track anymore -- it's something else. Running on a team is a proxy for learning about life, working with others, disagreeing with others, building community, and navigating really challenging teenage years with a set of friends and healthy, structured activity.

At the end of the day, it's just running. Really. I just had a reunion over Thanksgiving with my old teammates. We didn't talk about the PRs we set at states or the races we won. We talked about the mischief we got into, the laughs we had, and how we missed our late track coach and how he helped us grow up to become young men. That's the experience I want for my kids. If they win some races along the way, that's nice and I will be thrilled for them and with them. But this is about education and development.

Mr Mountain wrote:

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.

Right. And people also need to be mature enough to realize that you can't simply disregard every rule you disagree with. Just because a rule as it applies to you doesn't seem completely necessary does not mean that rule lacks value.

Attendance, for instance, is clearly a rule that won't be necessary in individual cases but is absolutely necessary for a team as a whole. One cannot simply except individuals from a general rule like this without undermining the rule.

Homeschoolers Taking Over wrote:

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote:

Would you be ok if she never showed up to practice and got to run at all the meets, regionals, and states?

Are you honestly saying that a coach asking an athlete to show up to 50% of the practice is being unreasonable?

States need to open races to all students of a highschool, regardless of membership on any "team." Yes, it too much to expect students to show up to our failed public schools, or train under loser coaches. There is a reason homeschooling is growing every year, seeing as actually become literate, whereas public education is nothing but a certificate for attendance.

If you are going to write about literacy, you may want to make sure your sentence is actually literate. Or are you trying to show us what a public education does to your writing skills?

With that said, yes not all public schools are the best and there are SOME loser coaches out there. That is how it is with all industries; some good companies, some bad, some good bosses, some bad. We are not required to attend those schools or work for those businesses. That is what makes America great. If you do choose to go to those schools or work for that business, then you need to follow their rules. The schools are part of the state associations, so they need to follow those rules. Rules are necessary to prevent cheating and unfairness. At least Mr. Mountain, who seems to have a real problem with any kind of rules, has stated that he has worked for himself for the past 20 years. For him that was the wisest choice. If someone doesn't like the public school in their area, they need to check out the private schools and see which ones fit the mold of academics and athletics that they are looking for.

This is all pretty simple people. We all have choices in life, but there are many of you that just want to blame your failures in life on circumanstance that you actually have control over.

Clueless? wrote:

We all have choices in life, but there are many of you that just want to blame your failures in life on circumanstance that you actually have control over.

Thank you for finally admitting this.

dumbass on my forehead wrote:

Clueless? wrote:

We all have choices in life, but there are many of you that just want to blame your failures in life on circumanstance that you actually have control over.

Thank you for finally admitting this.

Care to explain?

It's interesting to note that this coach/team conflict wasn't even mentioned in the ESPN Rise article:

http://rise.espn.go.com/track-and-xc/us/2010-xc/FL/2010-FL-West/Girls-Championship.aspx?pursuit=TrackAndXC

The implication is that only her injury held her out of post season schoolastic competition.

Despite her obvious talent I find it hard to believe her injury hampered her to the extent of not being able to participate with a few practices per week yet get enough training in to win FL West.

If you idiots would actually read what I wrote, you would see that I am NOT talking specifically about this case and who was right or wrong.

(My position was that the girl never wanted to be on a team in the first place but she did want to have an opportunity to compete at the state level meets and the rules and systems in place did not allow her to do this so she was denied an opportunity.)

I am talking about rules, laws, and systems that are put in place to take opportunities away rather than expand them. We would be better off if everybody worked towards giving these young people more opportunity to succeed, excel, and create good memories that will last a lifetime. There are some great people out there that do this and I applaud them.

Actually us idiots do know what you are talking about and we don't agree with you as we have tried to explain to you for several pages. Most posts on this thread are speaking in general terms and not specifically about this girl. The story about Julie just gave this thread life and allowed us to share our opinions on fairness, responsibility, teamwork, etc. You act like coaches, state associations and administrators are purposely trying to take away opportunities from young kids. That couldn't be further from the truth. However, there are certain rules that groups, teams and associations need to put in place to create fairness for all those involved. It is perfectly logical for the STATE athletic associations to require you to be a part of team to compete at the STATE meet. It is perfectly logical for a coach of a team to expect an athlete to show up for practices like everyone else to compete in meets. I am not sure why this is so difficult for you to understand and why you think this is such a travesty or unfair. There are so many things I would love to be able to do, but I am unable to do so because I am not willing or am unable to meet the requirements necessary to do those things. In the case of running, there are so many opportunities to still be able to compete without running in high school meets. Several kids have chosen to do so.

The coach was more worried that she'd make her look unnecessary or even counterproductive by winning without attending practice. I had a hs student in Malawi named Boston Tambala. A very serious and extremely bright man (probably in his 20s, like many students, but not the oldest!), he left school to study in the bush, as they called it, returning occasionally to ask questions. The point was for him to do well on his national exams, and in fact, he did among the best in the school and was accepted to the university with an 18 (few get a 1 (the best) on a test and they score tests in six subjects). Out of the two percent of Malawian youth in secondary school, he scored in the top five percent. He knew what was best for him to pass the exam, but by your logic I shouldn't have answered any of his questions and the school shouldn't have allowed him to take the exam and escape extreme poverty.

I'm a HS coach and am far from the most strict. When you're injured, I don't expect you to come as long as you keep in touch with me about cross training. I don't expect you to stay to the end of the 4x4 if you're not running and your parents want to take you home. I don't kick you off the team if you miss a single Saturday practice because you have a life. My line is -- if you love running, there's a team for you, and I'm not going to be a bully as a coach.

That said, you are part of a team. Three out of six practices is anything but strict. I think 3 of 6 is unacceptable, even for a lax coach. If you can't make 3 of 6, you're not on a team. You're taking advantage of a team.

If the coach set the rules down and the athlete broke them -- then so much the worse for the athlete.

I for one admire greatly the courage it takes to sit out a star runner because you have principles and want to be fair. It takes courage to do that. If you actually read the article, and you don't see that, I just can't imagine you've ever coached or taught...