Doug Soles calls out NY/FM

I've noticed the same thing about down seasons for girls. It is almost always during sophomore or junior year.

How many opportunities do you get to actually compete for a championship? You can't say to a kid who has been on a team all season and which manages to get an invitation to the regional event or -- even less likely -- qualifies for the national event that he or she will have the same opportunity later in his/her career. Hence, I think it is unfair to that specific child on that particular team.

However, I just don't think Nike should de facto tell State Athletic Associations how to do their business. You ask about limiting high school races to a certain age group -- but really the question is why should Nike be the authority that defines how all states should constitute and regulate high school cross country teams? One aspect of NXN that I find valuable is that you actually get to compare teams from different regions and different states. -- and perhaps states that don't do as well could learn something from those states whose teams rise consistently to the top.

Oh? wrote:

might be rojo wrote:

Maybe Cali coaches should get off their asses and start motivating their middle school XC coaches to do a better job. Until they start coaching better they'll continue to be stomped by FM.

Not all middle schools have XC programs, and not all XC programs have competent coaches (this is not just about California, but the nation as a whole). Similarly, not every area has a youth running club.

Plenty of areas around the nation, kids are introduced to XC for the first time their freshman year, and many of those areas track is only a sport for 10 weeks a year. That is a massive difference in how well they have been trained, and how far they can advance their training by the time they are seniors.

Same thing happens in NY state. Some school have middle school programs some don't. If Cali coaches have a problem with NY runners have 2 years head start, they can take it up with their school board or athletic association.

Soles' problem was not so much middle schoolers running at NXN (FM would have stomped even without any 8th graders), but that they get 2 more years of training. FM likely only brings up 8th graders if they are good enough to compete (and would likely outclass their normal competition). If they didn't, those girls would probably just dominate middle school races, while still getting the same 2 years of training, and still be ready to beat up other schools as 9th graders. They only disadvantage is not being able to train with runners of their caliber, or race against strong competition.

He would be better served working on athletic development of 7th/8th graders either through support of the middle school coaches, running camps, etc. instead of hoping NY somehow decides to prevent middle schoolers from training.

Coach Soles wrote:

We have advantages as a school much the same as a lot of schools do. We do not have rules at NXN that favor our program over others like some states do. I personally would like to see that switched and in speaking with a lot of coaches at NXN, so would many of them.

Here's how to level the playing field. All schools must have less than 2000 students to have an eligible team. Any school with more than 2000 students is not eligible. The 2000 students can include participants from middle school.

Coach Soles wrote:

The crying picture offended me, but not as a person or coach. It offended me as a graphic design teacher. That is some poor Photoshop.

At least his head was on straight.

Enrollment at FM is not 1500 if you include middle school. Most likely in the 2200 range. As for school size in general, I believe there is a critical point in enrollment. I think as school get smaller (under 1000) the difficulty grows. Most other sports teams have the same size no matter how big the school. Let's say soccer has 30 girls, field hockey 30, basketball 30, lax 30, softball 30, etc. Mrching band may have 60 or so. Those numbers will be very similar in schools of all sizes due to cuts. So let's say all non XC sports and band in a school have 200-300 girls. In a school of 1000, 500 or so girls, that leaves 200-300 to XC. At FM, with 2200 (1100 HS and MS girls), you will have 800 or so girls for XC. At GO, 1500 or so. I know my numbers are 'made up', but I think they prove a point. FM has a lot of girls. GO has more, but I don't think the number at FM hurts them as much as you think. A school of 1000 or less is hurt a lot more.

But as the previous post states, Nike will not and cannot control state organizations. Will not happen. Some states have 7th and 8th graders. Their team is their team and they should be allowed to run.

And please stop comparing boys XC to girls XC. They are completely different sports. Girls sports are not quite as competitive top to bottom. Girls sports are becoming more competitive but still have a ways to go. Look at the dominance in many girls sports at the NCAA and HS level.

FM has mostly 11th and 12th graders each year, an average of 6 10th through 12th graders a year, and only 1 8th or 9th grader each year, with 3/4 of those being 9th graders.grade & # per year8th : 3/11 = .279th : 9/11 = .8210th: 19/11 = 1.711th: 23/11 = 2.112th: 23/11 = 2.1

Geroge wrote:

Here is a breakdown since 2006:

2006: 1 (8th grade), 2 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), and 3 (12th grade)

2007: 1 (9th grade), 3 (10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2008: 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2009: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2010: 2 (10th grade), 4 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2011: 1 ( 8th grade), 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2012: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2013: 3 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

2014: 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2015: 1 (8th grade), 3 (10th grade), 3 (12th grade)

2016: 2 (9th grade), 4 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

I wonder what the averages are for Big Oak.

In any case, this sounds like a major case of sour grapes and poor loser for Coach Soles.

rojo wrote:

That chart is a bit scary. Thank goodness, I didn't coach HS women. It would be so hard to get many of them to accept they are at their peak in 8th -10th grade.

You obviously didn't look at the chart.

Doug's constant litany is growng old....it's about time he got off it and give credit where credit is due...Aris can get kids to buy in where others cannot...THAT is why FM dominates.... I have never heard ( maybe I missed it ) Bill Aris lament the fact that Soles has 4000 kids at GO.... FM rarely has more than 20-25 girls on his squad.....not 125-150 like GO...stop the whining!

totorious wrote:

It's only scary if you can't understand how to count, as clearly there were much more runners in 10th-12th than 8th-10th. All George was doing was saying how many girls were from each grade on their national team each year. Over the 11 years he detailed, the results were:

8th grade - 3

9th grade - 9

10th grade - 19

11th grade - 23

12th grade - 23

If you thought that they were listed in the order they finished then you are even dumber than I thought - it was very clearly listed in ascending grade order each year.

Aha, you beat me to it. Thanks. :)

Only 3 of 77 runners would have been different for FM, not a big deal.

I vote to keep the rules as they are, unless there's an adjustment for school size.

Texas HS Coach wrote:I've noticed the same thing about down seasons for girls. It is almost always during sophomore or junior year.

That falls in line with what I've seen too. I always hope the down period happens in track - I've found that much easier to manage than during XC.

andicamp wrote:

People are kind of glossing over the fact that NXN is not sanctioned by state high school athletic associations. This is technically a club championship.

Sure, the typical practice is for high school teams to become club teams just for the NXN races, but I don't see anywhere in the rules where it says Great Oak couldn't bring middle school girls to the NXN races if they wanted to. Grace Ping ended up being allowed to run even though she currently lives in a state where she's not allowed to get bumped up to varsity as an 8th grader.

This was its own travesty. The 7th-8th grade rule is not fair to teams and its not fair to individuals. Had someone like London Culbreath been able to get the experience last year like Grace has stolen this year, she may very well have finished much higher up as a freshman this year.

Next there will (2003) freshman girls that will be hindered in comparison to Grace, not because they have inferior talent but they were not given the same opportunity to get experience like Grace did. There will be no compensating for this in the future.

I have no problem if NXN wants to come in and say, we will not allow girls (or boys, have to be fair) to compete at our championship meet. On that note they have no right to tell a state athletic association they cannot allow middle schoolers to train or race with high schoolers.

This G.O. coach definitely makes excuses, the course conditions, FM with middle schoolers. Hopefully the morals his kids pick up are more mature than his.

The fact is that GO is putting out National Record 4xMiles and other all-time great marks. Just plain to silly to blame middle schoolers. GO focuses on Track. FM focuses on XC.

Doug--Why don't you promote the sport and work with a club to start developing 7th and 8th graders? If you love the sport you would want more involvement-- not less involvement just so your team can potentially win an NXN title. What is the ultimate goal here? Isn't NXN an opportunity to grow the sport and make America a great distance running country?

[quote]Sour Grapes 123 wrote:

Grace has stolen this year,/quote]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

You have just won the "lowlife poster of the week"

Sour Grapes 123 wrote:

Next there will (2003) freshman girls that will be hindered in comparison to Grace, not because they have inferior talent but they were not given the same opportunity to get experience like Grace did. There will be no compensating for this in the future.

You need to relax your forehead and calm down.

Dyestat Rumor wrote:

I have no problem if NXN wants to come in and say, we will not allow girls (or boys, have to be fair) to compete at our championship meet. On that note they have no right to tell a state athletic association they cannot allow middle schoolers to train or race with high schoolers.

This G.O. coach definitely makes excuses, the course conditions, FM with middle schoolers. Hopefully the morals his kids pick up are more mature than his.

I listened to it. Yeah there are excuses but they were true and well put. The course did favor the strength runners on that day. It did change the nature of the race and results on the boys side. If you watched them run through the pits created by the girls race you would understand that was true. In my opinion it would not have made for a situation that would have assured them a win but maybe a scrappy team like Bozeman does not win on an easy course. Like he said that's the nature of XC and good for Bozeman.

He gave full credit to F-M but brought up the point that a lot of us are making.

So take a freshman that typically walks on a team sometimes with or even without having run with their team over the summer and compare that to a team that the same freshman runner has been built up over a two year period before entering her Freshman year.

It does in no way take away what an amazing program F-M is and how great their coaching staff has been but I don't know how anyone can not see the extreme inequity here?