The McGorty (FL South winner) conundrum, what would you do?

Sean's coach was with him at Foot Locker and as his coach said, everyone supported Sean running at Foot Locker.

Virginia team wrote:

Sean's coach was with him at Foot Locker and as his coach said, everyone supported Sean running at Foot Locker.

You're right. People never act like they're ok with things because they don't want to guilt or pressure someone into doing something.

This shouldn't even be a "conundrum." Choosing the team should be automatic. Even if his coach and teammates came to him and begged him to do Footlocker he should have said "Nah, guys. F*** that. I wanna go to Portland with my team"

Dr. Gilchrist

Lolo wrote:

Dr. Gilchrist

No and there was already a post that quoted Sean's coach.

sean is praised as a god in virginia. he should be on the next season of "the bachelor". that's what most meets are like for him anyways. the kid can hardly take a piss without people stopping him for autographs and pictures.

I am one of the runners on the Chantilly team that went to the Southeast regional race. I want to remain unnamed though. I understand that there are many eyes glaring at my teammate's decision to go to FL instead of Nike but I am here to say that we completely supported him. We would have loved for him to run with us at Nike, probably earnig us a berth to Portland on Saturday, but we knew that he needed to run FL to chase his goals. So I implore you my fellow runners to cease thi hatred towards him. Aside from that, we are disappointed in Nike's decision to not include us in their meet (as the votes went 4-5 in favor of an Oregon team showing favoritism towards them due to some "Oregon-ians" on the Nike deision board). We believe that Nike has made a mistake and will soon regret that they had left us out, but what happened, happened. And rest assured, the nation will not cease to hear about the Chantilly boys this year.

Virginia team wrote:

Sean's coach was with him at Foot Locker and as his coach said, everyone supported Sean running at Foot Locker.

Indeed, as was already said, Chantilly's focus was on Footlocker all along. NXN was just an afterthought, and I think it's great that they decided to try and go for it. No one should hold it against McGorty for choosing to run Footlocker over NXN... it may not be the call many of us would have made, but it was his decision and his family, coaches and teammates all seemed to be supportive of that. The team trying to qualify while shorthanded, with the hope that (if it came down to it) the at-large committee would look upon the team and consider where McGorty would have finished was a bold move, it just didn't quite pan out (though I'm sure they were in serious contention for the last spot). If NXN was their main goal, maybe McGorty wouldn't have ran FLN instead... we don't know. But FLN was the goal all along, with the rest of the team running at NXN a pleasant surprise. Given that, I'm sure the coach and team can accept the results: Their #1 and #2 runners qualified for nationals, but their team didn't quite make it. So be it, they met their primary goal and even managed to get a second kid to nationals as well. And they won their state championship as a team and ran very well in some big invites. Sounds like a job well done.

This thread does have some valid points regarding the whole Nike and Footlocker national meets. I agree that there should be some rule changes to the meet to be more flexible towards the other meet. But this is beside the point I am trying to reach. The selfish remarks you made toward my teammate are extremely flawed due to ignorance, so I shall further attempt to explain the situation.Sean has had many goals set since our team camps which were to place well in the footlocker finalist meet, win states as an individual, and as a team. Sean has always carried the team over himself when ever given the opportunity. This outdoor season Sean ran 4x8 with our team multiple times just to get us a state qualifier and to go on. He gave up opportunities to pr just for his teammates to join him in the state meet. He paced runners in track just so they would get to break 5 in the mile.He is the lead motivator for our team and knows everyone's running capabilities on a personal basis and give advice to help set goals. Every weekend he even helps with CYA track to help future runners of the team! In no way shape or form do I think it was selfish for Sean to go to Footlocker instead of Nike. The Nike and Footlocker meets were the same day (which is not true for any other region) and I felt like we owed it to him after all of the things he had done for us we should let him chase his own goals. As a team after he made his decision we decided we should go to Nike and try to qualify as a team. I felt like we ran a hell of a race for being a man down and I think it was a sad but great way to end the season.

There are no Oregonians included in the at-large committee.

That said, it will be interesting to see how Summit does on Saturday.

It's great that Sean has been a good teamate and that you guys support him as well. But, no matter how much you Chantilly boys rationalize it...you would have gone to Nationals!!! A free trip to Nationals man!!!! Winning a couple invitationals or even a state championship can't compare.

Doing some snooping. Chantilly has their team handbook posted online. In their mission statement they explicitly state "Team goals will always supercede individual aspirations" later on it states that "no one is above the team." I find this situation an odd application of those ideals.

http://chargercctrack.com/Forms/2012CrossCountry/2012CrossCountryBible.pdf

I would not be surprised if the Chantilly coach and runners decided on this scenario. I'm sure they thought they had a really good shot at making it to NXN without Mcgorty and wanted to give Mcgorty an opportunity to run Footlocker Nationals again. It seems like their #2 runner, Logan Miller, may have also had an opportunity to make Footlocker if he had run. They may still get an at-large. Although it's certainly possible, I highly doubt a team of this caliber has "team" issues. I'm sure they are very respectful of their coach because he is very respectful of his runners.

ACH?

If one guy on Chantilly's team beat finished one place higher this is different story, we would be talking about how great it was that he and his team got to where they wanted to go. I think they did what was best for everybody and they tried to step up and do it on their own and prove how good they are. I would have done the same as what Chantilly did.

If one of Chantilly's guy's placed one place higher, then the discussion would be about whether Sophie Chase made the right choice by choosing Footlocker instead of NXN.

VA Runner wrote:

If one of Chantilly's guy's placed one place higher, then the discussion would be about whether Sophie Chase made the right choice by choosing Footlocker instead of NXN.

True, but it wouldn't have gotten as much attention because instead of finishing third because they lost a tie breaker, they finished fourth and a decent ways back (from the top two).

Yet Another Chantilly Runner wrote:

The Nike and Footlocker meets were the same day (which is not true for any other region) and I felt like we owed it to him after all of the things he had done for us we should let him chase his own goals

The meets overlap for other regions as well, which is why the NY/NJ/CA (and lots of other states') kids on elite teams do NXN, even if they would have had a shot at winning FL.

I get the whole "his goal all season was FL" thing, but I'd think more highly of the kid if once he realized his team had a shot at qualifying for NXN, that became a more important goal/accomplishment for him.

I think that would be the the decision reached by most people.

The more elite individuals choose NXN, the faster we can get to a point of a true national championship meet.

If Chase would have competed at NXN, then Lake Braddock would have won NXN SE and would be on their way to NXN Nationals now. McGorty and Chase had same decision to make.

I'll bet money going into the season the main goal was to peak for Foot Locker. His team knew he'd be a shoe in for top 3 and thats what they trained for. The team happened to get good but the plans never changed. I ran in HS with 2 Foot Locker qualifiers and the opportunities afforded these runners are tremendous.

Furthermore NXN has not been around long enough to be the caliber of Foot Locker and that is why the top 40 at FLN will always be better than the top 40 at NXN.

Nike screwed this up when they made both regionals coincide with each other. I think they were setting themselves up to either completely take over Foot Locker or squash it completely. Because for those who have been following the sport for a while, you'll realize that Nike sponsored Foot Locker when it started the team nationals 2004!