The Future of Footlocker XC

The way I see it is that the Nike meet has been gaining each year on the FL meet in terms of quality of athletes competing. FL is still ahead at this point. But if this trend continues and Nike ever catches FL in quality of competition then there will be a mass movement to Nike and the FL meet wil be dead withon a few years after that.

I think the real test will be this year, next year and the following year.

Nike started off as a team meet and only has had individual competition a few years. If that individual competiton ever catches FL in terms of quality then the game is over.

That is my 2 cents.

Ran FL in the 80's wrote:

The way I see it is that the Nike meet has been gaining each year on the FL meet in terms of quality of athletes competing. FL is still ahead at this point. But if this trend continues and Nike ever catches FL in quality of competition then there will be a mass movement to Nike and the FL meet wil be dead withon a few years after that.

I think the real test will be this year, next year and the following year.

Nike started off as a team meet and only has had individual competition a few years. If that individual competiton ever catches FL in terms of quality then the game is over.

That is my 2 cents.

boys race is much better than FL. girls FL still better than NXN.

I say screw corporate America and its efforts to profit off these teen athletes. Somebody with a sweet xc course with real hills and mud and all the rest should just invite the top 10 from nxn and fl for the weekend of 12/18 and let them run their own race. Low budget, pay your own way. It would be awesome.

Mac Bundy wrote:

Somebody with a sweet xc course with real hills and mud and all the rest should just invite the top 10 from nxn and fl for the weekend of 12/18 and let them run their own race. Low budget, pay your own way. It would be awesome.

But then what if 2 different people do this? How will we know which is the better one?

Game over for FL Boy's. Right now out of the Top 25 ESPN/RISE Boy's Ranking 17 will be at NXN. FL right now has 11 out of the Top 25 Boy's with Orman still having to qualify for FL after passing up NXN spot after SW win.

Well that means 68% to NXN and 44% to FL. Oh my that is 50% more Top 25 ranked boys to NXN. Not only did NXN have more ranked boys in Top 25 last year v FL they have "blown" by FL this year as well. Game over for FL on the Boy's end and the girls will follow soon enough. The draw for FL on the boy's side is done and over. One foot in the grave I would say plus entries down now 46% v 2004. What's going on?

Just got back from NXN Notheast, Rosa looked awesome, beat Cheserek, Elkhaim, those are the three best runners in the Northeast although not sure how the NY kids stack up, FL looked like a bunch of no names again on the boys side.

The NXN girls in the Northeast along with the NY girls looked awesome, Cuffe of course is tops in the region and there were a couple of ohter good girls there, but again the FL girls had a few no names as well, definately the shift to NXN is on.

Also, the fields were bigger than ever and stacked.

The hardest thing to face is the truth, and the truth is NXN wins big in the Northeast.

It helps that NY is a "region". When FL is gone, imagine whqt teh Nike races will be like?

Plus the FL speed ratings into the Nike races and make them two races- what qroup of runners.

Adults

What game are you talking about ? NXN and FL are trade faires not competitions.

FL = FINISHED at LAST.

Also, the fields were bigger than ever and stacked.

The hardest thing to face is the truth, and the truth is NXN wins big in the Northeast.[/quote]

Not sure which race you were watching but FL girls was far superior to NE NXN.

Top two in NXN would have been 7 and 8 in FL

Footlocker MW was very very fast and deeper, I think, than NXN-MW (as far as individuals are concerned). It helps that Midwest runners are able to do both. FLNE looked weak, but its on the same damn day! A shame, definitely.

[A response to Runn--trying to quote your post resulted in syntax errors]

NY girls who qualified for FL last year:

-Aisling Cuffe (I doubt she’s not making FM’s top 7. Also I think her Cornwall teammates would resent your implications she isn’t a team player)

-Colleen Schmidt (who had a kind of slow start to her XC season but still ran 18:22 at Feds, for reference FM’s top girl ran 18:44 on the same course at the NY Regional a week later. I’m thinking she’d probably be in FM’s top 7 too.)

-Lauren Mullins (who did have some inconsistency in her sophomore season and Feds wasn’t her best race she still was under 19 though. Something FM’s 4-7 couldn’t do at the NY Regional that year on the same course.)

I’m not knocking the FM girls. They have an amazing program and yes NY Regional was a bit of an off race for them but they still won with room to spare and went on to win nationals. They should be, and I am sure are very proud of their accomplishments, as should the 3 girls from NY who qualified for FL nationals last year. I think a high school coach who suggests that those girls only qualified because they took “the easy route” and never would have made NXN is perhaps a little myopic in perspective and a little bit classless in his initial statements and his refusal to back down from them.

Not sure about footlocker, but nike gives a ton of free stuff, and has a ton of their athletes their as well.

Depends on the Region wrote:

Footlocker MW was very very fast and deeper, I think, than NXN-MW (as far as individuals are concerned). It helps that Midwest runners are able to do both. FLNE looked weak, but its on the same damn day! A shame, definitely.

NXN-MW does not correspond to the same area as FLMW. FLMW covers NXN heartland and Colorado (NXN SW) as well. Of the boys qualifiers, only 3 were not already qualified for NXN.

I think NXN MW+ NXN HL + Colorado at NXN SW > FLMW.

swooshhhh wrote:

Just got back from NXN Notheast, Rosa looked awesome, beat Cheserek, Elkhaim, those are the three best runners in the Northeast although not sure how the NY kids stack up, FL looked like a bunch of no names again on the boys side.

Heh except the no names kicked the butts of the NX stars a year ago and will do it again.

Footlocker Nationals always has the best runners and will continue to do so because they are there for the runners.

Im in high school and it seems the state associations should have a real high school cross championships. Nike and Footlocker are advertising their cheap goods and could care less about us students.

swooshhhh wrote:

Just got back from NXN Notheast, Rosa looked awesome, beat Cheserek, Elkhaim, those are the three best runners in the Northeast although not sure how the NY kids stack up, FL looked like a bunch of no names again on the boys side.

The NXN girls in the Northeast along with the NY girls looked awesome, Cuffe of course is tops in the region and there were a couple of ohter good girls there, but again the FL girls had a few no names as well, definately the shift to NXN is on.

Also, the fields were bigger than ever and stacked.

The hardest thing to face is the truth, and the truth is NXN wins big in the Northeast.

These are the kinds of posts that are the absolute worst. Nike will have a great event with some great talent present and that should be enough, but the shills like you go so over the top with your bashing of FL that it completely destroys your credibility.

No argument that the very top guys from NJ are probably the very best in the entire Northeast, but those Foot Locker "no names" as a group (take a look at roughly the top 20-30) were superior to the combined NXN NY & NE runners overall.

As mentioned earlier, FL Nationals for girls will clearly have superior talent than NXN.

Nike will have a great race, but please stop with the other b.s. you posted.

FL = Fake Leader