Is every med./large public HS a potential powerhouse?

Yes and no. Every school with more than 1,500 has the potential to be a NXN-caliber team, but I don't think every school has the potential to have multiple guys running in the 14's for 5k, like Newbury Park. And even with a great coach, sometimes (often) the talent just doesn't stack up in the right years. Look at American Fork, they clearly have developed many great runners, and I'm sure have great athlete buy-in, but still haven't made NXN in a few years (they probably would've this year). Quite frankly, even if you look at Newbury Park, they won't be able to keep up their level of success forever. In a few years I'm sure they still be a national caliber team, but I wouldn't expect them to win NXN after their class of 23 graduates.

But really, to answer your most basic question, most public schools probably could become very solid regionally or nationally with great coaches, great athletes, and lots of luck

Right, I suspect so as well. I suppose my core question - or the curiosity that underpins my initial post - is: If you had some way to identify the 5-7 best runners at a hs of that size and actualize their potential, is it safe to assume that it looks roughly like Newbury Park. Are there at least that many aerobic monsters and genetic lotto winners just lurking in the population at roughly that ratio?

I think the current Newbury Park team is a bad example. They clearly have good coaching and good culture, but they have off the charts talent right now also. Plus, I suspect that there is some sort of pretty good youth development program in the area as well. I believe that this year, they had a crew of freshmen come in where a number of them had already run in the low 4:50's for the 1600 before they had stepped foot on the high school campus.

If you look at some of the perennial power houses, they get transfers. Great Oak more or less gets all the good kids from the city of Temecula. Louden Valley.....transfers. A lesser known high school nationally, but one that is always in the mix in California Division 1 is Davis high. It is the only high school in town with sports, so every athlete goes there. The student population is 2800 or so, but they have every athlete in the city of Davis.

That being said, It's my supposition that every large high school has at least 5 kids with the genetic ability to run under 10:00, whether they've started running prior to high school or not. Get 5 guys running under 10:00 and you've got a pretty good team. In strong talent years, that number might be 8-10 guys under 10 with 5 of them at 9:30 or better, and there is your potential state champion team.

However, there are a ton of factors that prevent all of those guys from reaching their potential.

1. They will play other sports

2. They will not have the grades to be eligible

3. They will be unwilling to even try running.

4. They might have to work

5. Their parents might not permit them to run

6. They might have the physical potential but the mental side of the equation is not there.

7. The school might be in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area, with a whole host of factors that prevent kids from running or running fast

8. The school might have a bad coach, in which case, only the most talented of the kids will run sub 10. Or, the school might have a coach that has training knowledge but not the knowledge of how to create the culture for every kid to buy in, or the coach might know how to create culture but not really have the best training plan.

I've been coaching for a long time and have experienced all of the situations listed above.

My teams fall into the "usually very good locally" category, including a few CIF section titles, but I've NEVER been able to get all of the good runners on campus onto my team, for a combination of the reasons listed above. We're a small (750 student), low SES status school and the most common barriers for us are #s 1, 4,5, 6. (although some might argue #8 is the problem :)

This is a pretty good post, and based on the info you gave about yourself, I think I know who you are. You run a solid program. The truth, based on my experience is that a good coach can produce teams that are consistently better than teams with their same circumstances. For instance, in 2016, our girls won our league and our section. When we got to the state meet, we were the smallest school in the race. We had a population of 680, while every school in the top 10 had at least 1100 kids and the winner had over 1400 (this is CA D4, the second smallest school division). I know some very good coaches locally, who due to the nature of their schools, will likely never produce an NXN team, but consistently outperform schools like them

You're DHS example makes no sense. Their enrollment is about 1800 for three years which is nothing unusual. It's a college town which gives it good demographics for distance running. It's always been the only HS in Davis, but it wasn't until the 90s that there was a massive increase in turn out. I'm not sure why that happened. Jesuit has often been better and not every kid in Sacramento goes there.

"There are champions everywhere. Every street's got them. All we need to do is train them properly."

Arthur Lydiard

CoachMostert wrote:

"There are champions everywhere. Every street's got them. All we need to do is train them properly."

Arthur Lydiard

Speaking of American Fork lol. He's right though.

ebin40ozdj wrote:

In light of the monster performances by the Newbury Park team over the weekend, I would like to hear others' thoughts on the following question:

<b> Does every medium to large public hs (1,500-3,000 kids) have somewhere within it the raw talent to field a top 5 that can run in the mid 14:00s for 5k? Could any such school become a perennial powerhouse, given the right coach, system, culture, and buy-in by the athletes</b>

Nope. Take a bunch of inner city schools. They might

a) have a lot more kids that look like 100m guys than 5000m guys

b) have a pretty crappy training environment.

Things like weather, state rules, and so on also play a role. I think we could come up with some really solid training plan which would result in tons of kids running fast. But getting those kids, getting them to execute, and so on is hard. If you have had a lot of success, you can get a culture where you can do this stuff. And it also helps a lot to be in a big school where kids can't make their soccer, baseball and the rest of the teams.

No. Most good programs are in wealthier communities. Wealthier people have better genes for distance running. Anyone who believes in evolution can see that. Bigger brain normally means smaller frame and ability to run far. Smaller brain equates to larger frame and more power. There is a correlation in college sports of GPA to the type of sport. Football is low whole XC is high.

ebin40ozdj wrote:

In light of the monster performances by the Newbury Park team over the weekend, I would like to hear others' thoughts on the following question:

<b> Does every medium to large public hs (1,500-3,000 kids) have somewhere within it the raw talent to field a top 5 that can run in the mid 14:00s for 5k? Could any such school become a perennial powerhouse, given the right coach, system, culture, and buy-in by the athletes</b>

Where are you from dude? Are you familiar with childhood obesity? Have you seen the average girth of the American teenager?

Great points.

I have got a pair of questions for you, Suppositioner,

1)What does it mean to be a "low SES status school?".

2) You cited #4 on your list as one of the primary obstacles towards realizing the maximum potential of your school's most talented runners. Do you mean that employment gets in the way of some kids being able to carve out the time needed to commit to running, or do you mean they are just lazy and don't want to exert themselves in the way distance running demands?

ebin40ozdj wrote:

Great points.

I have got a pair of questions for you, Suppositioner,

1)What does it mean to be a "low SES status school?".

2) You cited #4 on your list as one of the primary obstacles towards realizing the maximum potential of your school's most talented runners. Do you mean that employment gets in the way of some kids being able to carve out the time needed to commit to running, or do you mean they are just lazy and don't want to exert themselves in the way distance running demands?

Low SES = Low Socioeconomic Status. Kids have to work, can't afford to replace shoes which leads to injury, parents are laid off or even worse long term unemployed, disability check types, diets are poorer work ethic usually not as good because they grow up with parents that have the same poor work ethic. This of course is an overgeneralization.

I've had a number of kids who have to work, or at least prioritize work over athletics. This does not mean that they are lazy, it just means that they get jobs and that cuts into the energy they can spend realizing their running potential.

The DHS example is a perfect one. It is NOT the only high school in Davis. Their enrollment may be 1800, but they have a CBEDS of 2800 due to the fact that they are the only school in Davis with sports. I was not aware of this until a couple of years ago at the state track meet. We were sitting next to a couple of girls from DHS and they told us that every athlete in the city of Davis goes to DHS. So, I looked up and...that is correct.

You are correct about the demographics of Davis. Upper middle class, educated, good training location out on the edge of town. I'm not sure why they got so much better in the 90s. I didn't arrive on the scene in the SJS until later. When did Bill Gregg start coaching? If their rise coincided with Gregg's arrival, then that's almost a perfect example of the OP's original question: "Do schools with between 1500-3000 kids have enough talent walking around the hallways to be really good?" The answer is "YES" (if you can get them out and keep them out)

CoachMostert wrote:

"There are champions everywhere. Every street's got them. All we need to do is train them properly."

Arthur Lydiard

We also have to get them interested in joining our teams. Every phys ed teacher (at least the ones I know from decent size city schools) will tell you that there are better kids in our classes than our teams.

It's not only the big fast twitch kids who join other sports teams who would be great sprinters, jumpers and throwers but the 5'10" 130 pound athlete who would be better off running middle distance. These kids who aren't really ball players but can play all day without getting tired. They'll run 130 laps on our pacer tests but will not run track when they're cut from the other teams.

Talent + opportunity + motivation + great coaching.

I did not mean to suggest that working a job instead of running in anyway relates to laziness. I just was not sure if you were using "work" to refer to actual employment, or in the more general sense of "make an effort". Thanks for clarifying.

You have that backward. Poor kids don't work but wealthy kids work, and play an instrument, and play sports, and volunteer, and take AP classes, and participate in study groups. They have much less time to train than poor kids.

Faster than FastTuohy wrote:

You have that backward. Poor kids don't work but wealthy kids work, and play an instrument, and play sports, and volunteer, and take AP classes, and participate in study groups. They have much less time to train than poor kids.

This is often correct, however I've had a number of poor kids have to quit / miss meets / miss training due to needing to work. The wealthy kids often seem to find a way to do both.

I think every school could field a good team IF you built an athletic culture that prized running over all other sports. Face it: running isn’t the sexiest sport. Most of the highest-potential runners at any given school are on the soccer, baseball, basketball, football, tennis, etc. teams.

You also need a track, which in my experience a high school is less likely to have than other sports fields/gyms.