Is this going to start being a trend for the top kids? With private coaching becoming more popular and traveling across the US for meets, I could see many top kids just skipping high school track and cross country. I heard an interview with one of the Newbury Park runners they are going to Music City instead of running their State meet.
Isn’t the California state meet canceled?
consider this wrote:
Isn’t the California state meet canceled?
Yes so someone didn’t hear right
And how many races during the regular season will unattached athletes be able to compete in?
consider this wrote:
Isn’t the California state meet canceled?
The State Meet is cancelled, but in CA they have SS Finals, which is basically the State Meet for the Southern half of the state. I think Music City is the same weekend as SS Prelims.
i find it confusing that this hasnt already become the norm. look at how chaotic the basic high school cross country season is. there are way better ways to organize a season. it is very common for fast swimmers to avoid high school swimming and just train and compete with their clubs.
Finally wrote:
consider this wrote:
Isn’t the California state meet canceled?
The State Meet is cancelled, but in CA they have SS Finals, which is basically the State Meet for the Southern half of the state. I think Music City is the same weekend as SS Prelims.
Appologies to the 300 schools in San Diego and LA sections?
zaaa wrote:
i find it confusing that this hasnt already become the norm. look at how chaotic the basic high school cross country season is. there are way better ways to organize a season. it is very common for fast swimmers to avoid high school swimming and just train and compete with their clubs.
The majority of high school coaches are a joke. You only hear about the good ones that make it to the state meets and get all the headlines, but the vast majority of high school coaches have no training and are only there because someone made them be there. Literally thousands upon thousands of "coaches" are out there with kids that have potential that is wasted. Unless you are lucky enough to be able to afford a private school or lucky enough to live where there is a school with a good program, you are stuck with the history teacher as the coach because he has the least seniority. Not all club coaches are the best either but at least you have a choice of who you get.
Well, there are some bad HS coaches, I agree with that. There are also some really good HS coaches and some that are pretty good, just not that committed.
There are also some pretty bad college coaches, some of them cover it up with good recruiting, others not so much.
The problem I see with the college coaches is that many of them get their start working as a volunteer for the coach they ran for, that coach gets them a paid gig somewhere where they work 70 hrs, a week recruiting and then they get an assistant job actually coaching and they just aren't that good at it, can think of a few guys out there that fit that model, recruiting machines and no ability to coach.
Everybody should start out at the HS level, learn to evaluate talent and develop it, then take it to the next level.
zaaa wrote:
i find it confusing that this hasnt already become the norm. look at how chaotic the basic high school cross country season is. there are way better ways to organize a season. it is very common for fast swimmers to avoid high school swimming and just train and compete with their clubs.
Does anyone on here have any background/experience with youth swimming? (I do not.)
My sense is that the kids start way, way earlier than running (maybe even Pre-K) and the eventual national caliber athletes have moved from local swim club to better and better regional clubs by Middle School.
I think it is a lot harder to identify top running talent at an early age.
PE teacher coach, You're only ever going to hear about the ones who make it to the state meet. And if/when the bar is set higher we're still only going to have few make it to the state meet.
Let the top go through clubs, HS sports is for the masses anyway. We coach our 3 minute 800 meter HS girls just as passionately as we coach our 2:15 800 meter girls.
coach wrote:
PE teacher coach, You're only ever going to hear about the ones who make it to the state meet. And if/when the bar is set higher we're still only going to have few make it to the state meet.
Let the top go through clubs, HS sports is for the masses anyway. We coach our 3 minute 800 meter HS girls just as passionately as we coach our 2:15 800 meter girls.
Thank you Coach. This is Truth. After 30+ years, 16 titles and 5 runnerups i can say there are a lot of coaches that have never won but are great role models and are passionate about their sport. Sure there are some communities that struggle in whatever, get a good coa h and raise the program, they leave and it goes back down again. Ebb and flow of the tides. If everyone was great, there would still be a bottom. Getting kids to participate is most important, not churning out championships. That comes with organization, some talent, a lot of hard work and shared passion, tradition, ownership by the kids given and earned by the adults etc... Sustainable programs have figured this out.
Take a look at the iowa state track meet this weekend being live streamed on the iowa high school athletic association website. A free state that has a full stadium, no masks and a vaccination station for all that want it.
Look at the level of participation!!!! Having 7 or 8 relays on the schedule has only increased participation. Having a co-ed championship at Drake Stadium has RAISED THE BAR for all classes and genders. 30k+ in attendance over 3 days is a nice push for the kids too. Mike Jay does a great job announcing as well.
in the club wrote:
Is this going to start being a trend for the top kids? With private coaching becoming more popular and traveling across the US for meets, I could see many top kids just skipping high school track and cross country.
No, this is not going to become a trend.
The top kids want to face the top competition, and the top competition is far more likely to come out of the millions of kids who pick up running at school in 7th-10th grade than among the few who do club sports from an early age.
Besides, running as an individual will never be as motivating for most students as running with their team. HS kids like to do things with friends.
We've had club sports and private coaches running parallel to HS sports for decades, and there doesn't seem to be any reason the balance would change anytime soon. And right now, the vast majority of top HS talent run for their school teams.
What if your a kid like me realized that anything other than academics in highschool is nothing but a distraction to your success? And people don't really care unless you provide something beneficial to them in there own unbeneficial blinded life.
In hs, if coaches want to be taken seriously and be liked by there athletes they will inhere to the systemic behavior the kids fall prey to from generational trends and culture surrounding them, as most masses follow this societal pressure blindlessly the teacher/coach will choose to coordinate a structure based on all fits the box category.
So if your viewed as an outcast like me and don't fit in the box, endure the passive and physical rejection or escape, i choose to escape.
Longtime Missouri coach Rick McGuire said don't win track with kids, win kids with track.
My own kids went I to club swimming. Those coaches don't understand progression and child development. All they care about is who's going to be their next protégé and make them look good. My daughters coach swam in Barcelona 92. He tried to place her down 2 training groups because she wouldn't commit to 9 sessions per week. I had to let him know I was paying for his groceries and he worked for me.
He said fine, she can swim the events he chooses for her at the state club championships. If she meets HIS standards on 3 days a week training, she will get moved back up and I could dictate training frequency. DEAL!!!
After smashing his times in her first 3 events, some of which she wasn't training for, he started subbing her in on relays to score more points for the team. Her shoulders weren't killing her from overtraining like the other kids who were beating her earlier in the season. Lesson learned for everyone. Oh, she ended up being a state meet record holder and gold medalist with 3 teammates qualifying for the Olympic Trials. One hoping to make the semifinals but ended up finishing 4th 2 spots from maki g the US team. All of them joined their hs teams mid season and helped the school and their friends/classmates dominate and bring home championship trophies. Soccer does the same thing. There's a place for club sports and school sports and both can be accomplished with some common sense. But....it isn't all that common.
Social reject here wrote:
What if your a kid like me realized that anything other than academics in highschool is nothing but a distraction to your success? And people don't really care unless you provide something beneficial to them in there own unbeneficial blinded life.
In hs, if coaches want to be taken seriously and be liked by there athletes they will inhere to the systemic behavior the kids fall prey to from generational trends and culture surrounding them, as most masses follow this societal pressure blindlessly the teacher/coach will choose to coordinate a structure based on all fits the box category.
So if your viewed as an outcast like me and don't fit in the box, endure the passive and physical rejection or escape, i choose to escape.
Premise is stupid. You can do sports and academics and succeed in both. Many do.
PE Teacher Coach wrote:
common for fast swimmers to avoid high school swimming and just train and compete with their clubs.
Unless you are lucky enough to be able to afford a private school or lucky enough to live where there is a school with a good program, you are stuck with the history teacher as the coach because he has the least seniority. [/quote]
Club sports benefit rich kids.
One of the great things about track/xc in the US is that you don't have to come from wealth to get exposure in the sport.
Swimming, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse...if you can afford expensive year round clubs you have a big advantage. In track, High school is the recruited platform which level the playing field somewhat.
Maybe you can't afford the private school coach, but at least you get to compete at the same level. If track adopted the club model those kids who can't pay tuition or live in the wealthy district, are also likely not paying to do a club travel sport.
You know, I ask myself the same thing the OP brings up constantly. When and where I grew up, teenage distance runners didn't care much about school-sponsored sports. We ran road races. A couple of my training group ran XC but none did track that I'm aware of. Back then, those were 2 different sports with seasons that kid overlap and different coaches. So, I am not sure how long track lasted since I never joined, but XC was less than 2 months. So you're on your own for 10 months a year even if you were loyal to the school and team, which I wasn't.
The points that get brought up these days, like
"How many events allow unattached runners?"
And,
"They want the best competition."
seemed moot then. If you want the best competition, there were runners in their 20s and 30s in road races. We were in big running area in the so-called running boom, so random guys who T&FN had never heard of were going under 30 any given weekend in a local 10k. Then there were the times when folks people HAD heard of would show up... Yeah, pro runners made appearances here and there, but there was someone random around who could go under 2:20 in a marathon, so at 15 or 16, I wasn't winning!
Teenagers aren't looking for the best competition, they're looking for watered-down fields. In all those races where I won my division, I would have won overall if it had been restricted to high school students. Do the superstars of the HS crowd want to get last place? No, they don't want to race the best. Quite the opposite!
And every road race besides Boston allows whoever paid to run. There was no lack of races that we could do. We didn't do anywhere near all the events in town. Of course they allow non-school-affiliated runners. They don't recognize your school as any authority. Getting your principle's authorization to run wasn't, and still isn't, required. Good thing, because I didn't have it!
Problem is, parents have to be on board to allow this. That was no sweat 40 years ago. They actually drove us to marathons. These days, I'd bet you'd get heat at home if they knew you ran, knew the school had an official team, and knew you weren't on it. If you get the green light to run without the insurance and chaperones provided by the school district, by all means go for it. No more coaching complaints (as seen daily on this Board). No meaningless dual meets, no mid-D and sprints if you talents lie in something longer. It's great. Do it. Just not convinced anyone will......
I suppose that the ones with wealthy parents and/or foolish parents might skip school teams to run club. C'est la vie.
Where it makes sense - a good youth club team and subpar hs teams exist That isn't many places in the US.