Semi retired and wanting to start a middle school XC program

I was somewhat involved in a similar program, and we operated independently of the schools. It was just "club," with a name similar to the big nearby high school, so everyone sort of understood what it was about.

We charged for uniforms, ran 'open' at the big high school meets, and fed kids into high school.

I didn't follow much of the origin of it, I just helped now and then for a few years.

oldslow wrote:

I own my own medical practice and at 55 years of age have started to back off only working a couple of days a week as I have a number of mid level providers as employees. The business is running itself right now.

With a lot of free time on my hands now I was thinking of approaching the local middle school about starting an XC program. The county school district I’m in doesn’t offer middle school XC which I find perplexing. They have spring track. But I would think the local High school coaches would appreciate the development of middle school distance runners. I’m not sure how to go about it- go to the school? To the School Boatd?

Anybody have any similar experiences or experience.

Start a USATF or AAU club, that's the best approach. It's pretty easy to do and will be much less of a headache. You will need insurance and liability protection and AAU and USATF will provide that for you. NO need to reinvent the wheel.

You may want to contact your local Parks & Recreation organization. I work at a middle school, and even with no reason to be suspicious of someone approaching us to start a youth sports team, there is no way we would let someone not already employed by the school start a youth sports team here.

For the record, we have middle school XC, which is coached by a few of the teachers. It is not focused at all on development, only running for enjoyment. I don't know if the coaches at our local high school care much about it. The girls at my local HS won the Virginia state meet for their classification, but it was also a screwy year.

You'll require some training and certification. At least Safesport and a background check. I don't think you need a USATF level 1 cert to coach a club but I'm not 100% sure. Its helpful for credibility though and I think(?) needed to be on the registered coach list. Whether the insurance availability depends on a club having a certified/registered coach is something I'm not sure of.

Don't know anything about aau requirements.

I'm in the same boat and would love to follow your progress and share my own if/when I get anywhere.

Good for you. I use to be an administrator for a large school district. I agree the easiest way would be to start a club. I don’t think the school district would be keen to allow you to start the program—they like to control things and work with existing staff for such stuff. Get to know the AD so you have an in for track rental.

Find out what athletic conference the school is in. Research all of the other middle schools in the conference to see if any/all of them have XC teams. If none of them do, then you are probably best going the club route.

If other schools in the conference have teams, reach out to the coaches and ask them for advice and if they would be interested in competing against your school. You'll need to start with the middle school AD and principal and go from there. It will definitely need school board approval, so you can maybe reach out to them and see what their review/approval process is. Talk to the HS coaches (boys and girls) to introduce yourself and see if they have any advice. Basically you want to get as many people interested as possible and get them talking to each other. Inertia is going to be your enemy. Don't wait for them to set up meetings. If they say, "We will need to talk to X about this." Say great, I'll setup a meeting, etc.

You will need a background check. You will probably need to do the safe sport training, etc. You might want to go through the USATF level 1 certification to show your commitment and just have some credential to highlight for administrators.

If all of that turns into a dead end, the club route can be fun and has more flexibility but might be limited in meet opportunities without some travel. Maybe other middle schools will let you run in a meet with a club team. You will definitely need level 1 for a club, but I don't know off hand what the other requirements are.

Forgot ... There is typically a coaching stipend. If you don't need the money, you might offer to forgo the stipend. You also usually need someone on the faculty that is also at least an assistant coach on the team. Not sure the best way to identify a candidate for that. Maybe find the faculty list and see if any of them are on strava. 🤣

allegory or metaphor? wrote:

Good for you. I use to be an administrator for a large school district. I agree the easiest way would be to start a club. I don’t think the school district would be keen to allow you to start the program—they like to control things and work with existing staff for such stuff. Get to know the AD so you have an in for track rental.

Yeah - schools aren’t going to jump at the chance to hire a random guy; especially if they don’t currently have a program.

Maybe email the principal/athletic director, ask if they have any intentions of starting a team, and then mention you’d be willing to volunteer as an assistant coach.

0% chance they let you start/coach your own program.

5% chance they start a program and allow you to contribute as a volunteer assistant coach.

If you really want to get involved, ask what the procedure would be for volunteering for track. Gain some street cred, show them what you got, get in the ear of the track coach (to start a XC team), and maybe things open up in the future.

Side note - in my district, all coaching positions go to internal staff first and then get opened up to the public. It’s VERY rare to see a non-teacher in a coaching position.

Following up on my previous comments, I still think the club is the best way to go, although I can see the challenges re: travel and finding enough meets to compete at.

I wanted to add some more thoughts about convincing the school to start an "official" program. I think school districts are reluctant to do things that will cause additional work/expenditure of resources (outside the core mission stuff) unless there's strong parent/student support. Do you know if there is parent/student support? If it's just seen as some guy's pet project, then the idea won't be going anywhere.

One idea might be forming a booster and then offering to pay the coach's stipend or portion of his/her stipend, plus uniforms. That will help with the resources/cost issue and will help convince the district this is a viable, sustainable idea that won't cost them much in the long run. And in my experience it's pretty common for boosters to take on those responsibilities. You could then offer to serve as volunteer assistant coach. I wouldn't take this idea straight to the school board. Get to know the AD and build that relationship and have him/her help shepherd the idea to district administration and eventually the board. This is how initiatives get started in school districts---work from the ground up, build relationships with inside stakeholders, and then the board will just be a rubber stamp (most likely).

Of course, if there aren't any students willing to go out for the team, and there aren't any teachers willing to coach, (or you get an AD who doesn't like the idea) then it's a no go.

Definitely go with AAU or similar organization vs the school system. You can free of all the hassles associated with the school, the school system, school personnel, school hiring practices... none of that is conducive to the main goal, which is providing good structured training for middle school XC.

Some good replies so far. A few more thoughts ... if they are willing you could propose an "apprenticeship" with the HS coaches. Work with them for a year or two to get established in the district while working toward getting the MS program off the ground.

I've coached club and school teams for HS and MS, and there is a different vibe. Club teams are usually a little more serious and goal oriented (i.e., fast times, national meets, etc.). School teams have a built-in friend network that brings out more kids that might be less serious but still want to be social and have fun. In middle school, lots of runners do it because their friends are there. Plus kids are already at school, so getting to practice is a matter of going to the locker rooms.

Coaching middle school is great. Kids at that age are awesome.

I actually think XC is better for middle school kids than track when it comes to distance running. It is a lot more fun for the kids to be in a group where everyone gets to race together instead of dealing with limited space on the track.

If you are looking at public schools, you will need to first figure out whether there are already XC races for the district the school is in. If so, then you will need to get in touch with whoever is the lead PE coach and the principal at the school and go from there. My kids school is a magnet that is K-8. Some parents put together a XC team for the junior high kids. There was no money in the school budget for it. So, they had to fundraise to cover all the costs and volunteered their time to coach. The only trick was that they had to have a teacher go with them to races because there has to be a school employee with the kids at all off campus events.

If there is no XC in the district, set up a 501c3 and incorporate a nonprofit. Getting permission to use a local track or to run in a park is the next hurdle. And you will not be able to compete in school sponsored races. You will have to find open XC meets with middle school divisions, which is pretty rare.

I have been lucky as our town has MS XC and track and field. I am totally retired and I offered to help out at the local HS, but was told that there was an opening at one of our two MS. They offered a stipend (more than one time), but I just wanted to volunteer. If you coach at the MS level you have to undergo fingerprinting, CPR training, first aid, heat exhaustion training, etc. Some of these courses have to be repeated every two years. Last year they stopped track and field and XC, but started up track and field in March of this year. But I have enjoyed every day during the season. The goal for me is helping the kids to improve; that we did this year, for example one 6th grade boy went from 7:54 in the 1600m time trial to 6:15 (with a strong wind) in the conference meet.