Does your high school team have any time cuts?

I was a Co-Head Coach in both Cross Country and Track for over 30 years. We routinely had over one hundred boys and girls on our cross country team along with over two hundred on our track squad out of a school of approximately two thousand kids. I agree with several coaches who have already posted about cutting only those athletes that have discipline or attitude problems. In cross country we utilized a point system based on attendance and effort which helped establish athletes in good standing, travel squads, uniforms, etc. The scale shifted depending on grade level. For example, seniors were expected to have a higher point total to be in good standing than a freshman. I also agree that the squirrelly freshman that walks and drives you a little crazy, often becomes your crucial varsity runner as a junior or senior. BTW two of those for our team were First Team All State as Seniors. Lastly, we had a young man come out that could barely run a quarter mile when he started. He became a great team member although he never competed in a varsity race. He went on to college where he continued being a runner for a Div III school. Eventually, he graduated from Med School and became one of the top oncologists in the United States. He often credits his cross country experience to the discipline he needed to succeed. BTW he treated one of America's legendary middle distance runners, one of my teammates from college.

You have them all run in the same direction at practice. Your top kids usually have running watches that you can track if you want to. The slower kids do not.

I have the largest team in terms of numbers in my state and it is me and a shared assistant coach and we don't have any problems.

The kids that don't want to try usually either quit or take up on the team culture and come around by the middle of the season. It's not that hard to coach the slow XC kids to be honest.

Ask NP what they would do with 100 boys on the XC team.

Thank you to all the coaches who replied saying they go above and beyond to keep a lot of kids interested and participating. I think that's one of the great things about XC and track is that you can engage kids at all different levels and they can all "succeed" relative to their own baseline.

Our cuts for XC were you had to attend like 60% of practices in the summer or run a time trial. The fine trial was like 25-30 minutes for girls depending on grade or like 21-25 minutes for boys depending on grade. So really if you go to practice all summer and you’re a 30 minute boy, you make the team. For track I don’t remember. But nobody went out for distance track that didn’t run cross country. A few soccer kids did but that was fine because at least they were active.

It's beautiful threads/comments like this that make this place worthwhile to continue to visit

perfect post.

Behavior and attendance absolutely should be factors in keeping or cutting

some kids won't get uniforms

some kids won't get to travel

some kids might not even reach a standard to run home meets

If they are willing to miss out on all of that and still show up everyday and do their work, they are probably exactly the kind of kid you want on the team.

HOpefully schools are providing enough coaches and supervision to work with programs that are lucky enough to have the problem of HUGE numbers.

Newkirk wrote:

Ask NP what they would do with 100 boys on the XC team.

Why should I? My team is just as large.

Because NP is the best team in the country but they keep only about 25 guys on the team. Learn from the best. Most of the posters are hobby joggers. The same logic would require the football team to keep everyone around who tries out so that they will stay interested in playing in the Saturday morning flag football game at the park when they are 40.

I coached large teams (120+) in California that qualified for the State meet. We didn't have cuts for performance but we did have a "racing requirement" - boys had to complete 3 miles in 27:00 and girls in 30:00 in practice before they could race in a Saturday invite. Everyone could race in our league meets. We had a system and a focused group to help newcomers get to the standard and we really celebrated the kids who got to put on the uniform and race for the first time. That said, I don't think we ever had someone who couldn't make the racing requirement after a few weeks make it onto a varsity team, so we could have made cuts and never would have missed a top 7 athlete.

XC is different from the ball sports and so the analogies break down, but having someone in a "race" that cannot even cover the whole distance without walking is like being a basketball player who can't reach the rim with their shots. We wanted to have the kids reach a basic level of fitness/competency before they put on our shirt, and we also wanted to emphasize that XC was a sport and not just a personal activity. I think the racing requirements helped us do that.

Newkirk wrote:

Because NP is the best team in the country but they keep only about 25 guys on the team. Learn from the best. Most of the posters are hobby joggers. The same logic would require the football team to keep everyone around who tries out so that they will stay interested in playing in the Saturday morning flag football game at the park when they are 40.

NP is the best team in the country because they have the best 5 runners of any team. They have a small team because the coach doesn’t want to deal with anyone who isn’t fastest enough to possibly contribute to the varsity either now or in the next year or two. If you’re not one of those runners, you get no attention and quit.

Great Oak took the other approach and had massive teams and hoped by building a great, competitive culture and getting a massive group of kids to work hard, some diamonds would come out the other side.

Great Oak’s approach has a better chance of long term success. NP will require some luck to get top talent to show up or find a way to get key pieces through transfers. Look at NP’s 9th and 10th graders. They only have one who looks capable of being as good as any of their current top 7 based on their times compared to the top 7’s 9th and 10th grade times. The only chance they have to be contenders after next year is through transfers. Tough way to be good for an extended period.

my team cuts kids that cant run faster than 420 in the mile. a 420 mile just isn't that fast.

coach brosnan wrote:

my team cuts kids that cant run faster than 420 in the mile. a 420 mile just isn't that fast.

Gonna have a mighty small team after next year!

RIP Great Oak. That team will never be the same again. As long as Brosnan is coaching at NP they will dominate.

I’d create two teams:

1. A competitive team with the top ~14 kids. I’d recognize this group with distinct uniforms and travel meet opportunities.

2. A running club made up of everyone else.

I wouldn’t cut anyone who took the sport seriously but recognizing the top group provides an incentive and reward for those who are talented and put in the work.

I ran at a small HS who generally didn't cut although our top two were sub-16 and our top 5 were frequently good enough to win state in our classification. FWIW the only time I ever saw "cuts" was one year when the basketball coach required all his players to go out for XC in the fall for conditioning. The numbers were a bit overwhelming and many didn't care at all about running so after a week or two a separate "basketball conditioning" program was started. A few of the faster basketball players were offered a chance to keep running. Other than that even the slowest could participate if they wanted to. A lot of them were fun, hard working and provided great positivity and camaraderie for the team.

This is a very fair response. I also don't have a problem with pulling kids off the course at 2 miles if they are not going to get in by a certain time.

30 minutes is a nice round numbers and keeps the day moving.

California#1 wrote:

RIP Great Oak. That team will never be the same again. As long as Brosnan is coaching at NP they will dominate.

You sure? Brosnan has coached 8 sub 4:20 1600 kids (fast kids). 5 of those ran faster than 4:25 in the 9th graders, none of which ran slower than 4:38 in 9th grader. It looks like he only has one of those (capable of sub 4:38, but not faster than 4:25) after the Youngs and Sahlmans graduate, so he’s going to have to dominate with only 1 fast kid (sub 4:20 1600). Better hit the recruiting trail hard.

ron burgundy wine wrote:

California#1 wrote:

RIP Great Oak. That team will never be the same again. As long as Brosnan is coaching at NP they will dominate.

You sure? Brosnan has coached 8 sub 4:20 1600 kids (fast kids). 5 of those ran faster than 4:25 in the 9th graders, none of which ran slower than 4:38 in 9th grader. It looks like he only has one of those (capable of sub 4:38, but not faster than 4:25) after the Youngs and Sahlmans graduate, so he’s going to have to dominate with only 1 fast kid (sub 4:20 1600). Better hit the recruiting trail hard.

Yes, Im sure. He is doing what no other coach in HS history has ever done. Hands down. NP didn't do squat before Brosnan and he knows how to get these kids on top. Some people are just leaders and others make excuses like yourself.