Every job has job duties. You don't define your own job. You apply for a Job and then are responsible for performing those duties. You have failed and should be removed if you don't perform those duties. Maybe your duties are to get more kids out while mine are to win conference and state titles.
That was a concise viewpoint. Everything depends on what the job expectations are at the school where you are hired. If the athletic director and school administration want a coach to build a state championship caliber program then a NP type of program is the path to success. But if the AD and school administration want a program available to serve their student body as an extracurricular program then the NP program is not the path to success. With that said, understand the ADs and school administration personnel change. In my coaching career I had 7 different ADs and 13 different principals. Several high school programs that I know of were radically changed when a new principal's extracurricular goals came into play. Goals and policies such as: no walk-on coaches, restrictions upon team travel, banning summer running camps, policies of not running off campus, lack of access to track facility during football or soccer season, etc.
Newkirk wrote:
Every job has job duties. You don't define your own job. You apply for a Job and then are responsible for performing those duties. You have failed and should be removed if you don't perform those duties. Maybe your duties are to get more kids out while mine are to win conference and state titles.
Is HS XC really a sport where there are expectations to have champioship teams? It's not football or basketball.
Sigh ill help generate some more revenue. Maybe Robert can get his wife that remodeled kitchen theyve been looking at. Man I'm really in more of a posting mode the last couple months. I think it started with the olympics and ive just kept going.
Anyway hs xc track coaches do define their job duties. You help set goals and help guide kids to achieve what they want. As several others and I have said getting more people on the team is a primary way to both give people a chance for a positive experience and achieve competitive success. This is basic information that everyone knows and I know ur just trying to argue which is fine(although winning an online argument is basically pointless-but I'm in that mood lol) .
Also we don't want to hear whining about winning conference and state titles. Anyone can do that you need to raise standards. Now you are judged solely on your NXN performance. When you have achieved multiple titles there it will be the time to sound off about how ur system is better than everyone else's. No excuses!
My AD does not care about NXN because it is a club event and not school funded. I have to fight hard for our funding. His expectations focus on conference and state titles which puts our program higher ion the list than most other teams at the school. We have 3 state titles in the past 10 years and have not finished worse than 5th. Sounds like many of your ADs have different priorities. Mine loves to host booster events and statewide meetings to brag about titles. He would rather have 7 kids on a winning XC team than 200 kids on a good team.
The question is, how do you get that 7 kids on a winning team? Have a large team and weed out the non contributors or rely on recruiting transfers from other schools?
Large teams are a more sustainable way to find good kids than relying on finding fast kids who’s parents are willing to move, drive substantial distances and uproot kids from their friends. That’s not to mention those silly rules that some states have around recruiting.
When we do a 2 mile time trial after 1 week of practice and 10 guys run over 16 minutes, another 10 over 15 minutes, another 10 over 14 minutes, while about 50 guys run 11-14 minutes, 10 guys run 10:xx, and 5 run 9:xx, we don't need all of them. We don't need most of them. The guys know about the time trial and they prepare over the summer. They can come again next year and the year after.
big joe wrote:
My AD does not care about NXN because it is a club event and not school funded. I have to fight hard for our funding. His expectations focus on conference and state titles which puts our program higher ion the list than most other teams at the school. We have 3 state titles in the past 10 years and have not finished worse than 5th. Sounds like many of your ADs have different priorities. Mine loves to host booster events and statewide meetings to brag about titles. He would rather have 7 kids on a winning XC team than 200 kids on a good team.
Is there any school in the country that could have 200 kids participating in XC? I seriously doubt it.
There are dozens in Illinois.
Time cuts should not exist, especially for freshman. Because you never know who is going to surprise you.
There was a freshman who was running 22 minute 5k’s, but as a senior he was running in the 15:40s
We have initiated performance standards/cuts in the past two years. They are quite simple - boys need to run a sub 9 mile, girls need a sub 10. This weeds out the kids doing it for social reasons, the parents using us for free after school care, and those that treat the sport as a weight loss program. We have a winning culture that was being eroded by too many kids that signed up for reasons other than sport. They were poison! Lazy, convincing good kids to goof off and walk off campus workouts, not showing up for meets, etc. The standard isn’t hard but it scares off kids that just sit around all summer and don’t show up for the first day of August practice with some measure of fitness.
Men rule wrote:
It is absolutely ridiculous to hold large meets with 3000 kids competing across 3 hours when the meet could take 2 hours if about 25 kids had been cut.
it's "absolutely ridiculous" for my soccer game to go to double OT and last 30 minutes extra when it could have been decided in regulation.
i am sorry but other than "we have one team with one coach to watch 100 kids" this is baby fascist nonsense. the football team would probably have the opposite response to having hundreds of kids show up. they would start frosh A and B and soph A and B teams and hire new coaches. they would be running practices during school periods to stagger kids' presence if the numbers got too big. they would not set about trying to figure out ways to cut the interest in the sport back down to "the kids they really want for varsity. who they think they can win" my god.
and let's be real, those teams are outliers. most HS teams have like 10-20 kids showing up for XC and a spot here and there open to varsity TF.
i knew a couple guys who couldn't regularly make our district winning junior high team who went on to be regional-qualifying seniors who had D1 level stuff. what they had in common is even when they weren't going to meets they were at practice M-F every day, working their tookus off, and it eventually paid off.
i also think in practical terms the "7 kids per XC team" or "3 per TF event" limits do a lot of the work for you. if you don't make enough meets you ask yourself is it worth it. but then my experience sometimes it pays off. i don't see the point in being arbitrary for the sake of showing how tough you are, as that mediocre frosh you cut may have been a growth spurt from being your best miler or 110H guy.
i also feel like this garbage trades in the weak weak weak suggestion that the state champions or qualifiers i ran with were somehow lessened if we let the 10 min mile kid even on the team. those two kids aren't usually even on the same team -- one will be the varsity star and the other the JV/frosh mascot. and no serious person feels like the varsity competition of the best kids is lessened if a single slow senior has to finish a race slower. they are wowed by the fastest kids.