FL Runners Heats Up

these coaches all seem like whiny babies

gup wrote:

these coaches all seem like whiny babies

After reading the entire thread, the coaches want a level playing field which seems reasonable. Parents and kids want what's best for themselves, which seems reasonable.

if recruiting rules were broken then contact the FHSAA and let them investigate. If you don't like the rules as they are currently constructed, work on getting them changed.

The IMG situation is creating tension but if I were a coach, I would focus on my team and what I can control and quit worrying about IMG.

So Caroline Lehman is being home-schooled so she can train and rehab and everything else her dad mentioned instead of going in person. That was interesting to say the least. They interviewed a bunch of schools according to her dad and not one was good enough for in-person?

Bullis has been doing this in, and around, the DC, Maryland, and Virginia for years. If you have a high caliber athlete up here, you better prep them for the call or in-person chat they'll eventually have with the coach(s). But only once they've reached a certain level. They're not looking to develop, strictly recruit those already at the top.

Their coaches are good. But, let's not pretend that their perennial national champion caliber athletes and relays are being pulled only from their PE classes and other sports teams.

At the High School level, private schools get to operate like colleges with very little in terms of "competition" from the public schools. They can offer things that the students' zoned public school usually would have a hard time matching.

The rules suck, they should be changed, but fundamentally re-working public school athletics and/or limiting, supervising, overseeing private schools is a big ask. I just happen to think it's a crappy thing to do as a coach, and I don't have much respect. All the context and information considered, the awards and accolades and trophies these schools garner aren't as shiny in my eyes.

You nailed it, trophies and wins are hollow when you are gaming the system. Oh well, life goes on.

DMV Says Hi wrote: I just happen to think it's a crappy thing to do as a coach, and I don't have much respect. All the context and information considered, the awards and accolades and trophies these schools garner aren't as shiny in my eyes.

I agree. There should be a line that coaches don't cross but there are many who cross ethical lines all the time because consequences for being caught are nothing more than a slap on the wrist and the rewards are great. People within the track and field community in Florida know what programs routinely cheat, or bend rules, yet they are still celebrated when they win.

I'm a homeschooled senior who takes classes through dual-enrollment and the process is fairly straightforward. You need to register with your school district and then they assign you a school based on whatever. If nothing was "technically" broken it's okay... there are small ways to get around this I'm sure but the system isn't really broken but it's truly a struggle as a homeschooled student to run do high school sports because of the various hoops you need to jump through.

While it may come across as there being a few "whiny coaches" on that FL Runners thread, if you read it carefully you will see that most o them just want to see a fair and level playing field -- for instance, you will see that there's very little anger and frustration directed towards IMG -- why? . . . because IMG are up front and open about the fact that they "recruit", not just from within Florida, but around the country and even in the Caribbean . . . and, because of this, IMG is classed as an independent school in Florida and does not compete in the state series and therefore is not denying any other teams or individuals a shot at District, Region, of State championship. Cambridge Christian, on the other hand, also "recruits" and anyone who claims otherwise is either clueless or in denial. Their coach also "recruited" at a school called Citrus Park, which received the biggest fine ever imposed by the FHSAA and ultimately led to that school getting shut down. Now it's rinse and repeat at Cambridge -- where 3 or their top 4 girls actually attend other schools as their "bricks and mortar" schools and have found a loophole whereby they can take virtual classes and now compete for Cambridge. All coaches are saying is this: treat Cambridge Christian the same way as IMG -- if their coach wants to "recruit" an All-Star team, go ahead (he's going to do it anyway) and treat them as an independent school who can compete in regular season events and at Nike/Running Lane/Foot Locker but not in the FHSAA state series. No one is saying that those young runners and their parents should not have school choice -- it's a free country and especially in Florida -- however, let's not pretend that what's going on at Cambridge Christian fair and ethical and is on the same level playing as the majority of the rest of the schools in Florida. If Cambridge was treated the same as IMG then that thread on FL Runners would have around six posts instead of six pages of posts.

It seems a bit silly to me to get so hung up on recruiting when private schools across the state can attract students to their school from an unlimited geographic area. When I was in school, I knew a couple of talented athletes who traveled over an hour to get to school because they were offered need-based or academic scholarships. We thought it had unfair implications for athletics at the time, but I can't blame the kids or families for taking the opportunity when I look back now. If folks are getting irritated about private schools stacking talent, that seems like a bigger issue than who made contact first. On the other hand, exclusively taking virtual classes and competing for a school that one is not zoned for seems completely ridiculous.

At their core, a lot of coaches in the Tampa Bay area are annoyed because IMG and Cambridge are playing under rules that simply put other programs can't play by.

As mentioned above, you add in the backstory of Citrus Park Christian outright shutting down as an entire school, the coach goes to Cambridge and starts a program from "scratch," and magically all these top tier runners show up, and it's shady at best.

And to be clear, these runners should have the ability to pick the program that best fits their needs. We also don't have to pretend that these teams should be celebrated when they come in first in the team standings at a meet.

I still have a voice mail from a parent of one of my runners from a few years ago. In the voice mail, the parent explains how Ray Friedman called the him to let him know that Ray was moving from Citrus Park to Cambridge since Citrus Park was closing. Since the parent knew Ray from before, I'm guessing Ray called him to let him know where to send Christmas cards.

Just FYI the story is not going to bed as he will be losing his top girls he is already "not recruiting" top girls from other schools to reload since he can't create...watch as a few transfer from neighboring schools make their way to Cambridge "without being recruited of course" after track in FL and a few might even go this month before it begins officially late January.

Let me break it to you - EVERY PRIVATE high school in Florida recruits. EVERY SINGLE one, especially in South Florida there are legit turf wars between the 4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A schools.

Is IMG really that good?

Seems to me they had a couple good runners that transferred in that aren’t around anymore.