cole sprout was running 8:50 as a sophomore, which was actually a national sophomore class record until one of the young twins broke it in 2021.
he will not be the next cole sprout.
And I believe that Cole Sprout won 3a XC state title as a Freshman....and maybe the 3200 also. I can't recall exactly but I think he ran for Resurrection Christian back then.??
He ran at Faith Christian, I ran 3a in that era and don't remember RCS ever comepeting at state. I think they have quickly become successful under Roberts.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
You are talking about a kid, not an adult. let’s remember that and try to have a civil conversation. There is no reason to fight about this. I have my opinion and you have yours.
Not being petty or trying to start a fight , just stating facts. Calling your son a Legend and a “high caliber” family and telling everyone he would have won the 3200 had he not been sick says much about the pedestal you believe your son to be on. Meanwhile it diminishes the accomplishments of those runners who ran 4 races for their team, knowing it might mean sacrificing an individual title… after all these are kids we are talking about (your words). You can be happy and proud of your son but also remind him that others exerted themselves much more than him …he can be proud of his accomplishments but humble at the same time, knowing he may not have those medals if racing circumstances were different. Winning a race doesn’t make you superior to others and give you bragging rights. These attitudes from parents and kids are what ruins the culture of a team and robs the joy from team sports and running all together. That’s my opinion.
Almost everyone except for a few posters on this thread is objectifying a select number of kids from VCHS. Anonymously posting negative things about high school athletes without a legitimate reason is ridiculous. None of you guys are angry that Rocco Culpepper didn’t perform the triple at state, so why are you angry at these athletes for choosing to not do one event? Several good athletes at the state meet chose not to contest all 4 distance events, and there is absolutely no problem with that. (Additionally, shaming an athlete for wearing nose strips is ridiculous)
Mods, please do your job and close this thread now.
Posters, if you want to continue shaming athletes go post on the “Colorado HS Recruiting” thread.
Meanwhile it diminishes the accomplishments of those runners who ran 4 races for their team, knowing it might mean sacrificing an individual title […] remind him that others exerted themselves much more than him [...] Winning a race doesn’t make you superior to others and give you bragging rights.
First, winning a race does give you bragging rights -- that's kind of the whole point. And it does make you superior to others -- in your event on the track on that day. Nobody is scoring points or winning medals for "exerting themselves".
Coaches and runners choose their goals and decide the best way to achieve them. Team goals, individual goals, combination of both -- it's all good. You make choices. Everybody knows racing 3 other events is not the best path to an individual title.
You're being hypocritical by complaining about someone saying, "my runner would've won if not for ... " then turn around and say the results would've been different if guys other the other team didn't run 4 events.
No, there's something more important at stake here. It sounds like this runner basically put his own interests ahead of his team's. It sounds like his coach wanted him to run in the 4x8 but he refused, whereas the runners from the other school chose to be team players.
If this is how it went down, then yeah, anyone who wants to celebrate his title needs to know the asterisk it came with. This is the same school who just lost another coach last year in a pretty sticky situation that involved an "involved" family.
The real question becomes this - who should make lineup decisions? The athletes (and by extension, their families) or the coach?
The “involved” parent you are probably referring to was a coach, hired by Valor. Which takes me to my next point. I believe someone was trying to call out Niwot for recruiting earlier? Valor gets two D1 level runners from Indiana out of the blue? The coach and his son come first. The coach then recruits another runner from the same Indiana school? Where is CHSAA on this? Seems to me both runners should have been ineligible for a year? The previous coach at Valor made a living pulling kids from out of district.
Christian is actually working through some injuries and Culpepper is an underclassman. Neither should be expected to carry their team. In the Valor case both runners are not team players. That is what you get from a private Christian school. The type that flaunt their money, peddle their influence, make sure the needs of their kid come first, screw everyone else. But it’s ok, they go to a Christian school and God likes them more.
No, there's something more important at stake here. It sounds like this runner basically put his own interests ahead of his team's.
Jeez you guys are full of drama. Re-reading through this thread, it sounds like almost of these replies are coming from the same person with multiple user names.
Almost everyone except for a few posters on this thread is objectifying a select number of kids from VCHS. Anonymously posting negative things about high school athletes without a legitimate reason is ridiculous. None of you guys are angry that Rocco Culpepper didn’t perform the triple at state, so why are you angry at these athletes for choosing to not do one event? Several good athletes at the state meet chose not to contest all 4 distance events, and there is absolutely no problem with that. (Additionally, shaming an athlete for wearing nose strips is ridiculous)
Mods, please do your job and close this thread now.
Posters, if you want to continue shaming athletes go post on the “Colorado HS Recruiting” thread.
No one is calling Rocco the next great anything. no one mentioned him until you did. And you are anonymously posting negative things about HS athletes (no one is buying the new name XCTrackFanCo aka Mr. Costelow.)
The “involved” parent you are probably referring to was a coach, hired by Valor. Which takes me to my next point. I believe someone was trying to call out Niwot for recruiting earlier? Valor gets two D1 level runners from Indiana out of the blue? The coach and his son come first. The coach then recruits another runner from the same Indiana school? Where is CHSAA on this? Seems to me both runners should have been ineligible for a year? The previous coach at Valor made a living pulling kids from out of district.
CHSAA's transfer rules are pretty ambiguous about out of state athletes. In general families move to Colorado all the time and their high school athletes are immediately eligible to compete. If the whole family moved to Colorado, it would be difficult to prove that the transfer was motivated by athletics. Stuff like this is probably why private schools should be in their own classification. The transfer rules are ridiculous, and generally unenforceable. It's not like CHSAA has undercover agents out there trying to catch this stuff. A school has to do something pretty stupid to get caught:
A Valor Christian assistant ice hockey coach sent a letter to coaches in Texas attempting to recruit players from that state. Daniel Pitman, a one-year assistant, sent a letter, obtained
Almost everyone except for a few posters on this thread is objectifying a select number of kids from VCHS. Anonymously posting negative things about high school athletes without a legitimate reason is ridiculous. None of you guys are angry that Rocco Culpepper didn’t perform the triple at state, so why are you angry at these athletes for choosing to not do one event? Several good athletes at the state meet chose not to contest all 4 distance events, and there is absolutely no problem with that. (Additionally, shaming an athlete for wearing nose strips is ridiculous)
Mods, please do your job and close this thread now.
Posters, if you want to continue shaming athletes go post on the “Colorado HS Recruiting” thread.
No one is calling Rocco the next great anything. no one mentioned him until you did. And you are anonymously posting negative things about HS athletes (no one is buying the new name XCTrackFanCo aka Mr. Costelow.)
No one is calling Rocco the next great anything. no one mentioned him until you did. And you are anonymously posting negative things about HS athletes (no one is buying the new name XCTrackFanCo aka Mr. Costelow.)
…..…crickets……
Just wanted to chime in with some facts. Regardless of personal opinion of the Valor program and it’s athletes, it’s important to consider that…
1. Calling Costelow selfish for not running the 3200 is silly. Ran all four distance events to maximize team points last year. His time this year (9:34) sat just outside qualifying for the race.
2. Eike not running in his teams 4x8 was indeed a bit of a selfish move which most likely drew the ire of coaches and teammates, but makes sense in the long run. As he enters a pivotal period for his college recruiting, maybe he thought that an individual title would bolster his opportunities.
3. Comparing the Costelow/Eike duo to the Downs/Anderson duo while understandable doesn’t paint the whole picture. Downs was ranked #1 in the 800, #2 in the 1600 and #1 in the 3200 leading up to state and had a conceivable path to victory in any of the three, if not all of them. Anderson is a sophomore with no long term stakes on this meet. Costelow competed in all the events he qualified in and Dane competed in all of the events he thought he could win.
4. Speaking of the comparison, breaking down point values scored at state of all four shows that the narrative of “entitlement” is misinformed
Downs: 7+7+2+2.5=18.5
Anderson: 8+6+2.5=16.5
Eike: 10+8=18
Costelow: 10+10+1.25=21.25
I don’t give the numbers to discredit the valiant efforts of Downs and Anderson, who both were clearly team driven and tenacious. However, the comments towards the Valor guys seem emotionally charged, and even if you don’t agree with their race decisions, their contributions greatly helped their team score and gave them a runner up finish with just six guys scoring for the entire team.
1) if you are somehow inferring that because Costelow scored more points and therefore it was a calculated move made by the team and runner I would disagree. 2) Costelow ran the 3200 one time at the beginning of the year. He realized he had no chance of defending his win last year and decided not to try to qualify again.
3) it appears to me that your goal here was defend Costelow and paint Eike as selfish. Valor has such a strong team culture😀
4) this became emotionally charged when someone referred to Costelow as a Legend and tried to throw shade on Niwot for recruiting
This thread is just an excuse to shame Valor. No one has ever said that Niwot is recruiting. Runners just want to attend there because they are the fastest team in the north denver/boulder area, and maybe they have practiced with the middle school program.
1) if you are somehow inferring that because Costelow scored more points and therefore it was a calculated move made by the team and runner I would disagree. 2) Costelow ran the 3200 one time at the beginning of the year. He realized he had no chance of defending his win last year and decided not to try to qualify again.
3) it appears to me that your goal here was defend Costelow and paint Eike as selfish. Valor has such a strong team culture😀
4) this became emotionally charged when someone referred to Costelow as a Legend and tried to throw shade on Niwot for recruiting
I think the point he was trying to make was that comments and criticisms saying Valor was only interested individual success and Costelow was selfish for "avoiding" the 3200 didn't really hold up when you look at it objectively.
