Can a sprint based school have a good XC team?

Jes' Wonderin' wrote:

I talked to the XC coach before the season began and told her I'd like to help, but she didn't seem very interested at all. . . . No one at the school takes XC seriously and it's sad b/c the school could be decent if they wanted to be.

Jes', the quotation above says it all. The problem may stem from levels higher than the x-c coach: the AD and/or the school's (or district's) administration may not be interested in having a very successful x-c program, which could cost more money (for unis and travel)--maybe more money than is available. For "black" schools, x-c is rarely a traditional sport; if more funding for cross means less funding for football or basketball, people (including the parents of a lot of the school's students) will not be happy.

Of course, the problem *could* stem (at least in part) from the current coach. OTOH, if she's been told that x-c is primarily for conditioning kids for later sports (e.g. basketball or indoor track), then why should she do a more intense training program that might a) get a kid hurt, or b) extend the season, when her pay-per-season is probably a fixed (and possibly quite low) amount?

If the track coach is a different person (sounds likely) from the cross coach, ask the *track* coach whether you could help out, maybe with the events s/he can't easily cover--you know, like the throwing events and the distance runners. Once you get a few kids interested in success at the mile or 3200 during track, then you can more easily sell summer training and x-c success to those kids (and their parents, and the school's administration, and the district's). But a direct assault on x-c, after you've already been rebuffed, doesn't sound like a good idea.

Of course, if the school had someone with the enthusiasm and intensity of a Joe Newton coaching x-c, they'd probably have 100+ boys and girls out for the team, and be perennial county champs--*if* the coach got the support for facilities, transportation, and equipment that Joe has. The problem is where that support would come from--from your post, it sounds like cross is ill-supported in the whole county. (And in a 99% black school, don't ask or expect the parents to kick in $--they're likely to be low-income, on average.)

Tough nut to crack, I'd say, but I don't think the problem can be solved by trying to work through the current coach--and again, she may not have much to say about the situation.