Two NTN Meet Officials Fired on the Spot!

You're of course right, what was I thinking?

Kinds aren't possibly motivated to work hard for a positive end result by any other meet on their usual schedule. Somehow all the great runners of the 60s, 70s, and 80s found the motivation to work hard for a positive end result without NTN or even Kinney/FootLocker in most cases. Absence of NTN doesn't have to result in an absence of motivation to achieve a positive end result and learn valuable life skills.

Kids are also motivated by money, should we bribe them to train for NTN, too? Why not? By your logic, any means is justified by the end. Just take your straw man and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

I think you have Nike/dystat jizz all over your face, I'd respect you more if you had even ice cream on your face instead.

saw it coming -- wrote:

the meet is not helping hs xc. number one problem is the subjectivity of the selection process. then there's: (i) the problem of forcing a season long peak; (ii) the course location (portland); (iii) the course itself; (iv) the dyestat video stream and promotion; and (v) the meet management.

why do high schoolers (and their parents and coaches) drool all over themselves about this meet?? they are like lambs being led to slaughter.

NTN sucks. In addition to the reasons you cite, it also is ruining in state competition before the State series. When I ran many moons ago I could count on facing the best in the state at least 3 or 4 times before the State meet. I learned how to run against these guys and it generated some great rivalries. Now, at least in my state (Virginia), you have teams in the NTN hunt competing mostly out of state because they are worried about NTN rankings. Plus, if they are scheduled to run at a big invite and the weather is bad they often skip it because, God forbid, they don't have a good showing and jeopardize the NTN bid.

And the folks running Milestat worship NTN like you wouldn't believe. All we hear about is NTN this, NTN that. We're all a bit sick of it.

I honestly think the VHSAA should require teams compete in a certain amount of in state invites to be eligible for the State series.

My argument was sound and valid. The only thing that could stop it from being true would be to attack the premises.

Straw man? One semester of logic was not enough. I could walk you through a truth tree if if you need me to. Just because there are other ways to motivate kids and because some ways of motivating kids are wrong, neither addresses the argument at hand. You must have gotten a C+ at the state college you went to.

Keep trying, I've got all day free with my old Terra TC's and a carton of Ben and Jerry's

Slippery Slope wrote:

Somehow all the great runners of the 60s, 70s, and 80s found the motivation to work hard for a positive end result without NTN or even Kinney/FootLocker in most cases.

And there was a time when baseball players got paid shit and had to go back and work their farms in the off season. That's the past, the world has changed.

Distance running is suffering for a number of reasons that weren't factors decades ago and you can't expect the stanards that existed then to function now.

Regionals would solve this, yes? Maybe borderwar will succeed after all.

There's little point when it's clear from your non-response that you've already quit.

Tuone Udaina wrote:

And there was a time when baseball players got paid shit and had to go back and work their farms in the off season. That's the past, the world has changed.

Distance running is suffering for a number of reasons that weren't factors decades ago and you can't expect the stanards that existed then to function now.

What big changes have occurred in high school cross country that I'm not aware of that NTN and BorderChallenge supposedly address?

Both NTN and BorderChallenge take on the strong appearance of adult agendas running amok a la youth club soccer.

I presented an argument. You did nothing to refute it from a logical standpoint. What response did you want? You wanted me to play follow the fallacy with you? Back to school; that associates degree could be just around the corner.

I agree, the meet is good for kids.

But it can't be viewed as an end all.

There are other things out there that do the same thing,

just because they are not Nike sponsored does not mean they are wrong

Sorry that you got lost, but I have better things to do than simplify it to a grade school level just to spare you from boredom. Have a nice day.

What changes have occured since the 80's?

Let's see. THE INETRNET! There is now a way for a cross country community to communicate in real time that never occurred before. Before the internet, I could only humiliate someone like you if you lived in my town. Now you can live anywhere in the world and expose your ignorance and stupidity to me and everyone else with a tap of the "send" button. But I digress! There was no way for a true fan base to develop without the internet and now it is here. This thread alone proves that. People would not be sending snail mail letters about this meet left and right 20 years ago. NTN and borderwar have seen this and kids have respodnded. A national meet is good for the sport. That does not mean that said national meet shouldn't be held accountable for it's action, however.

Slippery Slope wrote:

Sorry that you got lost, but I have better things to do than simplify it to a grade school level just to spare you from boredom. Have a nice day.

Yeah, I'd turn tail and hide if I were you too.

That should be INTERNET.

Super G wrote:

I honestly think the VHSAA should require teams compete in a certain amount of in state invites to be eligible for the State series.

I plain disagree with you. VHSAA definitely should not require teams to run a certain number races in state, besides the typical Districts, Regionals, States. I was from Northern VA and we ran most of our invites outside of the state to get greater competition and because there are several big DC metro area meets that are far closer than the big VA meets. My senior year we ran a partial team at Monroe Parker (instate), Hereford MD, Conn (my coaches old school), Glory Days (instate), and Georgetown Prep. Why force us to travel down south where we'd have to be in a bus for hours beforehand? Not to mention, it should be up to the coach and the team to run what they want, how they want. The coach knows what's best for their kids, the state federation doesn't. Forcing kids to run either more meets or less competitive (or in some cases even farther away) meets doesn't make any sense or fix anything. The other VA schools need to adapt the way the Nothern Region and Midlo have. Districts, Regionals, States is more than enough instate races.

Nice of you to change the question to suit your needs. I don't hide from disingenuous types, I simply choose to dismiss and disregard their silliness. You can't even see or at least be honest enough to admit that NTN and BorderChallenge serve the fanbase, not the best interests of the kids! Adults in a position of authority are the ones who have responded, the kids simply respond to them. Alas, this is pointless because your bias prevents an honest understanding.

Slippery Slope wrote:

Nice of you to change the question to suit your needs. I don't hide from disingenuous types, I simply choose to dismiss and disregard their silliness. You can't even see or at least be honest enough to admit that NTN and BorderChallenge serve the fanbase, not the best interests of the kids! Adults in a position of authority are the ones who have responded, the kids simply respond to them. Alas, this is pointless because your bias prevents an honest understanding.

I changed no question. I have no problem with saying that the adults at Nike, Footlocker and Dyestat are exploiting the situation for their own purposes. However, I presented an argument to support the fact that kids do benefit from these meets. You have yet to refute this argument. You keep responding, after saying you won't, but carefully avoid a specific, logically sound rebuttal to the original argument.

Your turn...

You're disingenuous, which is trite to me, end of story.

Slippery Slope wrote:

You're disingenuous, which is trite to me, end of story.

Good rebuttal; although you might want to recheck the definitons of the words you obviously just found in the dictionary. To paraphrase Indigo Montoya "I do not think they mean what you think they mean."

No need.