How USATF can SAVE Cross Country

Yes, I envy your association (and club). Somehow despite all of the rot within the association they have managed to host national championships (club marathon relays, winter cc) in the past few years. At least there are local organizers who have put together a fall cc series in the county here. However, there is little if any emphasis on club affiliations in the competition, which makes sense since there is no USATF connection.

Boston isn't a useful model for the rest of the country because it is unique. It is old, the BAA has been around since 1888, dense, so travel is not difficult, full of colleges, and full of running clubs. It ain't the wild west.

What the rest of the country should understand is that it is fun to have competition among many clubs. You'd enjoy it. The members of the clubs are psyched to go do battle with the other clubs.

On the other hand what professional runners do is (and should be) driven by the market for their services and not by an organization.

And on the third hand, what health and fitness runners do is driven by their personal needs so defies organization.

What needs organization is the club runners, the ones between the professionals and the hygiene exercisers.

Tom

I agree quite strongly with this; a strong local/regional club scene across the country would be something that many members of USATF would benefit (and get much enjoyment) from. (I think we see this not only in Boston, but also in some parts of California, as well).

I also strongly agree that what professional runners do is and should be driven by the market for their services. I do not believe, though, that an organization (USATF) shouldn't play a role in creating/controlling that market (I'm not a guiding hand kind of guy).

USATF should do what it can to both maximize the market for its athletes' services and see that the market that exists for its athletes services serves the goals of USATF (which, I believe, have two primary parts: 1) to grow the sport of running in America at all levels from grassroots to elite; and 2) to earn as many clean high finishes and win as many clean titles and medals as possible in major international competitions). In my mind, that doesn't mean that USATF should be hands off with the state of elite Cross Country in the United States and settle for the status quo, but rather that USATF should be hands on and constantly attempting to improve and grow the sport.

Again, I agree strongly with this, but think it relates much more closely to the first item that I quoted than the second. Greater organization of American Cross Country on the club level would probably contribute to greater organization of American Cross Country on the elite level. That there is a need for greater organization of Cross Country on the club level does not preclude the need for there to be greater organization in Cross Country at the elite level in America.

Yes, I titled this thread "How USATF can SAVE Cross Country," and thus framed the discussion at least in part in terms of what (many people feel) went wrong at this year's USATF Club Cross Country Championships, as that what the previous, similarly-titled thread was about. And I did hope that ways that Club Cross Nationals could be improved would be part of the discussion.

But I didn't hope that would be all that this thread would be about (perhaps, in hindsight, I should have titled this thread something else, but then I don't feel it would've garnered the same attention). I posed a plan to improve Cross Country in America by creating an elite Cross Country circuit, and as a perhaps not primary but certainly secondary benefit of the creation of that circuit I hoped that greater interest would be generated in, and a higher quality of meet (in terms of production, competition, marketing and media, and scale) would be put on at, the National Club Cross Country Championships.

If that is what people want to talk about, I totally accept that. I'm not trying to play teacher/moderator/thread police, here. But I am interested in hearing what people have to say about the larger topic of what we can do to improve Cross Country in the US, either as it relates to the circuit plan I put forth or not. If people would prefer to talk about Club Cross, that's fine, too, but I was hoping that this thread would have a broader scope.

I would like to ask a couple questions again, just to see if anyone has an answer:

BU*last gasp*MP

So no one has any answers to the above questions?

This post really hits the nail on the head.I was in Ireland several years ago and while I was out on a run I met several guys running in a pack. Some looked like they just left the couch and others looked quite fit. They were out running in preparation for a xc meet with their cross town rival club (I was in Cork - which means that we drank Murphy’s instead of Guinness - after the run). While I'm not that familiar with how the club was formed the camaraderie and motivation of club members is clearly what is needed here in the States before we can talk of reviving xc. What we need is to have fall cross country festivals of all levels, with team scoring against other clubs, at every level. This appears to me as the only real way to revive the sport. Sticking with only elites or youth is missing out on a hugh level of support. Find a way to get masters fatties involved and the money will follow.So the real question is, how do you build these clubs?I would guess that the fragmentation of the sports minded populace into Gold's Gym, 24 hour fitness, YMCA, ect, ect will prevent a true grass roots effort from gaining any momentum in the US. A good start would be to take a look at the sports clubs of Europe and South America and see what we could possible replicate here.

Derderian wrote:

What the rest of the country should understand is that it is fun to have competition among many clubs. You'd enjoy it. The members of the clubs are psyched to go do battle with the other clubs.

On the other hand what professional runners do is (and should be) driven by the market for their services and not by an organization.

And on the third hand, what health and fitness runners do is driven by their personal needs so defies organization.

What needs organization is the club runners, the ones between the professionals and the hygiene exercisers.

Tom

I am not sure why it is the total responsibility of the USATF to save cross country. It really comes down to "What are you doing to help the cause"? The reason I say this is what is going on in my little corner of the world. Here is a little background on myself. I coach at the jr high level with total of 131 7th and 8th graders. A small school where every sport shares the athletes. The area where I live is a basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball and any other ball/team sport that the park district can put out. Pay to play is what I have to deal with. They start the ball sports in kindergarden and earlier if the parents have anything to do with it. Running is not fun and it is hard. You can not play the blame game in running. We lost because of so and so. You can only play the claim game, I am only as good as I am! Since I have been doing the jr olympics the running scene here in this town has got better. It started with 5 runners 6 years ago and this year I had 44 runners going to the regional races. 17 to the nationals. This year I only talked to some of the runners I had last year abour practice and the rest of the runners that showed was by word of mouth. I also get some runners from the other towns around the area. It also helps my school xc teams. I have a chance to get the kids out there and show them how hard it is and how much fun you can have. These kids never ran anything longer than a mile in pe or as punishment in the other sports. We did a run-a-thon and several were able to run the full 20 laps around the track. If everyone would be interested in showing the younger kids about running I am sure that the numbers would go up. That would mean to take responsibility for kids that are not yours. Most adults won't even think about that, even in my town. It really doesn't matter what the usatf does, its what you are doing in your area to promote running to the younger kids.