Not as old ndn runner wrote:
You're arguing that Coach Smith should have pushed his team to race harder at regionals, irregardless of whether it makes more sense for his guys to be at their peak at nationals? Because its good for race viewers? Looking at the results, Oklahoma State just dominated this regional race, winning by a considerable margin. Although I wasn't able to watch the race, I can't believe that it wasn't amazing to watch six guys from the same team come across the line together at the front of the pack. You're missing the beauty of this race.
Actually, no. I was not arguing that Coach Smith should have...
What I said was that the previous poster had a good point. We xc afficionados can well appreciate seeing seven guys from one team come across at essentially the same time and gain the team win in the process.
However, that was really not the topic that I was addressing. I think that the previous poster raised a good point in what is good for the sport. The way NCAA xc is structured, there is essentially one race that 'counts' for the elite teams. Everything else can be run as a workout by those with sufficient firepower (OSU, Stanford...). It seems like this makes the sport a very tough sell to the general public. XC nuts (and I consider myself one) may well appreciate the MW region 'race' but can we ever really expect to be taken seriously by the larger public or the media or ... if the best teams don't even 'race' most of their races?
Anyway, this is not a criticism of Smith or of OSU. Just a thought about whether or not there is any real hope of making XC more popular (which would ultimately lead to more money, more serious participants and more success for US distance running on the world scene). Seems like the nature of the game right now says the answer is 'no'. And that's a shame.