I was talking with my niece, who is a high school sophomore. She called to tell me she went out for cross country this season.
When I asked her why, she said "well, I got cut from the color guard team."
Just thought it was important to point out that XC is now one notch behind the color guard in terms of high school interest.
no it will never rank behind those cows with flags. we may be skinny but at least we are not fat turds.
I dont understand why people on this board and people in the sport in general have such a low opinion of their sport. Track and XC are like buying Britney Spears(or insert any other fad pop singer) CDs or something- lots of people do it but noone wants to admit they do it.
http://www.nfhs.org/content.aspx?id=3505
Just in case you dont feel like looking at the link Track is the #1 sport for girls and #2 sport for boys in the country. Who do you think is posting on this message board anyway?
Also btw I dont see the devils sport- lacrosse- anywhere on that list and that makes me smile. I think track actually increased more percentage wise than lax(the supposed up and coming sport) over the last survey. I know it increased more in absolute numbers.
Lax has 100% participation among kids whose parents make over $1 million a year and 0% participation among kids whose parents make less than that. It also has high participation rate among aspiring date rapists.
LAX is virtually nonexistent in the Midwest. Now, LAX is the ultimate "cut" sport. Totally for the rich kids who couldn't make it in soccer or football. Find a sport that's exclusive and expensive...that's LAX.
AntiLax wrote:
Lax has 100% participation among kids whose parents make over $1 million a year and 0% participation among kids whose parents make less than that. It also has high participation rate among aspiring date rapists.
Replace all of these with First Nations. They invented it.
You mean Lax has taken over from crew...a sport that's too expensive for anyone but an investment banker...I doubt it.
Huh? I thought hockey was the most expensive?
No people. Polo is the most expensive sport. Duh.
The majority of the country doesn't even have lax as a sport.
In schools in the Midwest that do have it, it is indeed the ultimate cut sport- everyone playing was cut or couldn't get playing time in football, basketball, or soccer.
ya i base my opinion on the entire population of the sport of cross country on your stupid niece too.
I would think that you only need a small number of color guard whereas I see no reason to limit the number of kids coming out to run.
Wayne B wrote:
You mean Lax has taken over from crew...a sport that's too expensive for anyone but an investment banker...I doubt it.
it's so true... the biggest yuppie school around (public school but in a rich neighborhood) has banners all over commemorating all their crew state titles. it's like hello, no other HS has their own lake.
So...ONE person would rather be on the color Guard than on cross country, and we're supposed to draw conclusions from that?
It doesn't matter how athletes get into XC.
What matters is what they do once they're in XC.
I can think of at least 10 local athletes who were plucked out of gym or PE and became awesome runners (sub-15 guys, sub-19 girls).
As for overall interest, today's computer playing/xbox playing/texting all-day generation probably sees getting up and going to the refrigerator as exercise. It's not hard to figure out that the idea of running 3-10 miles a day is not popular amongst that crowd.
And I hate to break it to the OP, but XC has never been terribly popular. Teams today are larger than they used to be, so the interest level is fine.
If you need to be patted on the back by your schoolmates in order to get excited about running, then you're probably not cut out to be a runner anyway.
How is lax expensive? Surely that little stick thing doesn't cost too much. And all you need is a soccer field too play, right?
Mrs. M wrote:
No people. Polo is the most expensive sport. Duh.
False. Yachting is more expensive than Polo. More expensive still is Skyscraper Demolition Races, to say nothing of Deep Space Saffron Snorting.
In Indiana, XC has really boomed. Even at my school, people are quitting soccer and football to run cross country.
curiousminds wrote:
How is lax expensive? Surely that little stick thing doesn't cost too much. And all you need is a soccer field too play, right?
Any game where the equipment has to grow with the player will be expensive.
Lacrosse = Helmet, body pads, gloves, stick shaft (these aren't terribly difficult to break), basket (same breaking risk), cleats, balls.
It all adds up. Hockey is very similar if not worse (especially if your kid is a goalie)