We have a huge cross country meet next week and I have a question for other coaches on the board. I am really bad at scoring a meet in my head while the race is going on. I want to tell my team where they stand versus our rival high school, but I just cant keep score in my head while the runners pass by. Is there any trick to keeping score? I really want to tell our athletes half way during the race where we stand against our rival school. Any help is appreciated. Thanks,
I sometimes get lucky and score me some meat in my hand, not my head.
If you're scoring head-to-head, just count the positions of your own top 5 runners relative to the other teams'. If #s 6 and 7 on either team aren't displacing anyone, the scores will add up to 55 (1+2+...+10). So if your team has 27 points or fewer, you are winning, otherwise you are losing.
I managed to do it pretty well over the past four years but not perfectly. The only trick I know is to count your own athletes and not those from another team. When I've tried that I've gotten the numbers pertty confused.
What I finally settled on was carrying a pen and an index card or something like that and jotting down the place numbers as runners came by. It worked better.
My college coach had a real knack for this. Of course, he was a math professor with 20 years of running experience which is about the perfect combo to get it right. I can't tell you how many times in even midsize races he'd predict our team place a few minutes after the race and get it right or be darn close.
In a huge race it's tough to do, but if you only want to compare your team to one other team it's do-able. It's easier if the race only has 7 per team, but even if more will be racing you can still get it done.
One bit of advice, find a spot early enough in the course where you can get the info to your runners with ground left for them to do something about it (if they can), but late enough in the race so things have settled out. Tough to make this work in a 5k because you probably want to wait until after the 2.5k mark but you need to get them the info by 3k. The only time I ever tried to do this with any precision was in a college 10k. We took the positions at the 7.25k mark and gave the info at 8k. I used a pen and a pad as suggested above.
is it possible to have a manager with you? My manager was able to stand by the bridge at VCP and video the race with his cell phone. We knew exactly what places we were going into the hills and what places coming out of the hills. Another cell phone at the finish line was able to confirm the final score.
Coach Travers wrote:
We have a huge cross country meet next week and I have a question for other coaches on the board. I am really bad at scoring a meet in my head while the race is going on. I want to tell my team where they stand versus our rival high school, but I just cant keep score in my head while the runners pass by. Is there any trick to keeping score? I really want to tell our athletes half way during the race where we stand against our rival school. Any help is appreciated. Thanks,
recruit rain man. that should about do it
If you're just comparing your team to one other team and want to do it at any point on a course, just spot head to head battles. Count if your #1 is ahead of their #1, your #2 is ahead of their #2, etc.
Chances are if you are beating them in three or more out of the five scoring spots, you're beating them. Obviously this is not foolproof, but most days I find that it works if the teams are pretty comparable to begin with.
Things get skewed when you have a team that is great at #1 - 3, but their 4th and 5th are pretty bad and inflate the team score a lot at big meets.
To score a state meet...that's a different ball game...
Stand near the finish or just outside the chute, and record finish places for just the teams you are concerned about. We normally are in the top 4 at our state meet, and so I really only have to worry about scoring 3 - 6 teams each year. I'll only worry about writing down those team's runners finishing places, and disregard the teams that won't be in the mix. I leave blanks for the teams that aren't in the mix. It's still not perfect, because you'll have individuals not on a team that displace runners in this case. It's easy for the first 10 - 20 runners, but then gets pretty hectic. Always good to have some JV runners at your side just counting one team and telling you as you write down. I usually score the girls meet for our girls coach this way, and then they score the boys meet out.
Just tell them your down by 5 points, which is enough to usually get them to go a little harder.
To score a state meet...that's a different ball game...
If you could score the meet in your head during the state meet, you should be in Vegas counting cards instead.
Coach Travers wrote:
We have a huge cross country meet next week and I have a question for other coaches on the board. I am really bad at scoring a meet in my head while the race is going on. I want to tell my team where they stand versus our rival high school, but I just cant keep score in my head while the runners pass by. Is there any trick to keeping score? I really want to tell our athletes half way during the race where we stand against our rival school. Any help is appreciated. Thanks,
If the meet is in your head, then just imagine your team running in first through fifth place.
:)
Just tell them your down by 5 points, which is enough to usually get them to go a little harder.
Brillant!
my HS coach inN. Bellmore could score a meet in his head and be right to the point.and not just duel meets. He could do it in big meets too. smartest man I ever met.