What are some common qualifications for earning a letter in H.S. for XC? Currently the school I'm assisting at gives them to anyone on the team, so a freshman girl running 27 minutes gets a letter. I figure that's asinine, but I'm not sure how to go about making the qualifications different. I imagine there would be some blowback. How do other schools do it?
For our program we use finish in the Top 7 at a meet or run below 18:30/22:00 at the home course.
At my kid's school letters were earned based on a point system that included points for attendance at Summer workouts, attendance throughout the season (kids needed a signed parent note with a valid excuse to miss practice), number of times the kid scored on varsity, placement at big meets, and other roles such as team captain, etc.
Most of the kids who showed up every day, and worked hard enough to score on the JV team could earn a letter, but they didn't hand them out to the entire team.
In terms of developing stricter criteria for earning letters where you coach, I'd suggest slowly phasing in more requirements over the course of a couple of years. You don't want to discourage participation, especially for kids who've earned letters in the past.
Mrs. Claus wrote:
At my kid's school letters were earned based on a point system that included points for attendance at Summer workouts, attendance throughout the season (kids needed a signed parent note with a valid excuse to miss practice), number of times the kid scored on varsity, placement at big meets, and other roles such as team captain, etc.
Most of the kids who showed up every day, and worked hard enough to score on the JV team could earn a letter, but they didn't hand them out to the entire team.
In terms of developing stricter criteria for earning letters where you coach, I'd suggest slowly phasing in more requirements over the course of a couple of years. You don't want to discourage participation, especially for kids who've earned letters in the past.
Most states giving letter points for attending summer workouts would be not allowed, or having summer workouts would not be allowed.
Clarification:
I was referring to the Summer workouts in the two weeks prior to school starting, which is part of the official season.
Place in the Top 8 on the team for at least 50% of the regular season meets.
Why wouldn't giving points out for summer practice be allowed? In my state unofficial practices start in June, but I don't think giving varsity letter points would make those practices mandatory.
I'm sorry, what happened to a Letter being for those who score?
At my school, you had to run in the top 7 in a meet to earn a letter.
What is this world coming to...?
At the schools I've assisted in the past, usually everyone on the team gets a letter. I feel a letter is something to be earned and strived for, so a runner who is a consistent varsity runner should receive one. Why should a junior varsity runner get a varsity letter?
I think my school you got a letter if you were on the team that went to districts or an alternate (3 alternates). Or, you could get a letter by being top seven in 4 out of 9 races. Up until my junior year all four year seniors got a letter regardless of what place they were on the team, but that policy was discontinued, to the disappointment of my teammates.
You also had to finish the season in good standing, which meant not getting kicked off the team or quitting, and weeded out a surprising number of people.
Our Requirement wrote: Place in the Top 8 on the team for at least 50% of the regular season meets.
For college, this is a reasonable requirement, but I think it is overly restrictive for high school. Basically, cross country is an individual sport, with an awkward team framework laid over it. If you happen to run at an awesome school, it is practically impossible for some very good runners to get letters. What does it hurt that a 15:50 runner from Arcadia who is their 12th runner get a letter? We should be giving them some incentive to stick with running.
My suggestion is minimum seven letters to the best seven runners, i.e. probably those picked for the last meet of the year, plus letters for getting enough points in the following manner: score all meets dual meet style, one point for beating a top five member of an opposing team, if one scores points versus half the teams that the team competes against they gain a letter.
At my school you got 1 point every week of perfect attendance. 2 points for every year on the team. 2 points for beating a varsity member on another teams time (only for dual meets, max 2 points a meet). 4 points running in an invitational meet. 4 points for running varsity (per race). 10 points running in district meet. 20 points running in state meet. Need 30 points to letter.
Typically top 9 would letter, but some years it would be up to 15 if we had a good team. 4 year seniors would automatically letter, otherwise I think it was a great system.
as explanation for my criteria, basically if one performs at a level that would be a top five runner for an average school that his actual school competes against, he has achieved a varsity level individual performance. That is not negated just because he can not make top 7 on his actual team.
Mtn Dew wrote:What are some common qualifications for earning a letter in H.S. for XC? Currently the school I'm assisting at gives them to anyone on the team, so a freshman girl running 27 minutes gets a letter. I figure that's asinine, but I'm not sure how to go about making the qualifications different. I imagine there would be some blowback. How do other schools do it?
I talk to a bunch of the coaches around here, I'll ask. Back in the day you had be a "starter" which was pretty loosely defined (for example in football on Senior day basically every senior started and played a series of downs). In track you scored points in a meet, which at a small school wasn't all that tough.
Cross country - Top 7
Track - Run in varsity meets, and meet these times: 4:54 1600, 2:06 800, 10:10 3200. Those times are close to accurate I think.
At my school (small private high school), the 2 competing impulses are to make the letter worth something but also similar to other varsity sports. Every member of the varsity football and basketball team letters, but making bball is hard (plenty of good kids get cut). Football is no-cut at our school, so 35-40 boys letter. But varsity is grades 10 and up, and only the very rare freshman makes the team.
For XC, we bridge that gap by lettering seniors, juniors, and returning sophs based on participation (show up for everything). But to letter early (middle school, 9th, or as a 10th-grade rookie) requires running top 7 in half or more of our meets. Coaches can fudge a little if it's close.
For track, the same thing works for seniority, but you can also letter by scoring 20+ points on the season and/or posting a qualifying time for our state meet. Those almost always correlate. Sometimes a kid who really ought to letter but doesn't quite have the times can sneak in as a weak leg on a relay.
It's really a pain--you don't want the kid running 27 minutes to letter, but then you see the skinny sophomore who never gets off the pine in football or soccer in his letter jacket. But place alone won't work; our 22nd boy would have scored for several teams at our state meet.
Mstew wrote:
Cross country - Top 7
Track - Run in varsity meets, and meet these times: 4:54 1600, 2:06 800, 10:10 3200. Those times are close to accurate I think.
i believe you. but i feel like in hs, 10:10 is a lot harder than a 4:54.
I agree, I ran 4:49 but only 10:16, and considered 32 by far my better event (beat plenty of people in 32 who beat me in 16)
Cross Country: be a scoring runner in a varsity race, or run in 2 varsity races
Track: earn 5 varsity pts. over the course of the season
fwiw: 20+ yrs ago at a relatively competitive xc/track school
Our letter system is a bit weird. You need five points total. You can only get points from running in a varsity race (dual meets do count). You can also get points by placing in the top 3 for any meet in varsity (1 for third, 3 for second, automatic letter for first). Other than that, no other way. Seems a bit faulty in my opinion.