malmo wrote:
Your coach sucks and he doesn't understand his mission.
That's not the sport that I signed up for.
A coaches mission is to make guys better in what events they choose to run. Even the steeplechase. Yet you are documented on here calling out coaches who keep guys in the steeple despite them not running to their talent level in the flat events YET. Seems like a disconnect to me.
come on dudster wrote:
malmo wrote:Your coach sucks and he doesn't understand his mission.
That's not the sport that I signed up for.
A coaches mission is to make guys better in what events they choose to run. Even the steeplechase. Yet you are documented on here calling out coaches who keep guys in the steeple despite them not running to their talent level in the flat events YET. Seems like a disconnect to me.
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In XC all participants run the same race, the same distance, the same course, at the same time. A XC coach coaches all runners to be the best over 5k in grass, mud, snow, etc (typical of HS XC in the USA). In track, it is the coach's job to coach each athlete to run best in the event in which the athlete shows the most talent, promise, desire, or combination of those which produces the best results. If a kid can smoke a 1500m and even a 5000m but is a dud in steeple, after several tries, then it is also the coach's job to advise the athlete that his talents lie elsewhere and to pursue them.
satchlite wrote:
Unless you have 100 guys that can break 23 that first day, this policy doesn't make sense to me. Anyone that comes to practice should be on the team.
If there is no cut or threat of cut, then it more really a social club and not a competitive team then isn't it.
Maybe just a social gathering.
And you guys are the same ones who complain running isn't taken seriously as a sport by the media and general public.
That is because we have 6 hour marathons who claim they ran a marathon and cross country teams that are really just social clubs or after-school day care.
Maybe cuts aren't the sport you signed up for Malmo but when a 250 lb 5'10" man introduces himself to me and says his hobby is running marathons, then that isn't the sport I take part in either.
'You should be doing everything in your power to get more kids involved in running, not scare them away'
Agree
Sometimes the ones at the back turn into the best runners as well
The Stache wrote:
If a kid can smoke a 1500m and even a 5000m but is a dud in steeple, after several tries, then it is also the coach's job to advise the athlete that his talents lie elsewhere and to pursue them.
Why? What if the kid loves steeple? A dedicated coach could continue to improve the athlete and match both the athletes interests along with the best interests of the program.
The vast majority of 8th graders won't run a single step over the summer. There's no reason to cut any kid who can't run XX:XX on the first day of practice.
Most kids who aren't improving over the course of the season will wind up cutting themselves.
come on dudster wrote:
The Stache wrote:If a kid can smoke a 1500m and even a 5000m but is a dud in steeple, after several tries, then it is also the coach's job to advise the athlete that his talents lie elsewhere and to pursue them.
Why? What if the kid loves steeple? A dedicated coach could continue to improve the athlete and match both the athletes interests along with the best interests of the program.
The best interest of a track program is for the limited number of participants, this ain't XC, to get as many points as possible.
malmo wrote:
My college team was one of the top programs in the country. We let anyone come out for cross country if they wanted. All they had to do is show up every day. They became the so-called "F-Troop". One of the F-Troopers is now the CEO of Nike. With your elitist standards he wouldn't have been allowed to try out for the team.
Well Malmo you try coaching a team of sixty by yourself, with 40 guys on the team who just wanted to be on a team and didn't practice for it because they is not cuts. You know much time that leaves me for the dedicated one's who want to improve? Not much, I am spending my time babysitting rather than coaching and the only ones who benefit from that is the parents of the one's I'm babysitting and their kids who just want to claim to be on a team.
Had one very talented runner quit and go to a private school because I didn't have the time to give him the attention he needed to get better, because I was busy making sure my pack of walkers didn't get run-over or lost.
Limited coaches and a no cut policy isn't fair to the kids who take the sport seriously.
113 wrote:
trololol wrote:honestly his only reason why that he said, was that he does not want to be the team at invitationals where one of his runners gets last. Thats all he freaken said.
That's cowardice and insecurity, pure and simple.
It also means my use of the term "jerk" wasn't strong enough. Hell, even with that attitude towards racing you could say only kids under 23 minutes get to race.
I hate knowing this worthless excuse for a human being is associated with running.
I hate knowing this worthless excuse for a human being is associated with running.[/quote]
worst part is its his second year coaching, and he never ran before he started coaching.
'Limited coaches and a no cut policy isn't fair to the kids who take the sport seriously.'
Are there really going to be 100's of kids turning up?
sad state of things wrote:
Had one very talented runner quit and go to a private school because I didn't have the time to give him the attention he needed to get better, because I was busy making sure my pack of walkers didn't get run-over or lost.
I don't believe that at all. Not believable. Other factors must have been involved, and you just created your own interpretation of the events, if they ever occurred.
If all they want is to be part of a team, they're hardly going to make the effort to show up everyday, spending hours on a sport they don't/can't appreciate. And if they do make that effort, they're just as deserving as the next guy of the coach's time.
sad state of things wrote:
Limited coaches and a no cut policy isn't fair to the kids who take the sport seriously.
I've coached over 40 without an assistant. The kids that need the least coaching are the ones that are the most motivated. That being said, I can feel some sympathy for the coach in question. Getting kids to run over the summer can be a really, really tough proposition. There have been times when I've wanted to tell kids not to bother coming out for the team.
As a matter of fact, I hand wrote a long letter to my #1 runner this past summer (who had been running 0-1 times per week during June) telling him that unless he got his butt in gear, I didn't want him on the team. He ended up PRing by close to a minute this year and helping the team qualify for the state meet. I made a copy for his parents as well.
Making a blanket statement about running an arbitrary time by the first day of organized practice is not a very good motivator and hopefully your coach will figure that out. It is 100% true that he will turn away a potential varsity scorer. I have a boy on my team now who came out as an over weight freshman and couldn't break 22 min for our pre season 2 MILE time trial. He didn't take the sport that seriously as a frosh and didn't run track. I was pretty surprised when he showed up for our team meeting in May of his frosh year. To my surprise, he dove into summer training. He posted the 4th or 5th highest summmer mileage total on my team and ended up running 13:10 for a cross country 2 mile as a sophomore. During track as a sophomore, he got his 2 mile down to 12:30 and mile down to 5:36 before developing pneumonia in early april. He missed about 2 weeks of training and when he came back, he was way weaker than before his illness. He got to run a couple of dual meets after returning, but was pretty slow. He didn't make the cut for participating in our league finals meet, but one of the kids no-showed on the morning of the meet and I was able to put him into the 1600, where he dropped a 6 second PR to go 5:30.
Last week, I took my experienced kids out to the hills for a 9k uphill run with a total elevation gain of about 1500 feet. I was running with my guy up the mountain (because he was last and I was kind of acting as the sweeper). About a mile from the top, we see one of my top guys totally laboring. My former fat kid who couldn't break 22 min for 2 miles goes surging up the road and catches my good runner, passes him and drives on to the finish only a few minutes behind the first finishers. I believe that this kid will continue to improve and maybe even make our varsity top 7 this season.
This kid would not have made the cut by your coaches standards
DoctorWatts wrote:
If all they want is to be part of a team, they're hardly going to make the effort to show up everyday, spending hours on a sport they don't/can't appreciate. And if they do make that effort, they're just as deserving as the next guy of the coach's time.
Exactly. If your coach spends his time working with the kids who SHOW that they actually want to improve, then more kids will show that they want to improve.
It is really easy to make a attendance requirement and if kids flake or goof of, you can cut them then.
first off, i would NEVER give such a coaching mandate in my life.
however, there are some possible things defensible in his position:
1) limited resources: this is the reason most colleges, as well as other high school sports, don't have an all-comers mentality. i'm not sure, other than tradition and the occasional anecdotes of "losers who later were fast," why our hallowed sport got its "everyone's entitled" attitude. i'm not saying that attitude is wrong--in fact, it's exactly the reason i became involved with the sport as an athlete (that, and i was no good at anything else), and it's exactly the reason why i still love coaching the sport--but it is, for the most part, strangely unique to our sport, at least in high school. not many would criticize a college coach for holding this standard, nor do many criticize a high school basketball coach for making cuts based on talent. why do we criticize a h.s. cross country coach then?
2) liability: every year i'm amazed i get through it without a lawsuit for negligence. is there any other sport where we give our athletes so much unmonitored workout time? would any other sport get away with what we do? what would happen to the football coach who says "practice these tackling drills on each other while i go work with the jv team on another field." if one of the athletes got hurt the coach would be accused of criminal negligence; yet, when my athletes are out on a 6 miler navigating down streets with no sidewalks, taking liberties with traffic signals, is there any way i can watch all of them? no. i do my best to monitor them, but i can't be everywhere, and i'd hate to run every mile around the track where i can see them (which is essentially what almost all other sports do relative to their "field"). am i being criminally negligent? i'd hate to find out in a court of law...
3) failure as the best instructor: while malmo has an excellent example of why you don't want to cut athletes ("the next ceo anecdote"), and while i may like that more talented athletes can be influenced by less talented but hard-working athletes (given the choice, i'd rather coach a less talented hard-working team than a more talented lazy team), you could argue that by keeping some of these athletes in a sport where they have little chance for athletic success could be keeping them from pursuing something they COULD be successful at. think of the guys you know who could not give up "the dream" (any dream), or hung on to the pursuit (any pursuit) longer than was healthy. i know more of them than ceos...
again, i'm not trying to justify this coach's position because i certainly do NOT agree with him, but most are going to make judgments based on common assumptions and presumptions that have little rationale behind them.
socalcush wrote:
again, i'm not trying to justify this coach's position because i certainly do NOT agree with him, but most are going to make judgments based on common assumptions and presumptions that have little rationale behind them.
The only question is whether we jumped the gun on believing the details of the original posters experience.
Everything you said is true, there are reasons why you might have to limit team size "I don't want to have the last runner at the invitational." isn't one of them.
ukathleticscoach wrote:
'Limited coaches and a no cut policy isn't fair to the kids who take the sport seriously.'
Are there really going to be 100's of kids turning up?
In some areas, absolutely. Some schools will have more than 100's of boys alone, and when you add in the girls as well... that number can get quite high.
That being said, though, with the average school having a little over 1000 students, you'll often get closer to 30-60 runners (boys + girls combined) per school.
come on dudster wrote:
A coaches mission is to make guys better in what events they choose to run. Even the steeplechase. Yet you are documented on here calling out coaches who keep guys in the steeple despite them not running to their talent level in the flat events YET. Seems like a disconnect to me.
What the hell are you yammering about?
socalcush wrote: you could argue that by keeping some of these athletes in a sport where they have little chance for athletic success could be keeping them from pursuing something they COULD be successful at.
If you feel that athletics is something that is a distraction and should only be reserved for people who have a chance for success, then you definitely have an unhealthy outlook.
Athletics is an enhancement to the educational experience. It is not a substitution for it. That applies to all levels of achievement.