Just don't hold practice on distance run days. The guys can get together and go for a run on their own after school instead of going to official practice. Then they can go wherever the heck they want.
Just don't hold practice on distance run days. The guys can get together and go for a run on their own after school instead of going to official practice. Then they can go wherever the heck they want.
Wise Guy wrote:
And this is not the fault of lawyers. It is the fault of ignorant, freedom hating fools who use scare stories about tort law to ruin people's fun! A decent lawyer would tell you allowing high school XC runners to go for a run around town is not negligent!
But you're missing something. These people are just covering their own asses from any possible lawsuit, even if the chances of it arent great. Why? Because these scare stories about tort law? THEY HAPPEN! Hell here in this state several years ago a javelin thrower jumped over the completely fenced off javelin area at the state meet to run across it and took a javelin in the head. The lawyers sued both schools, the state association, and the kid who threw the javelin, and both coaches. And they won 2.1 million dollars. Despite the fact the athlete that got hit was a javelin thrower, knew the risk and jumped into a fenced off area, anyways. Everyone got sued.
maui coach wrote:
I am a coach in Hawaii, and this past week the state Dept. of Education put out a directive that all cross country training be done on school campuses...
Does this apply to all high school sports in Hawaii or just XC? If it only applies to XC I don't see how any court would enforce the validity of such a clearly discriminatory directive. If it is meant to apply to all sports, does every high school have their own golf course, swimming pool, bowling alley, rifle range, canoe venue? I just looked at what sports the state sponsors on a statewide level and it would seem that these 5 sports would spend a lot of time training/competing off campus, same as XC.
d2xccoach wrote:
Does this apply to all high school sports in Hawaii or just XC? If it only applies to XC I don't see how any court would enforce the validity of such a clearly discriminatory directive. If it is meant to apply to all sports, does every high school have their own golf course, swimming pool, bowling alley, rifle range, canoe venue? I just looked at what sports the state sponsors on a statewide level and it would seem that these 5 sports would spend a lot of time training/competing off campus, same as XC.
No sir, we aren't the cross country team. We're the golf team out on our daily 9 miler for conditioning.
How about offering to run with the team so that they will be supervised and be careful at intersections, etc.? (of course I don't think my cross country coach could have run 400m but maybe if the head coach can't, some local volunteers can sign up to lead the longer runs each week?)
In my case, my school is fine with us running off campus, except my coach seems to like to force us to run on our cross country course. its about a mile loop that he tells us to run an hour on... it is extremely boring.
It's Cross Country, not Cross Campus, for Pete's sake.
maui coach wrote:
I am a coach in Hawaii, and this past week the state Dept. of Education put out a directive that all cross country training be done on school campuses. No road runs, hill repeats, runs for ice cream if you wanted. Nothing but running on campus. Why? Liability of course!
They might as well cancel the sport because a rule like this goes against the true spirit of the cross country. The joy of cross country lives in being able to run free and not be confined to a space like a track.
Is this something that is being done anywhere else? What can be done to stop this from happening?
I'm really, seriously hoping this isn't true. Can you point to some web-accessible resource documenting this? I tried doing a search on my own but could not find anything.
Furthermore, I'd love for someone to get the connection between overregulation of every aspect of life and the increasing cost of doing everything. Little wonder we're dealing with massive federal and, often, state deficits. We can't afford to keep everyone safe from themselves.
Unfortunately, this is very true. Nothing can be found online because it was just handed down from the state. I asked my AD for the official memo and he couldn't even give me that. It was just a verbal directive.
Thank you everyone for your support. At this time I plan on having scheduled non-practice days. In the meantime, if you'd like to tell the Superintendent of schools in Hawaii what you think, her e-mail address is:
Parents, parents, parents. Have the parent of every xc runner in the state call the St Dept of Ed and complain. Threaten to vote NO on school budgets unless it's changed.
To the Hawaii coach - curious where your kids usually run? Are there off-street trails, parks, etc where they run? I can imagine a directive like this coming out of the big city where there is a lot of traffic, etc. Have your runners ever had safety issues while out running? Do they run from the school, or do you bus them to practice? Just curious. We are in a very rural area but I've often wondered what city kids do to practice.
We run on sidewalks generally throughout town. It is a city but not with the amount of traffic as on Oahu. We also run at parks and around the school. We have never had any safety issues, and there have been no other issues in the state in the 7 years I've been coaching. It only takes one mistake to ruin it for everyone else though. The latest word is a kid got hit and his parents are suing...you know how that ends up.
Another case of the cure being worse than the disease. I teach and coach. From a safety perspective, I'd much rather take my chances running off campus than on. Sure, there are elements of risk in both, but school carpools are nuts.
maui coach wrote:
Unfortunately, this is very true. Nothing can be found online because it was just handed down from the state. I asked my AD for the official memo and he couldn't even give me that. It was just a verbal directive.
Thank you everyone for your support. At this time I plan on having scheduled non-practice days. In the meantime, if you'd like to tell the Superintendent of schools in Hawaii what you think, her e-mail address is:
kathryn_matayoshi@notes.k12.hi.us
Sent
Parents can fix this but parents also make the problem. They sue when anything happens - and they sue everybody they can, including the school. There was a girl from my HS that got hit and spent several months in a wheelchair, and the family sued the crap out of the person that hit her. Unfortunately, it was probably our school's insurance that ended up paying the bill, and boom, the rates go up if kids are allowed to run off campus.
Parents of kids need to be willing to pay for the extra insurance coverage their kids receive for running off campus. There is serious money that gets thrown around when an accident happens... if you expect to be insured when you get hit, you better be willing to pay for that insurance.
JoeShmoe wrote:
Parents can fix this but parents also make the problem. They sue when anything happens - and they sue everybody they can, including the school. There was a girl from my HS that got hit and spent several months in a wheelchair, and the family sued the crap out of the person that hit her. Unfortunately, it was probably our school's insurance that ended up paying the bill, and boom, the rates go up if kids are allowed to run off campus.
Parents of kids need to be willing to pay for the extra insurance coverage their kids receive for running off campus. There is serious money that gets thrown around when an accident happens... if you expect to be insured when you get hit, you better be willing to pay for that insurance.
That's makes 0 sense. You contend that pedestrians need to take out insurance policies to protect themselves from negligent drivers? Assuming the negligent driver was insured and the students parents didn't sue the school district, why would the school's insurance pay for anything? I suppose it could be used to supplement the parents possibly deficient insurance but the same would be true if a wide receiver went over the middle and landed wrong on his neck. Anyway your post is confusing.
mike mayhem wrote:
In my case, my school is fine with us running off campus, except my coach seems to like to force us to run on our cross country course. its about a mile loop that he tells us to run an hour on... it is extremely boring.
I get off on that sh/t. I did a 12 miler yesterday that was just 6 loops. And I do all my tempos (and their warmups) and long runs on this 1 mile stretch of road. Never get lost, never not know how far to go (i know the .25,.5,.75 marks.
Sorry to semi hijack your thread Maui coach, but does anyone have any more ideas for a coach being limited to morning, campus only workouts due to the 110 plus heat down in Texas? The reason for the AD/Superintendent passing the rule isn't traffic/liability in the usual sense, but fear of overheating while off campus.
The only thing I could think of is to have the kids get a few runs each week on their own in the evenings, while using schedules practice time in the pool or doing shorter repeats around campus. Any other suggestions?
stuff wrote:
That's makes 0 sense. You contend that pedestrians need to take out insurance policies to protect themselves from negligent drivers? Assuming the negligent driver was insured and the students parents didn't sue the school district, why would the school's insurance pay for anything? I suppose it could be used to supplement the parents possibly deficient insurance but the same would be true if a wide receiver went over the middle and landed wrong on his neck. Anyway your post is confusing.
But the parents likely DID sue the school district. That ALWAYS seems to happen. It happened in one school district here a few years ago. They had an open campus policy and a girl coming back to school from lunch where she left got into an accident and the parents sued the school as well as the other driver in the accident. And they won. And now the district is closed campus.
Can you go run on other school campuses? All of the teams on the island can rotate through the schools.