Middle School XC Question - re punishment

Are you insane, 200 pushups for a middle school kid? I hope this post is just s troll. I hope you're not a teacher in the district and/or in NYS, they'll bring you up on charges.

Did you ever think maybe the kid was sick, having a bad day, skipped lunch, ate 2 lunches, you get the idea? How about a more gradual behavior mod program - 3 strikes and you're out kind of situation - with graduated "punishment"? The word punishment alone makes me worry about you as a coach of young kids, which is what middles schoolers are, kids. It should be fun in middle school, not militaristic. And dont give me all that crap about we're going soft on our kids, the nation's going to hell in a handbasket, etc. This is middle school for chrissakes. Talk to the kid, encourage him, even run with him, inspire him/them, have fun, don't focus on punishment, what the hell is your problem?

Yes, you are crazy. Your system is barbaric. The kid doesn't *owe* you anything.

Teach these kids to want to run. Use positive, not negative reinforcements. Praise the kids who put in good effort publicly, so that every kid wants to do well.

Also, as a middle school coach, isn't your primary function to teach these kids the fundamentals of the sport, team sportsmanship, and a love for running?

Threatening the kids who are struggling with punishment is not how to get them where you want them.

Talk to this kid. Find out what's going on. Maybe he hates X-C. Maybe a parent forced him to turn out. He is young. Help him figure out what makes him tick.

You could end a lot of kids running careers prematurely with this sort of negative system, which is sad for your community's high school program.

1) Why did he walk? If just lazy or tired, then you have to implement your punishment since you've established that. If an injury or a cramp, then no.

2) Your SLOWEST girl runs 2 miles in 16 minutes? Man, that's pretty decent for a middle school team. Go to any middle school 2 mile race, and easily way more than half the girls in the race run slower than 16 minutes. Here's an example of that -

http://www.baumspage.com/cc/picknorth/classic/2011/JH%20Girls.txt

(174 girls in the race and had to be in the top 53 to get under 16 minutes). Do you cut runners?

3) I'm not a big fan of punishments for not running. Runners should have some pride, and walking unless injured or working out a cramp shows no pride. I would just make clear right from the first meeting with athletes and parents that walking when you're supposed to be running is NOT training and that it is not acceptable.

While I am not the biggest fan of this form of encouragement/punishment, but I think without some extenuating circumstances I would just not let him run. If you have a policy, stick to it.

I would maybe have the policy be: Do 200 pushups or miss 1 meet. If it happens again, 200 pushups or miss 2 meets.

You sir, have a huge problem. The biggest issue is that you don't even see it. This is MIDDLE SCHOOL correct? Middle school, where a coach is supposed to increase the love of running, not scare them away. Wow.

you sir are one of two things...either 1) a super-duper troll...OR...2) the worst coach on Earth

#AreYouSeriousBro wrote:

you sir are one of two things...either 1) a super-duper troll...OR...2) the worst coach on Earth

I would concur except that he claims to have all his middle school girls running sub 16 for two miles. He may only have two girls, though.

The kid isn't struggling. He can run 7:30 pace for 2 miles. Asking him to run 30 or 40 minutes without walking isn't a big deal. Every day before practice I ask for kids to let me know if they have any nagging injuries. Just yesterday I had one girl sit out completely and another cut her run short. This kid just plain wasn't trying.

I actually have a decent team. I've got more than a dozen girls and my top 7 are under 7:00 pace for 2 miles. Top 5 average just over 6:40 pace. My boys aren't quite as good, but still better than average. There are about a dozen boys - top 5 averages just under 13:00 for 2 miles.

The goal I have is not to have kids who think it's okay to walk. It's not. It's a huge problem with the high school kids.

200 push ups isn't too Draconian. It's obviously a punishment, but it's not fair to the team to have a kid be the 5th runner and hurt everyone when he runs like crap on Saturday because he doesn't try during the week. Due to a couple of boys being absent this week this kid will be my 5th or 6th runner. He's been doing this for a long time. I know because he hasn't been improving much even though he's got enough talent to run much, much faster AND everyone else is improving drastically.

The biggest problem I have is not necessarily walking. It's lying about it and doing it when I've explicitly said not to. The other boys that had to do push ups were told to do a cooldown after we did a few half mile repeats. Instead they just walked back to where we started because they thought I wouldn't know. Guess what? After that the three boys have all improved immensely. One boy went from running over 15 minutes for 2 miles to being close to breaking 13. Another went from running 16 minutes to just over 14. The other one went from 15:00 to under 13:40.

Sure I'm a hardass, but I see the high schoolers slack off and people underperform and it's frustrating. I'm not a yeller or a screamer, but I have expectations that they know about. I don't think it's crazy to expect a 14 year old to run for 30 minutes when they're told to. It's no different in my mind than a MS basketball telling a kid to go shoot 50 free throws and then see the kid playing a game on their phone. Pretty sure the kid would get in trouble.

I'm certainly open to other ways of doing things (not this year though, it would be unfair to other kids for him to get to complain and get out of it).

I guess I should make it clear that it's not just a no walking policy. I know kids are out of shape sometimes. It's more of a "I told you to do this and you chose not to do it" rule. It's not like a fat kid has to take a walk break during a run and I go up and scream at him to keep running. It's a kid that can easily run, but waits to get out of sight and then walks around. Think more "bad influence" rather than "fat kid" in this situation.

Lighten up Francis. They are freaking middle school kids.

Realize that with this kid in particular, you are at a point where you can either motivate this kid for running or potentially RUIN the experience for him and have him hate the sport for the rest of his life.

The answer is simple. Judge your success by how many of your middle school runners keep at it throughout high school and beyond. If that is your goal, it isn't long until you should realize your pushup policy is misguided.

Do what it takes to turn this kid onto the sport.

Mtn Dew,

I have disagreed with you more often than not over the years but I support you here. I will suggest that you really need to talk to a parent so get on the phone. If the parent supports you, no problem. If not then make them sign a note saying he doesn't have to do the pushups and let everyone know the note is the only reason he isn't doing them.

Next year you need to break your kids into 2 groups, the ones that "ran" in the summer and the ones that didn't. As the races start you can promote some for fast times and demote some for infractions. The only difference between the two groups is that one gets to run out of your sight and the other has to do their miles as circles around wherever you are or even running in place for an equal time.

There is no need to punish anybody for slacking off. Just sit him down and talk to him. XC is a completely voluntary activity. Nobody is making the kid run. He signed up for the team for some reason. Find out from him what his individual goals are (if he didn't have any, he wouldn't show up in the first place).

During the conversation, he will (with your help) come to one of two conclusions. 1) His actions aren't in line with his goals and he needs to step it up. 2) He doesn't actually want to be running either because his goals aren't in line with what the team is all about or because he's not willing to put in the effort to reach his goals and he'd be better off doing something else with his afternoons and Saturdays. Following the conversation, you can expect him to either stick around and be a part of the team or find something else to do with his free time.

Mojo Jerkin wrote:

The answer is simple. Judge your success by how many of your middle school runners keep at it throughout high school and beyond. If that is your goal, it isn't long until you should realize your pushup policy is misguided.

Do what it takes to turn this kid onto the sport.

Last year only 5 varsity boys for the high school broke 20 minutes at the state meet. The 6th runner on the team was one of my 7th graders and he ran 19:30. This year there are 4 freshman under 20 minutes thus far, all of which ran for me last year.

Every single runner I've coached has gone on to run in high school. Granted, my program is very new, but so far so good.

A little perspective:

There is a very good high school program minutes away from my school. They are consistently one of the best programs in the state. They also have a terrific MS program. I have a girl who ran there last year. She said that one workout last year involved SEVEN mile repeats. They also cut kids. If a kid misses a practice they must show up at 6:30am on Sunday to make it up. If they miss more than 2 practices a year they are kicked off the team. The mother of my runner who ran there last year says she loves how laid back we are. We do have a laid back program in many ways. I let kids miss practice as long as they have worked it out ahead of time. My #2 girl only comes twice a week because of soccer. My #4 boy comes once a week. I give them popcicles once a week after practice. The only thing I really ask of them is that when they are at practice they give their best.

>LP+PI&_*F( wrote:

Next year you need to break your kids into 2 groups, the ones that "ran" in the summer and the ones that didn't. As the races start you can promote some for fast times and demote some for infractions. The only difference between the two groups is that one gets to run out of your sight and the other has to do their miles as circles around wherever you are or even running in place for an equal time.

That's a great idea. I let kids join the team up until before the 2nd meet (after Labor day). I'm big into participation. My goal is to have kids come out and give it a try. I've only had 2 runners come out to practice and not stick with it. Never had a runner not run the next year.

A couple of my better runners didn't show up until right before Labor Day. But doing what you said would allow them to move out of the slacker group. I'm going to implement that next year.

You are being too soft. Kids dare to walk your workouts? Let me tell you that either you are a joke as a coach or a joke as a man. You should emane respect, and make kids want to run just because they want naturally.

And 200 pushups as a punishement? Why don't give them some money for punishement, I don't see the difference. What's 200?

[quote]Mtn Dew wrote:

Last year only 5 varsity boys for the high school broke 20 minutes at the state meet. The 6th runner on the team was one of my 7th graders and he ran 19:30. This year there are 4 freshman under 20 minutes thus far, all of which ran for me last year.

/quote]

This makes no sense for several reasons:

Reason 1: Unless you are in the worst state ever, no team with 5 boys under 20 would make state. Unless of course by under 20 you really mean that there were 4 boys under 18 and one in the high 19s.

Reason 2: You said that only 5 runners broke 20 but the 6th runner ran 19:30. Last time I checked, 19:30 is under 20.

I'm also confused as to why it's okay for a girl to cut the workout short but not for a kid to walk during the workout. Is the walking really worse than the stopping? Why didn't the girl have to do 200 push ups?

I've seen lot of middle school kids. I coach high school. High schoolers are stronger than middle schoolers. Most high schoolers can't do 200 pushups. No way you make your middle schoolers do this.

whatajoke wrote:

This makes no sense for several reasons:

Reason 1: Unless you are in the worst state ever, no team with 5 boys under 20 would make state. Unless of course by under 20 you really mean that there were 4 boys under 18 and one in the high 19s.

Reason 2: You said that only 5 runners broke 20 but the 6th runner ran 19:30. Last time I checked, 19:30 is under 20.

I'm also confused as to why it's okay for a girl to cut the workout short but not for a kid to walk during the workout. Is the walking really worse than the stopping? Why didn't the girl have to do 200 push ups?

I've seen lot of middle school kids. I coach high school. High schoolers are stronger than middle schoolers. Most high schoolers can't do 200 pushups. No way you make your middle schoolers do this.

#1 You are not familiar with cross country in the South. It's incredibly easy to qualify for state in XC where I live. In fact, in some sections you only need a team - they take the top 3 teams from each section and some sections only have 3 teams. That boys team with 5 high schoolers under 20 actually finished in the top 10.

#2 MY 7th grader was 6th on the team. He ran 19:30. The guy behind him was over 20:00. He was a 7th grader. 5 guys were ahead of him, ergo only 5 high schoolers broke 20.

I've got a couple of girls with little nagging injuries. One missed two days of practice earlier this week and so I cut her short on Thursday to make sure she was good to go for Saturday. Another girl took the day off completely because her feet have been bothering her. The girl that didn't run at all did circuits while the other kids ran.

It is MUCH worse for a boy to walk because they are lazy and dishonest than for a girl to cut a run short (with permission from me ahead of time) because she's being careful about injuries.

You're right about the 200 push ups. The form gets pretty awful after about 50 or 60. I even let them do the last set or two on their knees. The point is not the number, it's the fact it's supposed deter kids from walking. It generally does.

Here are the results from last year's Mississippi 4a XC championship:

http://ms.milesplit.com/meets/80898

Notice of the 21 teams that made it to state 11 (otherwise known as a majority) did NOT average under 20 minutes for 5k.

In fact, in Mississippi, the majority of schools that went to state didn't have 5 guys under 20:00. Yeah, it's Mississippi, but many other states are in a similar boat.