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    • Decisions
      • Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 5:20AM
      • Decisions
      • Interesting story.

        Sarah Robinson finished 4th today at the Footlocker Western Regional and qualified for Footlocker Nationals, but declined her invitation because of her commitment to the US national U17 soccer team.

        Either way, congrats to her successes this year... but man, how many people have turned down invites before? Is she the first?
    • xcrunner5
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 7:08AM - in reply to Decisions
      • xcrunner5
      • US national U17 soccer team (especially for women) is far more respected and definetly harder to be selected for. She made the right decision.
    • runn
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 8:00AM - in reply to xcrunner5
      • runn
      • Lol- you're being sarcastic, right? Good one.
        It's her decision. Who knows- maybe she'll become a pro woman soccer player (get the sarcasm there?) while the other FL girls go on to sign shoe contracts after their fully paid for college careers.
    • crinoid
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 9:25AM - in reply to Decisions
      • crinoid
      • I know runners have declined NXN invites, but they did it in order to compete at Foot Locker - our two NXN Southwest winners last year both did this and went on to qualify and run at FL nationals. But I haven't heard of the situation you are mentioning. Hopefully they gave the spot to the number 11 qualifier - that's what the Nike people did at NXN.

        Best wishes to her - sounds like she is a very talented athlete. I'm sure if she is that good at soccer, she will also be eligible for a college soccer scholarship if that's what she wants.

        I wonder when her soccer season is at school? Did she compete in high school xc meets, or was she like Lukas Verz. and just came out to run the post-season meets?
    • Did you know?
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 9:26AM - in reply to runn
      • Did you know?
      • runn wrote:
        Lol- you're being sarcastic, right? Good one.
        It's her decision. Who knows- maybe she'll become a pro woman soccer player (get the sarcasm there?) while the other FL girls go on to sign shoe contracts after their fully paid for college careers.
        Did you know that the top high school soccer players get college scholarships too?

        Did you also know that in team sports like soccer, it's important for scouts to watch players to gauge how they'd fit on the school team?

        She already ran great times in XC.
    • toro
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 9:32AM - in reply to Decisions
      • toro
      • Didn't German Fernandez decline to run indoor NCAA's after setting the indoor NCAA record for the mile?
    • helcul
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 9:35AM - in reply to Did you know?
      • helcul
      • Hopefully its for something important and not just practice.

        Where I live, year round soccer bullies all the other sports starting at U9 with the girls.
    • zzzz
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 9:48AM - in reply to Decisions
      • zzzz
      • I think Jason Balkman won the Western Regional one year, and declined his invitation to go the prom or something like that.
    • Some crazy runner guy
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 10:37AM - in reply to Decisions
      • Some crazy runner guy
      • This brings up an interesting question. How many FL girls go on to have great success in college and the pros? With men the correlation is pretty clear but it seems to me that a lot of the girls who do really well at foot locker are never heard from again.
    • come on now...
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 10:45AM - in reply to Some crazy runner guy
      • come on now...
      • this girl must be legit as hell. Not many people can say they were selected to the "national team" in two different sports.
    • Maradona
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 11:03AM - in reply to helcul
      • Maradona
      • helcul wrote:
        Hopefully its for something important and not just practice.
        Correct. There is a FIFA World Cup for U-17 girls next year and the training camp at the US Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista that begins next week is required for those who want to be on the US team.
    • CoachB
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 11:46AM - in reply to zzzz
      • CoachB
      • zzzz wrote:
        I think Jason Balkman won the Western Regional one year, and declined his invitation to go the prom or something like that.
        Correct. Didn't stop him from a full ride to Stanford and a spot in the oly trials.
    • whatevvvs
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 12:01PM - in reply to CoachB
      • whatevvvs
      • You don't get full ride scholarships to Stanford. The entire mens team splits four scholarships between everyone. The only way you go there for free is if your parents are poor and you are on financial aid.

        Sarah Robinson goes to Gunn High School, where all the Stanford profs' kids and Silicon Valley millionaires' brats go (if they even go to public school). It has the highest suicide rate in the nation of any secondary institution, including 4-5 deaths via kids jumping in front of CalTrain in one year. A lot of kids there are great at a lot of things (pressure, immense resources). She probably thinks nothing of getting 4th at Footlocker West because it just doesn't seem that out of the ordinary.

        BUT...being top 40 in the nation in xc is a lot better than being on the US U17 soccer team, which doesn't include all ages and is really subjective anyway. The girl is built like a runner--stick thin. Does she really think she can make it as a soccer player? Also, it is really unfair to take away a spot to San Diego from somebody else.
    • Zagmom
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 12:24PM - in reply to whatevvvs
      • Zagmom
      • FL did award the 11th place finisher in FL West the trip to the finals.
    • daneite
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 12:32PM - in reply to Hopkinton
      • daneite
      • Looks like that pic is from the famed Crystal Springs course. Props to her for being a badass in two sports!
    • Maradona
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 1:02PM - in reply to
      • Maradona
      • Reality check223 wrote:

        How many girls are on the U17 team?
        The player pool consists of about fifty players, with only about 25 invited to the training camps (and when the final team is selected for the World Cup, it will have about 25 players).

        Note also the Sarah Robinson, a 15 year old sophomore, is playing "up" an age group as she was only recently promoted from the U15 team (the names should technically be "17 and under" instead of "under 17").
    • p[ojihujbknlopiuygh
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 1:50PM - in reply to Maradona
      • p[ojihujbknlopiuygh
      • Considering how fast she is and how she's built she may only be so good at soccer because she's so fast. Emily Lipari, now a sophmore at Villanova played club soccer for a pretty good team all through high school and I had friends/teammates who were mediocre sprinters/middle distance runners who played soccer against her and said she was a mediocre soccer player in terms of actual soccer skills but was able to play at a high level because she was so fast. Lipari is also incredibly tiny, she was around 4'11 for most of high school. The larger players have more power but sacrifice speed. Fast, small players can circumvent the aggression of the large players but as you get to higher and higher levels more and more speed is necessary. A bump from an average sized player to an average sized player won't have much impact but from an average sized player to someone built like this girl is going to hurt. Speed is necessary to avoid the contact.

        I had another high school teammate who played club lacrosse at an elite level but was barely recruited because she was too small to really be competitive on the college level. And she was about 5'5 and probably 120 pounds but all muscle but she only ran high 19s for the 5k in cross and high 2:20s in the 800. If she had been faster it probably would have made up for her size.
    • douglas burke
      • RE: Girl qualifies for Footlocker Nationals... declines invitation 12/4/2011 2:01PM - in reply to p[ojihujbknlopiuygh
      • douglas burke
      • it is not unusual for distance runners to qualify for what would be the biggest event of their life, then decline to take part.


        look at the USA runners who qualified for world xc and turned down the invitation to take part, not because they are injured, but because there is a low key race they would prefer to compete in.

        example the new york 8k and or the jacksonville 15k both races are about the same time as world xc.

        and because of some of our runners lack of competitive heart they pick the race where they are the big fish in a small pond rather than compete with the big boys.