Why do so many HS coaches treat XC and Track as primarily team sports

My daughter was at a high school when she was ten. She was looking at pictures on the wall and track records. What she was inspired by was the individual names, not the school championships listed. The team she wants to be on is the one the coach inspires all the kids to do the best they can. Why can't the team support each other and celebrate idividual success like they might when the team wins. I feel like team events in track helps hide athletes that can't handle getting beat as an individual. Team events should not be at the same time as indiviual. I would never let my kid run slower in any race so that the slower runners might do better keeping pace with her!

don't care wrote:

My daughter was at a high school when she was ten. She was looking at pictures on the wall and track records. What she was inspired by was the individual names, not the school championships listed. The team she wants to be on is the one the coach inspires all the kids to do the best they can. Why can't the team support each other and celebrate idividual success like they might when the team wins. I feel like team events in track helps hide athletes that can't handle getting beat as an individual. Team events should not be at the same time as indiviual. I would never let my kid run slower in any race so that the slower runners might do better keeping pace with her!

That is unfortunate. Hopefully your daughter will come to learn the character building aspects of the team experience. Our number one girl this year is a great runner and headed to a D1 program next year. She has won conference titles, state medals, and broken school records. As she and I discussed this past weekend, her two favorite moments of high school, team conference title in track and qualifying the team for state in cross country. All through junior high and for a good chunk of her high school career, the teams she was on weren't very good, both in ability and in personality. But as she closes out her career with us, she finds herself on some good teams with wonderful teammates. The highs of winning with the team are better than individual glory. And I say this not from some coach-centered place. This is what my athletes tell me.

Oftenrunning52 wrote:

trackguystill at heart. wrote:

Utter drivel.

Good response. Well reasoned. I'm pretty sure you changed my mind.

Exactly, why waste your time trying to change your mind? You are married to your view. You aren't looking for debate.

I agree that you are an misguided. But that's you. Be the best you can, spread your stuff as widely as you can.

There is plenty of balance in the aether.

Yeah BUT... she has those accomplishments, in an either or situation would she exchange those individual accomplishments for greater team glory? I'd hope not. Otherwise she may not be going to a D1 school on scholarship. Nobody gets a scholarship because their team is good.

Actually she has been lucky enough to have been on two other sports state championship teams. I think that has helped her be such a good individual athlete. I think she likes having total control of her results. I would not fault someone for wanting to do the team thing, but also don't feel like someone who doesn't should be critized. When she played other sports she was know as the biggest team player with always full effort, sometimes to much sharing of the ball. Coaches wanted her to take the shot but she wanted to pass, she didn't want to be called selfish! Her best memory might actually be the national championship she won on her own, sorry.

Oftenrunning52 wrote:

Maybe this is better. Few people have the ability to conjure intrinsic motivation to achieve a goal. Those people are special and usually are the lead runners. Most people can be extrinsic ally motivated to achieve a goal.

I'm guessing there is a lot of eye-rolling in your team meetings. Do you force your athletes to listen to this everyday?

No way. I will give you the XC moment, because there is a reward for an XC team to win a title - they then get to compete at states. Nobody, except coaches, cares about track team titles, and the only ones to remember who won was the coach of the winning team. If she could have one or the other, I'm sure she would have her individual accomplishments.

Team titles only mean something to those that can't accomplish anything substantial on their own.

don't care wrote:

Actually she has been lucky enough to have been on two other sports state championship teams. I think that has helped her be such a good individual athlete. I think she likes having total control of her results. I would not fault someone for wanting to do the team thing, but also don't feel like someone who doesn't should be critized. When she played other sports she was know as the biggest team player with always full effort, sometimes to much sharing of the ball. Coaches wanted her to take the shot but she wanted to pass, she didn't want to be called selfish! Her best memory might actually be the national championship she won on her own, sorry.

I dont doubt she's a team player, but c'mon man.. HER performance is what gets the D1 coach to give her a scholarship. SHE is a good athlete.

I'm all for the "team thing" but it can be WAY over blown. One reason I like XC and track is that if my team mates acted like bums it didnt affect me. I could still win a race even if they were the last finishers across the line.

I agree with some of the last posts. I want to be nice in saying that if my kid wasn't good enough to win, maybe I would care more about the team thing. The team thing seems like age group winning, my daughter realizes there is only one winner in any race!

There should not be High School sports at all. They should only be club-like.

By now, there should not even be public schools.

Runner458 wrote:

No way. I will give you the XC moment, because there is a reward for an XC team to win a title - they then get to compete at states. Nobody, except coaches, cares about track team titles, and the only ones to remember who won was the coach of the winning team. If she could have one or the other, I'm sure she would have her individual accomplishments.

Team titles only mean something to those that can't accomplish anything substantial on their own.

You are clueless. Ever been to a conference/league track meet? The kids go crazy when they win the title. I've been coaching for quite some time, and most of my girls get much more excited when the team wins as opposed to when they win as individuals. Granted, this is only for a couple meets out of the year, but they do certainly love winning the team title.

And winning team titles helps bring out more kids a lot more than winning individual titles. High school kids want to be a part of something special. That's why there are so many terrible athletes on cross country and track teams. They want to be part of the team. And that's why we push TEAM so much. It's high school, and that's what those kids need.

This is exactly right. I have personally found that I am way more motivated when I am on a team that is counting on me to run well than I am when I am training as an individual. However, I do believe that overemphasis on the team aspect combined with dumb coaches can hurt individuals as well as the team itself.

i don't understand either wrote:

I guess I don't understand pack running in cross country either. Could you explain? Are the slower guys somehow able to run faster when the faster guys run slower? If so, is there some physiological basis for the phenomena, or is it just plain magic?

I think generally when people talk about pack running they don't mean that a team's 1-7 run side by side for the entire race. Take this example:

Your team's 6th runner usually finish within 20 seconds of your 3rd runner. However, your 4th finisher likes to take the race out hard, and dies over the last mile. The #3 runner catches him in the last 400m, say. Your 6th runner starts out very slow and picks it up throughout the race, only (nearly) catching up to runners 3-5 in the last 200m. I think you would agree that, based on the results of the race, these 4 runners have roughly the same level of fitness.

The result is ok, in that they all finish pretty close together. But now imagine a race where they stay together at the beginning of the race, running at a pace that is sustainable (not too fast or slow). The effect of having 4 of your guys running together is significant. For every guy that they pass, their team score drops substantially. All 4 guys know that the other 3 guys are there with them, and if one guy picks it up slightly, the others will go with him. This is not true in the first example, because none of the runners are spending much of the race running with their teammates. They might catch or pass them, but they aren't running the same pace together.

Now obviously one can't compare the effect of pack running vs. individual running in the same race conditions, but using the prior example of a race, the idea is that the net finish place of those 4 runners would be lower than if they ran individually.

Again, no one is saying that you should take the individual favorite and make him run with the #7 on the team who is 3 minutes slower, but if your runners are around the same fitness level, pack running can help them push each other without sacrificing any finish positions. Of course, if you hate your teammates or something then there probably isn't motivation to run with them during the race.

First of all, in high school you have a responsibility to all of the kids who come out for your sport, not just the stars.

Second, there are both team and individual aspects of CC and track. If you are a good coach you balance them based on the individuals you have on your team. I think you could come up with plenty of examples of problems caused by coaches who ignore the team aspect of XC and track and put all of the emphasis on 1 or 2 stars. The other extreme where you overrun the top kids to get points in meaningless meets is just as bad. It takes some sort of balance and looking out for all of the kids.

Sorry to be harsh, but if it takes peer pressure to motivate you to perform at your best, then its the reason you are a sub par athlete.

And to clarify, if you aren't running international times, you are a sub par athlete. A hobbyist.

So go run with your friends. Stop half way for some ice cream.

sprintster. wrote:

Sorry to be harsh, but if it takes peer pressure to motivate you to perform at your best, then its the reason you are a sub par athlete.

And to clarify, if you aren't running international times, you are a sub par athlete. A hobbyist.

So go run with your friends. Stop half way for some ice cream.

I'm sorry you had such a poor experience with your team that your view is so jaded. You must have been a fantastic athlete, surrounded by crappy teammates and coached by crappy coaches. I'm truly sorry that your talents had to be wasted in our poor, poor system.

I don't think you truly understand what motivates a large percentage of athletes. Tell you what, go coach a team somewhere, and see how far you get without getting kids to buy in to a common mission. If you think you can get more kids motivated to go out and run during the summer because they might get a PR in the fall, go right ahead. Certainly, there will be some who are thusly motivated, but they are in the minority.

I may have missed someone else pointing this out, but there are two approaches, and a good coach knows when to focus on each one.

When we face our rival schools in a dual meet early in the season, we are not thinking individual, but team. However, as the season progresses, we switch our focus to the individual. We do not get hung up on team scores as much as we look to see which of our kids (or relay teams)can advance in the meets that lead to the state meet. The last month is all about individual performances. The more individuals that you can get into the state meet, the better you will score in it.

You guys have it all wrong. You want each individual to maximize individual performance for the team. You don't never hold people back.

You might have someone who starts fast and fades late in the race try running with a slower teammate the first mile or in the early season practice packing together but come time to race for the title you let them go.

It's not running with each other that maximizes the team's potential, it's when they run for each other.

Steve Martin wrote:

I may have missed someone else pointing this out, but there are two approaches, and a good coach knows when to focus on each one.

When we face our rival schools in a dual meet early in the season, we are not thinking individual, but team. However, as the season progresses, we switch our focus to the individual. We do not get hung up on team scores as much as we look to see which of our kids (or relay teams)can advance in the meets that lead to the state meet. The last month is all about individual performances. The more individuals that you can get into the state meet, the better you will score in it.

No, you didn't miss anything. This is more or less the approach we take, however at a small school in a state without a divisionalized championship, we look at getting as many people into the section divisional and masters meets. My guys will double, or even triple in easy dual meets, treating them as workouts and scoring points for the team. They may run only one or two events at our league championship meet, and then focus on only one at the divisional meet. Last year, the girl I had doing so many events at our league and divisional meet was an exception to the rule, but it was she who wanted to run all of the races. This is her senior year and our girls team is a little weaker, so I doubt she'll load up over the last weeks of the season like she did last year.