Bronxville AD seeks clarity as departed star Mary Cain's eligibility comes into question

This is ridiculous. These "state officials" are scumbags if they are actively trying to prove she was/is ineligible. It makes me sick when there are people actively trying to ruin the sport with this type of nonsense. Hopefully she or her team won't have to worry about it.

Is training with boys the only issue? And why is that even an issue?

A lot of girl's train with the program's boys team nowadays.

Headline should say: AD Pretending to Justify Six Digit Pay Check.

1. The girl doesn't want to run there, 2. the AD will make sure Miss Cain is eligible to return, IF Miss Cain wants, so the AD can get more interviews.

And if boys training with girls is an issue, why have Title IX. Equal opportunity, right?

This is a non-story. Journalism is dead.

I wouldn't direct the attack at the AD. She is just responding to an inquiry from the state. She did not initiate anything. It is her job to ensure that the program is running cleanly. That is just as important as renting buses.

You are correct that it is a non story. The association and the AD are simply doing due diligence based on the scenario presented in the RT article. Just basic admin stuff. It's no reason for any public outcry.

I also agree that there is nothing wrong with girls training with boys. If you have two 4:30 milers, why can't they train together?

The Bronxville High School AD is exercising due diligence. This is what she must do. She does this in the best interests of all Bronxville runners, including Ms. Cain. Ms. Cain remains a student at Bronxville High School and deserves this protection, as do all runners at this school.

Stater of the Oblivious wrote:

Headline should say: AD Pretending to Justify Six Digit Pay Check.

This.

The story doesn't make any sense, which is either the reporter's fault, the AD's fault, or most likely both.

The eligibility question comes from the Runningtimes.com piece that game some the impression that she had left the boy's team and was training on her own. There appear to be rules about attending school practices and being supervised by school coaches in order to be eligible for school competition. So, if she wasn't at least going through the motions of being supervised by the school's coaches, there could have been a problem.

It appears, from the sketch information available, that everyone has been following the rules, so there shouldn't be a problem. I think the questions arose over the difference between who is writing her workouts and who is supervising practice. The AD had to make sure he had answers to the the state org's questions, should they be asked.

IMHO, just let the girl run. OTOH, the AD, state org, and coaches do have to follow the letter of the law.

(I can only imagine that the rules are in place to keep ball-sport players from practicing w/ outside teams and just showing up for the games. It makes sense to have "if you want to play in the game, you have to come to the practices" rules on the books. I'd just prefer that the reporters do their research and publish ANSWERS instead of stories like this one. HEADLINE: "Questions raised about running star's eligibilty" STORY: "She's fine. Everybody followed the rules."

If I were a high school coach. I would be asking questions too. She shouldn't have any eligibility now within the high school ranks.

Salazar is a professional Nike coach. Even though Nike doesn't seem to be paying Cain yet. She is still receiving benefits that a "normal" high schooler can't. To me she is a professional runner now.

She shouldn't be allowed to run in high school races. Thus she shouldn't be eligible for NXN or Footlocker. Both races require you to be eligible for your own high school association in order to race them.

ridiculous. let her compete with high schoolers and get the best training possible. this would be ideal, right? don't be a dick. stop crying and support US distance running.

If she is being trained like a professional by a professional, she should run against professionals, not other high school kids who are trained by high school coaches.

By that logic Jim Ryun should have been ineligible to run the Olympics in 1964 and to run any high school meets in Kansas because he trained with Bob Timmons over the summer of 64 after Timmons had taken a job as an assistant coach at Kansas.

Timmie was no longer Ryun's high school coach and actually went from Wichita to Lawrence to train for the Games.

Thanks for the history lesson old timer, but the question is, how is it fair for a high school kid who has resources that exceed those of all other high schoolers to be competing against other high schoolers? She is no doubt an exceptional talent and is seeking to cultivate that talent to the fullest. I don't think anyone would say that's wrong. But now that she has taken the step to run at the highest level of the sport (professional/Olympics - they are one and the same), she should be running with/against peers, not high school kids. And why would she even want to run against inferior high school talent anyway?

Then any high school runner that utilizes an athletic resource outside of his high school should be ineligeable unless the same resource is available to all.

Eligibility wrote:

If I were a high school coach. I would be asking questions too. She shouldn't have any eligibility now within the high school ranks.

Salazar is a professional Nike coach. Even though Nike doesn't seem to be paying Cain yet. She is still receiving benefits that a "normal" high schooler can't. To me she is a professional runner now.

She shouldn't be allowed to run in high school races. Thus she shouldn't be eligible for NXN or Footlocker. Both races require you to be eligible for your own high school association in order to race them.

The Cains will pay Salazar for his services so she remains an amateur.

Safe to say, she will end up at Oregon as a college athlete

For those of you who think Mary Cain should keep running with high school girls.

http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=3689&do=videos&video_id=49172

Start at about 06:40 of the video of her June, 2011 800m relay leg (58 second first 400).

Jayhawk wrote:

By that logic Jim Ryun should have been ineligible to run the Olympics in 1964 and to run any high school meets in Kansas because he trained with Bob Timmons over the summer of 64 after Timmons had taken a job as an assistant coach at Kansas.

Timmie was no longer Ryun's high school coach and actually went from Wichita to Lawrence to train for the Games.

Eligibility for high school and eligibility for the Olympics are different. Today, Ryun WOULD be ineligible for NCAA competition (and probably most HS leagues too) if he was coached by an NCAA coach while he was a high schooler.