help dedicated HS runner run unattached at HS meets by signing this petition

sickofit wrote:

but a lot of coaches do low mileage high intensity for cross country such as flying 30s.

This is from the OP. Does anyone really think he isn't a troll. I think you would have a hard time finding A coach for whom flying 30s is a staple of his/her XC training methodology.

The fact is that no high school state association will let you compete in state meets without your high school backing you. It is a high school team event not just a meet for individuals who are in high school. It would be the equivalent of letting some random person who is in college but not on a college team compete at NCAA nationals. If you don't want to be part of your high school team, that's fine. Just realize that you cannot compete in high school meets.

And you have been putting down D-II (and likely D-III) athletes. I am not trying to be mean, just straightforward with my next statement. If you look at your times, and you are Junior it appears, you are no where close to good enough to be a contributing member of any D-I team and would have trouble with even running with the back of the lowest level D-I teams. You best PR appears to be just over 5:00 1 mile time earlier this year. The difference between your time and a lower level D-I time is not just good coaching. With the rare exception, any D-I middle or long distance track runner by the end of the junior year can easily go under 5:00 for the mile and that would not be dependent on training.

I am not saying to give up. If you want to run in college, keep trying but find out the best school for you academically and overall wise. D-II and D-III schools can be very competitive. Do not make your decision based on track as your major decision. You are not good enough for that and that is true for the majority of high school runners who want to run in college as well.

I want to clear the air on this situation since I see a lot of people offering their opinions, without knowing every detail.

First of all, Matthew, Michael, and Brandon are normal kids with normal lives and ambitions, except for one thing: they all share an UNBELIEVABLE DESIRE TO BE THE BEST THEY CAN BE.

Brandon was a middle school champion following a very well designed program with his father. His dream is to run at Oregon. He ran 15:33 as a freshman at state XC, finishing only behind a certain Andres Arroyo (not before being injured earlier in the season due to school coach). This track season, after being injured from a plyometric workout the day after a speed session with school coach, wanted to train with his dad for the remainder but was given an ultimatum from school coach: train exclusively with the team, or never compete for high school again.

Michael possesses the most dedication you will ever see in a high school athlete, mixed with good talent. He had no real background in the sport before high school, and went from being only capable of 19 minutes in the 5k as a freshman, to running 15:57 for 10th at state XC as a junior after only one year of light, INTELLIGENT training (after injury from training with school coach). Michael wants to run under coach Mark Wetmore at the University of Colorado.

Matthew followed the school coach for the year that Michael followed his own training, and being an identical twin to Michael with the exact same genetics, posted a season best of 16:58, over one minute slower than Michael. After dealing with a potassium deficiency, Matthew now follows more intelligent training and will see good results very soon.

So to the posters saying suck it up and deal with the poor training: Would you put up with it if you knew that you would sacrifice your high but attainable goals that you could never reach with such poor training?

Would you try to make the situation with the school coach work, as these athletes did for season after season, sacrificing good results and proper training to satisfy a coach's ego?

And to those saying that these athletes are not team players I will tell you this: these athletes are like family to their teammates, and all of them will admit not only to this but to the fact that NONE OF THE TEAMMATES HAS ANY PROBLEM WITH AN ATHLETE DOING HIS OWN TRAINING.

This last sentence was important because, the school coach cut these runners for the reason that "everything is about the team, and runners must run my training with the team to show that they share this goal."

But we can see the real goal is not the success of the team but THE SUCCESS OF THE COACH'S EGO.

One only needs to look within the same city to see Marcin Bracy, world indoor 60m silver medalist, who trained with a personal coach Ricky Argro throughout his high school career, winning multiple state championships for Boone High School. Did his school coach cut him because he wasn't a team player?

Or farther south, Connor Ferrentino, 4:17 as a junior, whose dad was a former champion and still trains him without any care of the school coach?

Anyway, I posted this long reply not to make myself waste time, but so that people could see that these are normal kids who were faced with a tough choice and will have to sacrifice the joy and memories of competing alongside their teammates at future cross country and track meets. There will be no competing for any state or local titles for them.

This is all so that they can be the best that they know they can be, and maybe if college coaches don't reject them thinking that they are not willing to be team players, they will get to run in college alongside their teammates, with GOOD TRAINING, ADMINISTERED BY THEIR SCHOOL COACH.

LM wrote:

sickofit wrote:

but a lot of coaches do low mileage high intensity for cross country such as flying 30s.

This is from the OP. Does anyone really think he isn't a troll. I think you would have a hard time finding A coach for whom flying 30s is a staple of his/her XC training methodology.

Flying sprints were a staple of my XC coaching program.

You missed a perfectly good option #3. It usually doesnt work, but if there are a decent number of students that have a the same problem with the coach, you get them, your parents and the other athletes parents and bring this up with the school administration, and/or school board.

But as for "The coach can't be that horrible or he would be replaced."...having worked in public schools for years, many public schools will put up with a rather large amount of incompetence. Particularly if said coach is a teacher. And often the administration can have no idea if said coach is incompetent. Many athletic directors dont care one bit about the bottom tier sports like cross country and golf and tennis.

The admins know just about as much about running as a freshman football player

OP is the result of a Florida Public School System. Why am I not surprised based on his first post?

sickofit wrote:

I want to run at the state series which is where most colleges look for athletes

Well, this is BS. Coaches have access to the internet (milesplit, etc.) and mostly care about PRs...if you set one in a league championship meet, that's fine with them. Coaches don't ignore everything and then just start paying attention to the state meets. Any coach that does that is going to miss out. I'm privvy to one D1 talent right now who didn't get to run in Districts even because many of the others on the team also have D1 talent, and they had better times going into districts. Can only put 2 in a 1600 or 3200.

I guess I have a different understanding of the situation than you. As I understand it, the guy is leaving the team and competing on his own. Maybe I missed a later post, but just based on the original post, I don't see how he is "trying to dictate to [his] coach [his] terms to remain on the team." He's leaving the team, not trying to remain on it.

He most likely won't be allowed to run in school association meets, but there's no harm in asking.

OP,

Dude, not trying to be rude, but I just read that petition, and let me tell you, you need to spend more time on your English classes than you are worrying about running. That is honestly one of the worst pieces of writing by a high school student I have ever read. Bad grammar, incomplete sentences, incorrect punctuation usage, wrong words, run-on sentences. Even the small part at the bottom to James Colzie is a mess.

Is this a joke? If so, then 10/10

I fear it isn't though.

People will take you more seriously if you write something that shows you took some time. That is really, really bad.

I've just glanced over this 3 page thread so excuse me if I didnt catch every little thing.

Some how I seriously doubt that if the two or three of you and your parents had a face to face meeting with the coach and AD and explained that you wanted to train on your own BUT you still want to represent your school, that he wouldn't be reasonable.

aquafina wrote:

I've just glanced over this 3 page thread so excuse me if I didnt catch every little thing.

Some how I seriously doubt that if the two or three of you and your parents had a face to face meeting with the coach and AD and explained that you wanted to train on your own BUT you still want to represent your school, that he wouldn't be reasonable.

No way. Most states limit the amount of participants in the state meets to XX amount per team (from 2-4 per event). If I am the coach and AD, I take people from my team and put them in those spots. I don't use up those spots with people who decided that they would only join me for the meets. In addition, it sets a dangerous precedent of allowing people to only show up for meets.

Now that he has posted something on Letsrun and formed a petition on change.org, in both cases putting down the coach, why would the coach be willing to listen to what the runner has to say?

If there is a serious problem with the coach, let the school know and have the administration try to take care of it. It may or may not work, but trying to be a part of the team only when you want, outside of extremely exceptional circumstances (and this is not one), will not work. You will not be able to practice on your own and then run in state meets.

Obviously teams are limited at the state meet, but I have to ask, if you have a great athlete why would you care how or who he trains with as long as he/she wears your jersey and scores points for you?

It sounds like you are more worried about control than what may be best for the athlete.

"The fact is that no high school state association will let you compete in state meets without your high school backing you. It is a high school team event not just a meet for individuals who are in high school"

Do you think no one on this site has been to a state track meet? Yeah, no $hit you dont just show up at the state meet ready to run.

If the coach really isn't a "real" track coach he shouldn't have a problem with the kid(s) coming to practice and running work outs provided by a private coach. It's a win-win.

He gets his kids to track practice.

He gets the points they score at meets.

He doesn't have to make a workout schedule.

They get to compete.

They get superior training.

I fail to see an issue here.

You think 5:00 for a mile by a HS male makes a great athlete? Ouch!

By the looks of her profiles I bet your mom could be very... persuasive with the coach.

No. That is not true at all about control.

How is it fair for the people that have been showing up to practice and working with the coach to have someone just show up at meets and run then? You will wind up losing a number of others on the team that way.

As a side note and not wanting to focus on this, if you look at the 3 runners times, 1 appears to be a very good runner who has improved each year including this year and went sub 2:00 this year, 1 appears to be ok (4:45 or so 1600) and improving, and 1 is 5:00 for the mile and improved this year to that. Of those, you can consider 1 of them a great athlete.

There are other runners on the team who look to be improving over prior year's races as well that are better than the bottom 2 runners by some of their track times. It also appears that the XC team improved as a whole from last year to this past year. Is the coach really doing that poor of a job if he has improved the team from 7th to 3rd in the state meet in 1 year?

As I said, there are exceptional circumstances but not liking how the coach conducts his practice is not a legitimate reason to have someone just run meets.

I do not want to represent the school i want to be able to compete unattached

Ok. Well then go back to my previous statement that both Aquafina and geetar made fun of me for even making and everyone agreed with me (but you it seems) - You need to be part of the high school team to compete at the High School State meet.

Look at it this way. There is an organization called Florida High School Athletic Association. Most high schools in Florida are likely part of it though there is a good chance that some schools are not (those schools that accept post-grads for example). The FHSAA sponsors a meet at the end of the year to determine the champion of its members. Those schools that are not part of the association are not able to participate because it is a closed meet. A notable recent runner from NJ - Cheserak who runs now for Oregon is an example of this because St. Benedicts accepts postgrads. For the same reason, the meet cannot accept unattached runners.

I assume that the Association's bylaws prevent anyone from participating who is not a member of a team from an eligible school. It's not something that a director can override. The schools in the FHSAA voted for this.