D2 Poll Coordinators...... DO YOUR JOB!!!

uhhh, polls really don't matter since how you run at the end of the season determines your rank so quit wining and run.

*whining

calling it a job would imply that you got paid for it, which they don't.

Take it easy, I'm sure they got a million things to do in addition to their VOLUNTEER duties as regional or national poll coordinators.

if you volunteer to do the job, then DO IT.

the new national poll is up on raceberryjam.com no change in the top 15 .... chill bro

i wouldn't get your panties in a wad about it this week. if you were really paying attention, you'd prolly figure out that not too many teams of consequence raced this past weekend. i realize that you probably just need something to whine about for the day. i mean, i can understand if you want to see if you cracked the regional top 10. oh, i was wondering...do you run for commerce or east central, because it'd be hilarious if you did. the only rankings that matter will be what happens at nationals anyway.

What if I did run for East Central or Commerce?

i'd wonder why you were making such a big deal out of this.

I'm the unfortunate soul who has been stuck doing the Men's National polls this season. If you want to be critical of the volunteers who spend hours of their own time each week doing a job that most other coaches want no part of, then I hope you are volunteering 3-4 hours each week towards something positive, because if not... you have absolutely nothing to whine about. This week I didn't receive all regional polls until Tues and Wed (earlier today). Monday was a holiday and some schools were shut down, so a few coaches had a hard time getting them in by Monday. Another coach was married on Sunday and his assistant had forgotten to send in the rankings for him. But the bottome line is, we all are donating our individual time to get the job done.

Before starting as National Poll person I felt like I knew the DII scene as well as most coaches and I still do... but every Monday morning from 7:30am until at least noon I spend my time sifting through results from around the nation trying to make some sense of who should be ranked where... Who rested a top guy?, Who ran where?, It's really an impossible task taking 8 lists of 10 teams and putting them in perfect order of the top 25.. All we can do is guess.

As someone said previously, it's all about what you do on that day in November. To be honest I've not addressed our team on any rankings this season. Because we know that they don't mean a thing.

It's your right to write what you want on these boards but realize that we're doing all we can to get things done and it's all coming out of our own time.

Well, the polls really don't mean a whole lot...there are some teams that really aren't very good (hmm, Ferris for the women's side) that are ranked higher then teams much better than them (for instance, Southern Indiana, Hillsdale, Wayne State, to name a few I know about). I am sure there are teams deserving of a ranking as well that are neglected. When it comes down to it, the rankings mean ABSOLUTELY nothing. There are teams ranked that won't even get out of their regional. I am sure it makes some people happy to see there team listed on a scrap of paper, but that is all the enjoyment they will get out if the rankings because they won't go to nationals.

It's wrong to say these polls "don't mean anything". In the context of really figuring out who are the best teams in the country then yes, only November matters. Why these polls matter is because they are one of our only chances to get mainstream print coverage on the sports pages. Who is ranked in the polls that get published doesn't mean much. It's the fact that The Anytown Daily Gazette prints a poll once a week in the sport pages that matters. It's one of the small things that helps with the long-term health and viability of our sport.

I've helped out with regional rankings in the past. You would be amazed at how much time it takes, even in the internet age when you can find most results online. Unfortunately, a lot of coaches make it hard for the people who do the polls. Out of the 30 or so teams in our region I always found that about 5 of the coaches were great, sent results in timely, participated in preseason polls. Another 10 or so coaches were ok, usually sent stuff in. The other half of the coaches you never heard from-no preseason info, no preseason rankings, just no help at all.

Here's one thing I can't figure out about polls in our sport...Why do we (mostly) go by "supposed" strength of a team, rather than pure results? Is there any other sport who does rankings who tries to take into account when a school does not have all their athletes compete? Basketball, for example, if UConn has a couple starters with minor injuries who get short minutes in a game and they lose, would they drop in ranking? Of course they would. So why with our sport do we do all this "shoulda coulda" to try to figure out how the rankings should go?

In my opinion, the weekly rankings should reflect actual team performance. You race somewhere, you compare the results to other races, you rank the teams. If Big State U doesn't run their top guys until October 1 and they do so-so in the September Invy's then so be it, rank them down. If Little College races everybody full-bore from the beginning of the season and does well, ranke them high. November comes around Big U is going to get the hardware, but at least you can rationalize the week to week polls with some actual results to back it up.

they're finally up; interesting for my region.

Coach Towne,

I guess I overreacted. The point that you are volunteering your time was brought to my attention and I really appreciate that you do that. I appreciate what you guys do and was just disapointed to wake up this morning and not get to have my weekly entertainment.

I am a little curious from looking at the rankings how Augustana could be in the top 25 nationally but not in the North Central Region. I guess this is probably the fault of the regional coordinator as Augie is a quality team. I do think there could be more cooperation on the part of regional coordinators. Sorry I jumped on your case, we all appreciate what you do and good luck to your team at nationals.

d2xccoach wrote:

Here's one thing I can't figure out about polls in our sport...Why do we (mostly) go by "supposed" strength of a team, rather than pure results? Is there any other sport who does rankings who tries to take into account when a school does not have all their athletes compete? Basketball, for example, if UConn has a couple starters with minor injuries who get short minutes in a game and they lose, would they drop in ranking? Of course they would. So why with our sport do we do all this "shoulda coulda" to try to figure out how the rankings should go?

The reason is that in other sports, each game matters in getting towards a playoff, or bowl game. There is no such thing in cross country. All that matters is sending out a team to perform at there absolute best on a certain day in November. Each individual is different on a team as to what that will take. Some need to race more, some not as much. Sometimes, big, deep teams can't take all their kids to one race because of the starting line. How many times have you seen a "B" team entered in a race. That doesn't happen in other sports.

It's not a problem. To be honest I'm glad that people are interested in our polls. As an assistant coach back in the day when we were struggling to get ourselves on that 25 I used to be plenty critical on the poll coordinators, but having done the job myself I now understand how challenging a job it is. As for the Auggie situation and even the other squad that I bumped above the regional recommendation, I just felt that they weren't ranked quite fairly. Auggie beat Duluth @ Griak and ran solid in Willamette. They then were dropped from their regional top 10. I felt this was undeserving and moved them up accordingly. Emporia also looked much better last week than their regional ranking would suggest, so I bumped them up as well. To be honest, it's gonna be one heck of a battle in Indiana across the board. I'm always open for constructive comments if someone feels that a team is better than they're ranked. Just present me w/ results and info and I'll take it all into consideration. This is what I'm asking of our regional reps each week and I'm getting help from some, but not others. Enjoy the season!

Thanks G Towne, I think you're doing a really good job and it's the regional coordinators that are causing most of the problems.

Has GT taken it upon himself to ignore the regional poll coordinators rankings?

Why is Augustana (unranked regionally) in the top 25 ahead of numerous other squads?

Why are East Central and Missouri Southern (ranked #3 and #4 regionally) not ranked nationally while Emporia (#5 regionally) is ranked nationally?

I have to agree with the coach who says polls are an important part of getting some attention for programs that do not get much press during the year. Being ranked in the top twenty-five might be the only accolade all year for a team from a strong region...say the 7th best North central team...that isn't going to win a meet or make it to nationals.

I'd already answered your question if you read above. . .

If I had to guess, i'd say they got in the top 25 by having a team average just 9 seconds slower than Edinboro at Willamette, and since Edinboro is ranked 19th it'd be hard to place Augustana too far behind them.