McFarland HS set-up to fail, misses State meet for first time in 24 years

I agree.

Divisions should be based on school size, not wins.

J.R. wrote:

I agree.

Divisions should be based on school size, not wins.

Even though you are a complete tool, I also agree.

I don't understand why they don't restructure the Southern Section. It was a ridiculous size when I was in HS 15 years ago and it's even worse now. Sac Joaquin? LA Section? SF and Oakland Sections? They should all be more even rather than Southern Section versus basically the rest of CA.

Actually, all Sections are free to determine divisions anyway they wish. The Central section is the only one that chooses to determine its divisions in the way that it does. The rest of the sections determine their divisions based on school size.

As someone who's repeatedly gotten their butt whooped by McFarland in local invitationals, including my first ever XC race my freshman year, I think this is complete bull crap and teams are moving around all over the place in our stupid division.

[quote]old CE Runner wrote:

http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/11/27/4258210_boogaard-central-section-alignment.html?rh=1

McFarland HS (soon to be of Disney-fame, along with their state and national accolades), has fallen victim to restructuring by California's CIF Central Section. The section is the only one in California able to restructure the divisions not only based on the traditional school size like the rest of the state (and colleges), but by wins as well. So over the years, the school of 770 has gone from Div 4 to Div 2, and was competing at Div 1...until they were knocked out by three schools 4x their size, missing their first trip to the State meet in 24 years. This would be okay if the school had a say to move up to get better competition, but they've essentially been moved up until they couldn't win anymore, and are now losing out on making it to the CA State XC meet, where they might have gone in Div 2, Div 3 or Div 4. Those kids are being punished for working really hard. For some of those kids, it's the only way to get college coaches to see them run, and that equates to missed opportunities out of rural California.

You shouldn't force a school to move up if they don't feel they're ready, and for ANY school in California, racing at D1 is racing some of the highest caliber teams in the country. They may do well as a team against schools their size and even those a little larger, but at a certain point statistics will take over and they will struggle against large schools.[/quo

I agree. Public schools should be placed based on school enrollment. I too feel sorry for McFarland. They have none of the private school funding. They should be allowed to go back to their school enrollment division.

Some one start a petition to KEVN COSNER to make this right!!!!!!!!!!!

What is interesting is coaches vote against this rule and yet it gets upheld by their section commissioner. They have 770 student and race schools 4000 plus.

They would be fighting for a podium spot every year in the rightful division. (D4)

You wod think if they want the best teams in d1 why not just say the top divisional team in that race advances to their rightful division at state. If you're a D4 racing D1 awesome, the sections can preserve and run their regional meet however they like. But they can advance how they want too. Personally it's the rich white large Clovis schools trying to keep the Mexicans from winning.

Really onld guy wrote:

Actually, all Sections are free to determine divisions anyway they wish. The Central section is the only one that chooses to determine its divisions in the way that it does. The rest of the sections determine their divisions based on school size.

This is the case.

In the sac Joaquin section, we have a tiny private school that seems to exist just to recruit the best basketball players from a 3 county region as well as bringing in international recruits periodically. They have been moved up to d1 for hoops with a student population under 200.

Big difference with them and a public school that can't recruit, though.

It is what is wrong with the CIF Cross Country Meet. Each Section determines its own divisions based on whatever it chooses to. Then you go to the State Meet, and compete against schools much larger than you. The CIF needs to set divisions based on school size across the state! Period. Let every school compete against schools its own size.

The Donger wrote:

Personally it's the rich white large Clovis schools trying to keep the Mexicans from winning.

CIF wrote:

The CIF needs to set divisions based on school size across the state! Period. Let every school compete against schools its own size.

This is how it was done before, but then at the section level there would be vast differences in the number of schools in each division. For example, the Central Coast Section might only have 10 schools in Division 1, but 40 in Division 3. The sections wanted the ability to improve competitive balance at the section level. Unfortunately, this reduced competitive balance at the state level. Whether you agree or not, most administrators preferred to have better balance at the section level because that impacted more participants.

I've heard the idea of reseeding after the completion of the section meets. The problem with that and the issue people have with state wide CBEDS in general is that you no longer have a geographic state meet. D1 would essentially be SS part 3 (trials/finals/state) with a handful of new teams.

One idea for the central section if they want to have equity divisions (which it's not... Large rich Clovis schools vs. a small farming community) put McFarland in your D1/Sweepstakes race. Then have a bylaw that the first team for their respective division in the sweepstakes race qualifies in their rightful division. Or at least merge results then rank qualifiers

Another issue here is the CIF rewards section with additional team qualifiers for top 10 finishes. This is the biggest issue in my opinion. SS deserves their qualifiers, probably more. But you can't reward sections for top 10 finishes when there is not an equal playing field.

It is an imperfect system and currently set up the best way possible in my opinion. You must preserve the section meets. That said everyone is doing it right but one; the central section is whacko.

You also just hit another issue. When a Section has a "poor" showing, meaning no team in the top 10, they will run the risk of spots being "taken away" from making it to the State Meet. So you equal the level of the playing field at the Section level, and kids either don't get to run the State Meet, or get beat by bigger teams. And I understand that the Section is trying to equal the race numbers, but at what cost?

CIF archaeologist wrote:

This is how it was done before, but then at the section level there would be vast differences in the number of schools in each division.

Which worked fine, with equity, and no problems at all.

For example, the Central Coast Section might only have 10 schools in Division 1, but 40 in Division 3.

Fine, no problems with that.

most administrators preferred to have better balance at the section level because that impacted more participants.

You mean balanced as far as the same number of schools in each section, which is unimportant, vs no longer balanced with equity, which is the important factor. The system needs to be changed back to the way that it was balanced before, by school size.

equity vs theory wrote:

CIF archaeologist wrote:

This is how it was done before, but then at the section level there would be vast differences in the number of schools in each division.

Which worked fine, with equity, and no problems at all.

For example, the Central Coast Section might only have 10 schools in Division 1, but 40 in Division 3.

Fine, no problems with that.

most administrators preferred to have better balance at the section level because that impacted more participants.

You mean balanced as far as the same number of schools in each section, which is unimportant, vs no longer balanced with equity, which is the important factor. The system needs to be changed back to the way that it was balanced before, by school size.

Then how about the situation in some sections where there were only one school in a particular enrollment division? Does that school then automatically make the state meet?

The "real" solution is actually to reduce the number of divisions, then each section would have a reasonable number of schools in each division even with statewide enrollment divisions.

My league rep just sent an e-mail to the coaches in our league looking for input. I guess the next section meeting will have cross country division size on the agenda.

Too much money involved to ever see any reduction in divisions.

Principals, section commissioners, etc. want to preserve their section meets. That will never change. The CIF will need to make modifications at their level, not the sections.

The system did not work with state divisions. That's why there was a change. The first change they need is team qualifiers by CBEDS only. The performance thing is a broken formula.

I wouldn't mind seeing the state go back to uniform division sizes.

From a purely selfish standpoint, it would help my section's d4 teams. Right now, our section's CBEDs range for D4 is from 501-1150. Southern Section has a d4 cap at 1500. This means that there is a 250% difference in size between the larges possible SS team at state and the smallest possible SJS team at state.

At a CBEDS of 740, we are less than half the size of the SS teams at state we could potentially face.

McFarland, BTW has a CBED of 770 according to coach White. They were running against D1 schools at their section meet with populations near 4,000.

On a totally different note: I and my kids got to spend about 15 minutes talking with Coach White at the state meet. What a down to Earth guy! Totally unassuming. My wife wasn't really sure who we were talking to, so she asked, "are you the guy Kevin Costner is playing?" he just kind of smiled and nodded. I think he looks a little more like Clint Eastwood, but he said Eastwood was way too old to play him. My only kid who made state this year had been watching the McFarland trailer religiously, getting himself psyched up for the meet, or whatever. He was totally speechless the whole time we were chatting. I am still kicking myself for not getting a picture of the two of them together.

He was pretty cheesed off about having to be in D1, but he said something really powerful that all of my kids (we brought down the varsity squad to cheer on our one kid) heard. He said, "Even in D1, we still should have made it....our guys just didn't run enough over the summer".

I asked him, "How much do you think your kids should be running over the summer"

He said, in a slow, laconic manner "oh....about 80".

Every one of my kids heard that. I've been struggling to get these guys to 500 mile summers. Then they hear White say "80" and it was....Bang. I think a few lights went on for my kids there.