Great Oak ... best high school cross country team ever?

If Sandburg, IL runs to their potential, then Great Oaks will have their hands full. This Sandburg team is one of the best to ever come out of Illinois. They are VERY deep. Great Oaks does not have as much room for error as some think.

As far as the GOAT, I submit York '99, and Deerfield '77 as possible choices from Illinois.

What kind of mileage do your guys run? I'm sure it varies by age, etc.

Coach Soles wrote:

It is always funny to see people try to come up with reasons why Great Oak is good (amazed at the things people said to me at Arcadia last year after our girls won the 4x1600...You are private, you recruit, you run 100+ miles a week, etc. None of which are true.

Ditto re mileage.

North of 60 for majority of top girls?

80+ for boys?

Not judging at all. More power to you if you have kids willing to do it and a community that is open-minded.

George Atlas wrote:

I can't believe any other high school boys team in US history put together a team like Caldwell in a school with only 80 boys grade 9-12. There top six ran 14:58-15:25-15:29-15:45-15:54-16:05.

That is totally awesome. Thanks for the info.

I coach a somewhat large public school for XC (1,400) and at a small public school for track (400).

Both towns are within a few minutes of each other and have similar demographics. I can tell you without a doubt there is a huge difference between the two.

- It is very competitive at the larger school due to team size to make varsity and not so much at the smaller school.

- We are in an easier division at the smaller school giving the illusion that we are just as successful.

- Any injuries are devastating at the smaller school.

- Transfer opportunities to other schools are way more attractive to gifted athletes at the smaller school for purposes of training with athletes of similar abilities and levels.

On a regional level my larger school team is way better than the smaller school. There are years where the small school is able to beat way larger teams but they are definitely at a disadvantage.

Sorry to take the thread off course

Just as a side note about how incredibly good Newbury Park's current team is, Great Oak's 1st runner from this year would've been about 20 seconds behind Newbury Park's 4th runner.

thread archaeologist wrote:

Just as a side note about how incredibly good Newbury Park's current team is, Great Oak's 1st runner from this year would've been about 20 seconds behind Newbury Park's 4th runner.

At the Clovis invite, Great Oak’s first runner for this year was actually 7 seconds behind Newbury Park’s 6th runner.

thread archaeologist wrote:

Just as a side note about how incredibly good Newbury Park's current team is, Great Oak's 1st runner from this year would've been about 20 seconds behind Newbury Park's 4th runner.

Tbf, anybody saying 2015 Great Oak was the GOAT team were just California runners jerking each other off. Literally one year earlier, FM had a better team. NP is still better than both of course, but this Great Oak team was severely overrated by California runners who think times matter in XC and that being from California makes them automatically superior to everyone else.