NXN participation by middle school athletes

gobluesasquatch wrote:

Great job by Grace Ping qualifying for Nike Cross Nationals. As a 7th grader, that is truly impressive.

I do wonder, since the NXN participation rules say that an athlete must be in good standing with their high school team and on track to graduate, this creates a discrepancy between states, as not all state organizations allow middle school students to run varsity cross country at the high school level. When I inquired about registering a middle school student in open races, I was told that she would have to be entered into the community race.

Is this the correct interpretation of the rules? If so, does this allow certain states (and teams) to have an advantage over others if a phenom 7th or 8th grader is in play?

Yes, it can be a competitive advantage for certain states.

However, if the purpose of NXN is to determine the top high school team in the nation, then I think the only option is to do the best you can to have those teams consist of the same people who ran on the team during the year. (Note this does not apply for individual qualifiers, totally different ballgame).

bump for relevance

Selective Classification is for kids who would dominate modified (7th/8th grade) competition.

I've been coaching for 15 years and I've brought 3 girls "up" for varsity and they all were in the top 5 of very good teams.

I've never brought a boy up and I don't think I would unless he was older (and more mature) like someone held back in school.

runn wrote:

Selective Classification is for kids who would dominate modified (7th/8th grade) competition.

I've been coaching for 15 years and I've brought 3 girls "up" for varsity and they all were in the top 5 of very good teams.

I've never brought a boy up and I don't think I would unless he was older (and more mature) like someone held back in school.

I agree with this.

If a 7th / 8th grade boy or girl can make a decent varsity squad, they are going to dominate modified competition to the point of it being boring for them. Barring them from HS competition can do more harm to the sport than good.

One of the issues here is that many 7th or 8th grade girls that are fast tend to bonk once they hit puberty, and often cannot run as fast once they hit highschool, soph or junior years.

Might as well get as much use out of them while you can.

There is an unfair competitive advantage. Odd to me a state would allow a JH athlete that attends another school compete at a HS. Even more odd to have it be allowed at a HS "national championship."

Rules like this is what holds back a true national championship. It's a shame.

The NYSPHSAA of New York includes nearly 800 member schools inclusive of 778 Senior High Schools and 802 Junior High Schools. The 50th percentile schools (grades 9, 10 and 11 used for sports classification) have an average class enrollment of 116 students (boys plus girls) per class. The 25th percentile has an average enrollment of 61 students per class and the 75th percentile is 245 students per class.

New York State has many small schools. One reason NY allowed 7th and 8th grade students to compete at the varsity level was through necessity to field competitive teams or even complete teams at the varsity level when female sports participation and teams was basically required by State officials years ago. The process has been a success in NY despite tight scrutiny by the NY State Education Department. Most early skeptics no longer complain within NY. The vast majority of 7th and 8th grade students in NY still compete at the junior high level, have separate coaches from the varsity and practice and compete independently from the varsity. The demonstrated success of a small percentage of junior high students competing at the varsity level in NY could motivate other States to adopt the process. But the reoccurring complaint is the fear of “unfair advantage” within the other State itself.

Because NY has many small schools, many high schools have grades 7 through 12 in the same building or buildings within walking distance. Many larger schools do have separated middle schools and high schools, but some are located within walking distances while others have dedicated bus transport between schools.

Fayetteville-Manlius is at approximately at the 90th percentile, meaning Fayetteville-Manlius is larger than 90% of the NYSPHSAA member schools. At a current sports enrollment number of 366 students per class, Fayetteville-Manlius would be a Division 3 school in the California Southern Section (one of the smaller Division 3 schools).

California does not allow 7th and 8th grade students to compete varsity. That is their choice. Their situation differs from other States. New York, Minnesota and other States allowing 7th and 8th graders to compete varsity are finding positive effects for the students themselves. Nike NXN makes the rules for its own tournament which currently follows the State rules regarding teams. NXN says a student can compete for an NXN team if the student is eligible to compete on the varsity team. In NY, 7th and 8th graders can compete varsity only if classified up by a testing procedure and an independent doctor's agreement.

I think it's ridiculous that a few states get to choose from 6 classes of girls to run at NXN. Even if they couldn't race them at NXN, it's still a major advantage to get to train them 2 years ahead of 9th grade.

Doug Soles of Great Oak was spot on when he was talking about this. California would annihilate New York, Minnesota, etc. if the local junior high girls were allowed to run with the high school team. It wouldn't even be close. It would become the Intergalactic Championship of California at NXN.

In all seriousness, seeing the 7th and 8th graders at Nationals makes me feeling like they are being exploited.

I was there.... wrote:

I think it's ridiculous that a few states get to choose from 6 classes of girls to run at NXN. Even if they couldn't race them at NXN, it's still a major advantage to get to train them 2 years ahead of 9th grade.

Doug Soles of Great Oak was spot on when he was talking about this. California would annihilate New York, Minnesota, etc. if the local junior high girls were allowed to run with the high school team. It wouldn't even be close. It would become the Intergalactic Championship of California at NXN.

In all seriousness, seeing the 7th and 8th graders at Nationals makes me feeling like they are being exploited.

Why is it exploiting them? I am from MN and during my 6 years of cross country there were two boys at my school who ran varsity as 8th graders. One of them was a 10:00 2 miler as an 8th grader and having him race middle schoolers would have been a joke. The other ran like a 17:30 5k to be the 7th guy on cross. We didn't have a lot of depth that year and it was nearly a minute from our 6th to 7th runner.

The coach had them do less intense workouts and run less miles than the guys 4-5 years older than them and I don't think racing varsity hurt their development at all. Neither of them trained for cross during the summer either as middle schoolers. One ran 3x per week at summer captains practice but would often skip runs to play tag or frisbee. The second played premier level travel soccer which in all honesty was probably more intense than highschool cross-country.

The first ran a 4:10 mile and the second ran a 15:50 5k as seniors.

At my highschool there were other athletes who would play varsity as middle schoolers. In wrestling middle schoolers would often be varsity at the lighter weight classes and did quite well. The kid who is on his way to being 6' 175# but is 5'7" 120# as a middle schooler is probably more athletic than the kid who weighs 120 at 18.

The small Catholic highschool in my town even had a quarterback who started 5 years.

I was there.... wrote:

Doug Soles of Great Oak was spot on when he was talking about this. California would annihilate New York, Minnesota, etc. if the local junior high girls were allowed to run with the high school team. It wouldn't even be close. It would become the Intergalactic Championship of California at NXN.

How freakin' daft are you?

Let's just say the two best 8th-grade girl runners in the world happen to be in Great Oak's district... and they were allowed to run with GO at NXN this year... and finished 1-2 in the race...

FM still beats Great Oak by 20 points.

The only thing annihilated here is your common sense.

I was looking forward to going to NXN next year, but now my coach is telling me I will have to attend the open. I can’t even participate in my high school’s cross country team.

I was there.... wrote:

I think it's ridiculous that a few states get to choose from 6 classes of girls to run at NXN. Even if they couldn't race them at NXN, it's still a major advantage to get to train them 2 years ahead of 9th grade.

Doug Soles of Great Oak was spot on when he was talking about this. California would annihilate New York, Minnesota, etc. if the local junior high girls were allowed to run with the high school team. It wouldn't even be close. It would become the Intergalactic Championship of California at NXN.

In all seriousness, seeing the 7th and 8th graders at Nationals makes me feeling like they are being exploited.

On the other hand, it would be a different story if every state had high schools as large as California does. I'm not sure what the answer is here, but California has some advantages of their own.

Can an 8th Grader race

Regional Eastbay Championship race ?

Regional Nike NXN Championship race?

8th graders can race an Eastbay community race, but not a regional championship race

Some states allow 8th graders to race NXR, and some of them don’t

I don't think the 7th and 8th graders that are fast enough to compete at Nationals feel "exploited." More than likely they have taken the sport seriously, put in the work and see the opportunity to compete at the highest level as a celebration of their efforts. Good for them...keep it up!

“Imagine having Destiny Collins as a 7th grader. She would have been up here. She would have been running on the 2010 team that was here. It makes a huge difference”.

How would he know that?

Has he been following her running career since she was in elementary school or something?

When did she start running?