BREAKING: Top prep school, North Central, Wa gets in trouble for recruiting
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Outside of distributing DVD's outside of the school distict and breaking a by-law why the ruffles feathers? How is this any different than wanting your kid to go to a school that fares well academically or that has a great trades program??
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I believe coach Knight is a decent person and good coach. I do find it hard to believe he had no knowledge of coach Long passing out DVDs and fliers to elementary and middle school boys.
Coach Long gave me a DVD and bunch of copied articles about NC XC success at an all city XC meet when my son was in middle school a few years back. When I told him we lived outside the school district he suggested we could move.
Personally I don't have an issue with his actions, but they are technically in violation of WIAA rules. I don't know of any NC runners who used false addresses, or were financially supported by booster to go to a "diploma academy" like Bellevue football. Even so I don't think the punishment is unreasonable. Coach Long was nearing retirement anyway. In retirement he may be free to continue promoting NC XC outside of WIAA scrutiny. -
This doesn't really strike me as something that should be considered a serious recruiting violation, but I'm not sure what the point of breaking the rule was. It seems like a well-managed Facebook page and team website could put their videos in front of way more prospective athletes than passing out DVDs.
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There are some seriously butt hurt people on this thread. Are you really upset a successful coach who has a history of getting kids college scholarships is actively letting kids, who may not know otherwise, they have a successful program? It's not like he gave out 100 dollar hand shakes.
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Cheeplestase wrote:
Also, I saw that Len Long retired yesterday after all of this happened.
Sad. I always liked Len Long, and I ran for a rival HS. Is it possible he didn't know what he was doing was breaking the rules? -
Simplemanted,
I think the important thing to think about in this thread is that when there are rules in place and some teams follow them and some teams do not you end up a major advantage for the teams who are not following the rules.
An example for our program is a rival program went out and recruited a top female sprinter out of San Diego when she was an 8th grader to come up and go to their school. She ran well for them and got a scholarship and was very happy at the school. All good things right? The downside is that we ended up losing the league title to them each of the years she was there by a handful of points. Take her off their team and they aren't even close to us. That one act of recruiting won't them 3-4 league titles they shouldn't have had and stole them from our athletes who went to our middle schools and worked hard to run for their school.
Interestingly enough, we ran into that girls parents when she was a 9th grader at the state meet. We had a pleasant conversation with them and asked them what was behind their decision to move from San Diego to our area and they were very open that the school had people at the youth meets that encouraged that school and even invited them up to check it out. They didn't even realize that what they were telling us is that they were recruited to the school. CIF doesn't do anything about it, which pretty much means we could do it too. You know why we don't? Integrity. That's a powerful word and one that I believe many great coaches in our country believe in. The ones that don't make it a lot harder for those of us that do. I know the program that beats us using other people's athletes has no remorse and will continue to get as many athletes into their program from other schools as they can.
At the end of the day are you a person that steals a $500 bill in Monopoly when playing with your kids and they aren't looking or do you play fair and let the game play out? Win at all costs or test yourself to see how good you actually are at something. Anyone can win at monopoly if they steal enough money from the bank. Anyone can win at track if they steal enough athletes from other teams. If someone comes to Great Oak, they aren't coming here because I recruited them. Winning that way is empty, like cheating at Monopoly. It doesn't test how good you really are.
Can someone from NC address the rules changes that occurred recently that caused what was legal before to now be illegal? I think that would help people understand this particular situation better.
Doug -
Doug,
That's a great argument, but didn't address what I said. You go to high school for an education and set you up for success in your future. No athlete was stolen because she didn't go to GO. She went to another school, for whatever reason, and it worked out for her. Good for her. Sounds like the decision worked out well for her. I think trying to separate the athletic element of the scholastic experience is silly. 4 years from figuring out what HS we are going to, sports plays a nearly exclusive role in figuring out where you are going to college if you are a top athlete. You are in a unique situation. You are a non-apathetic coach helping kids. For every one of you, there are ten terrible high school coaches who can't develop talent and do little to further the sport. We want to pretend that a coach deserves to coach a kid just because he happens to coach in a certain district. There is no way you can seriously tell me that is fair to the kid. What if I told you that you could no longer coach XC and you would now be reassigned to rugby and you simply had to do it because your administration told you so. Would you seek out another job somewhere else where you could be successful, or just do what someone else determined was good for you? I hate when I see kids get screwed because they have to sit out a year of school if they leave after their coach takes a new job somewhere else. How is that fair to the student athlete? We live in a free market society. People should be able to make informed decisions and do what they feel is in their best interest. Could you imagine if Destiny Collins lived in a school district where the coach had never developed a girl under 20 minutes for 5k and we were robbed of enjoying the experience of watching her run those amazing high school times? -
Simplemanted,
I think you are bringing the viewpoint of the parent/athlete which is good. I was bringing the viewpoint of coaches. We should follow the rules. We should have integrity and be able to hold each other accountable.
Your points from a parent or athlete standpoint are very valid. I see athletes all the time and know they would do a lot better in another program. That to me is on the parents and athletes to find the right fit for their kids. I'm sure athletes have and will move to great oak to run. My point is they are not doing so because I am recruiting or people think we have some amazing open enrollment helping us which we do not. I do not encourage people to recruit for our program or send them to youth meets to try to secure more talent so we can stay on top. What I do try to do is get as many incoming great oak kids out for the sport as I can and develop them into champions.
So yes I agree with pretty much everything you said. Parents and athletes should do right for themselves and pick the schools or programs that fit their family need just like the would for college. To me the difference is whether or not certain coaches are directing kids to their program against the rules, while others are not.
Doug -
I don't think anyone doubts your integrity. Your program is national class because you a) are one of the best high school coaches/organizers in the country and b) you have a ton of talent finding its' way from the hallways to cross country practice. I had the pleasure of watching your team in person a couple times this year and it was exciting to watch. Keep up the good work.
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lovely turtles wrote:
Does mean that in your league, freshmen can do no organized running before the start of the school year?
Runners gunna run wrote: In Califiornia public and private schools all must follow the CIF rules (state) and section rules. In my league coaches are prohibited contact with freshman until the first day of school. That is more restrictive than public schools which can contact once enrolled in the school.
Yes. In fact we are allowed no contact. If they email the coach we aren't allowed to answer. We forward to the AD in which they say "check the website for freshman tryout dates."
This makes us not only look bad but also we lose a lot of kids who try out for other sports or just never come out.
To top it off freshman can not start on the official start date, but must wait until the first day of school about 2 weeks later.
All that is fine, but her another school gets to start in June it's a big disadvantage. -
Coach Soles wrote:
Simplemanted,
I think the important thing to think about in this thread is that when there are rules in place and some teams follow them and some teams do not you end up a major advantage for the teams who are not following the rules.
An example for our program is a rival program went out and recruited a top female sprinter out of San Diego when she was an 8th grader to come up and go to their school. She ran well for them and got a scholarship and was very happy at the school. All good things right? The downside is that we ended up losing the league title to them each of the years she was there by a handful of points. Take her off their team and they aren't even close to us. That one act of recruiting won't them 3-4 league titles they shouldn't have had and stole them from our athletes who went to our middle schools and worked hard to run for their school.
Interestingly enough, we ran into that girls parents when she was a 9th grader at the state meet. We had a pleasant conversation with them and asked them what was behind their decision to move from San Diego to our area and they were very open that the school had people at the youth meets that encouraged that school and even invited them up to check it out. They didn't even realize that what they were telling us is that they were recruited to the school. CIF doesn't do anything about it, which pretty much means we could do it too. You know why we don't? Integrity. That's a powerful word and one that I believe many great coaches in our country believe in. The ones that don't make it a lot harder for those of us that do. I know the program that beats us using other people's athletes has no remorse and will continue to get as many athletes into their program from other schools as they can.
At the end of the day are you a person that steals a $500 bill in Monopoly when playing with your kids and they aren't looking or do you play fair and let the game play out? Win at all costs or test yourself to see how good you actually are at something. Anyone can win at monopoly if they steal enough money from the bank. Anyone can win at track if they steal enough athletes from other teams. If someone comes to Great Oak, they aren't coming here because I recruited them. Winning that way is empty, like cheating at Monopoly. It doesn't test how good you really are.
Can someone from NC address the rules changes that occurred recently that caused what was legal before to now be illegal? I think that would help people understand this particular situation better.
Doug
I'm not from NC or even the GSL, but my understanding is that Spokane School District's Open Enrollment policy is new (maybe a couple years old now)? Perhaps that was the rule change. -
NW XC Fan wrote:
http://www.nwprepsnow.com/stories/2016/jun/07/north-central-boys-cross-country-team-placed-on-pr/
Crazy. I always wondered how they remained on top. Their the Bellevue HS (Wa) of XC.
FM is New York does the same thing -
What's great is the cat fight occurring in the comments between current/ex-runners at NC, parents, et al., at The Spokesman-Review website:
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/jun/07/north-central-boys-cross-country-team-placed-on-pr/
Good job by all to demonstrate the behaviors that led to this issue (i.e., immaturity, win-at-all-costs mentality, rationalization of unethical actions, etc.). Definitely a class program. -
lovely turtles wrote:
Does mean that in your league, freshmen can do no organized running before the start of the school year?
Runners gunna run wrote: In Califiornia public and private schools all must follow the CIF rules (state) and section rules. In my league coaches are prohibited contact with freshman until the first day of school. That is more restrictive than public schools which can contact once enrolled in the school.
At my school, the XC coach had the captain call the new runners, so technically no violation was committed. -
retroncxc wrote:
What's great is the cat fight occurring in the comments between current/ex-runners at NC, parents, et al., at The Spokesman-Review website:
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/jun/07/north-central-boys-cross-country-team-placed-on-pr/
Good job by all to demonstrate the behaviors that led to this issue (i.e., immaturity, win-at-all-costs mentality, rationalization of unethical actions, etc.). Definitely a class program.
Interesting that you take that point of view.
From what I read on there...
92% of the members of their WIAA XC Championship runners over the last 10 years (re: 5-6 of the 70, counting each athlete for every year meaning that a 3-year varsity athlete was counted 3 times) was from within NC's boundaries. They also mentioned 3 athletes (who totaled 6 WIAA XC Championship appearances, meaning they are the only ones that were not from within the school boundaries): Austen Frostad, Ryan Frostad, and Oliver Reed.
Austen Frostad: Probably didn't go to NC for XC and Track (was a baseball player his freshman year).
Ryan Frostad: Younger brother of Austen
Oliver Reed: Says he went there because that is where his friends were going. Also wasn't a good runner in middle school at any rate.
The Frostad brothers didn't go to any school mentioned as being visited by Coach Long in the last decade. Don't know what school Reed went to.
No one brought forth any evidence that the coaches specifically recruited those three athletes, or that they went to North Central specifically in order to compete for the XC and track programs.
What you have in that comments section is 3 people who think North Central did something wrong (2 of which have continually provided fallacious reasoning as supporting their opinions), 2 people who are either being directly called out as having been recruited or having their family members recruited, and 2 others that seem to be defending North Central (whose affiliation isn't known).
My take: We don't know for sure what the whole story was with the Frostad bros or Reed. We have their side of the story, and we have the side of people who are ready to call foul without having all the information. We also have the fact that Coach Long violated rules this fall (which no one has disputed) by distributing informational DVDs and such.
That is all the information that we have. There are always going to be allegations of cheating and recruiting at any successful program, sometimes it is true and sometimes it is not. Without all the facts, it's pretty ridiculous to make any claims one way or another. -
FYI, and not that I think this is what matters, but the impact of those three runners (whether they were illegally recruited by the coaches to attend NC or if they opted to go to school there for their own reasons on their own accord) at the State and NXN National meets:
WA State 2015: 62 44 Ryan Frostad, 11 16:33.2 North Central (#7)
WA State 2013: 7 6 Oliver Reed, 11 15:47.6 North Central (#3)
WA State 2013: 19 16 Austen Frostad, 12 16:01.9 North Central (#7)
WA State 2012: 46 37 Austen Frostad, 11 16:25.1 North Central (#7)
WA State 2011: 17 15 Austen Frostad, 10 16:05.3 North Central (#5)
... of their streak at state, there would have been no change. Only two scorers are included.
The most impacted year would be 2013, when instead of beating Kamiakin 41-70 it would have been 55-68. The other year with a scorer, 2011, North Central would have beaten Seattle Prep by a score of 60-79 instead of 59-80 ...
At NXN, a little more impactful (as the fields are obviously much stronger)
NXN 2013: 112 Oliver Reed III NORTH SPOKANE XC CLUB 16:20 (#4)
NXN 2012: 97 AUSTEN FROSTAD NORTH SPOKANE 18:42 (#6)
NXN 2012: 95 OLIVER REED NORTH SPOKANE 18:42 (#7)
NXN 2011: 94 Austen Frostad NORTH SPOKANE XC CLUB 16:26 (#3)
NXN 2010: 124 Austen Frostad 13 North Spokane XC 17:59.4 79 (#5)
Those three athletes were scorers in 2013, 2011 and 2010.
In 2013, they would have dropped from #8 @ 231 to #10 @ 273.
In 2011, they would have dropped from #7 @ 259 to #9 @ 293.
In 2010, they would have dropped from #6 @ 186 to #8 @ 224. Note that it would not have changed ANY of the scores from the rest of the top 8 (they had the weakest #5 of the group that year).
In short:
North Central's coaches made an error this fall by violating the rules regarding contacting grade school and middle school athletes from outside their school's usual boundaries.
However, it has now been CONFIRMED by North Central's principal that there were only 3 varsity athletes in the last decade that were NOT from within their school boundaries, and it is NOT clear that the coaches either did or did not recruit those three. As an aside, those three athletes did not impact the program to such a degree that they wouldn't have still been on par with American Fork, and even still ahead of very strong programs like CBA, over the last decade. -
Random8323 wrote:
lovely turtles wrote:
Does mean that in your league, freshmen can do no organized running before the start of the school year?
Runners gunna run wrote: In Califiornia public and private schools all must follow the CIF rules (state) and section rules. In my league coaches are prohibited contact with freshman until the first day of school. That is more restrictive than public schools which can contact once enrolled in the school.
At my school, the XC coach had the captain call the new runners, so technically no violation was committed.
Technically any coach, teacher, player, parent is a representative of the school and it is still a violation. -
Oops, forgot to include Reed's 2012 state race in the last post (only listed 5 of the 6 instances).
2012's state race, again, not determined in any way by Reed/Frostad:
Reed, as their #2 that year, scored 6 points. But it was North Central, they were deep, and they still would have beaten Kamiakin 43-67 that year (instead of 38-75) without Reed and Frostad (their #7). -
"Without all the facts, it's pretty ridiculous to make any claims one way or another."
Exactly my point. The commenters at the S-R website are simply having a public bitch session without any of the parties having all the pertinent information.
