C.O. Jones wrote:
You don't seem to understand.
Another runner from a qualifying team had a runner disqualified for an outburst. If they don't reinstate him, they can't possibly compete.
You are clearly trolling but at least you are getting bites. Everyone knows that team still beat Jones, even with the disqualified runner being removed from the results.
C.O. Jones wrote:
Jones is ranked #22 in the state. They should be running for the state championship. The kids who busted their asses all season long running 50, 60, 70 mile weeks really need this - especially the seniors.
Are you kidding me??? In Colorado we had a top 10 teams in state bow out in regionals because the regions 8 of the top 10 teams are in two out of the 5 total regions. Only the top 4 per region go through. One top ten team failed to get through. Many teams were really tested. One 80 mpw program only got through by 15 points. One of the problems is that the small schools have to face schools 3 times or more in size and have to work really hard to make up the talent gap.
Kid from somewhere wrote:
C.O. Jones wrote:Jones is ranked #22 in the state. They should be running for the state championship. The kids who busted their asses all season long running 50, 60, 70 mile weeks really need this - especially the seniors.
Are you kidding me??? In Colorado we had a top 10 teams in state bow out in regionals because the regions 8 of the top 10 teams are in two out of the 5 total regions. Only the top 4 per region go through. One top ten team failed to get through. Many teams were really tested. One 80 mpw program only got through by 15 points. One of the problems is that the small schools have to face schools 3 times or more in size and have to work really hard to make up the talent gap.
Jones would have been very unlikely to make it through sectionals had they qualified out of regionals. They were ranked 7th or 8th in their section. The biggest implication this has is that their top runner who has run 14:50 for a 3 mile will not have a chance to compete for an all state finish. This really sucks for that athlete, but shouldn't affect others, he wouldn't have been up with the leaders had he made it to state.
My advice to 14:50 kid would be training for Midwest NXR and FLR sans coach.
Avery2 wrote:
Conference meets were two weeks ago, title only significant for conference trophy / bragging rights, no impact to get to state series starting with Regional.
To qualify for state (not states around here) meet: Regional (this past weekend), then Sectional (coming up this weekend), then State at Detweiller Park in Peoria on 11/5. Each classification 1A, 2A, 3A is separate throughout. Individuals not on advancing teams race to qualify for state, too. A little over 200 runners in each race.
http://www.ihsa.org/SportsActivities/BoysCrossCountry/StateSeriesInformationResults.aspxhttp://www.dyestatil.com/So one more round /week than PA has(?).
I don't see a problem in general with the "extra" round, but for whatever reason a team does not run their top 3 then that is a different story. A handful of teams have that kind of depth and won't lose any sleep, such as Neuqua Valley in 3A.
http://www.ihsa.org/SportsActivities/BoysCrossCountry/StateSeriesInformationResults.aspx?url=/data/ccb/3winner.htmLyons Township High School did not run their top 2 last week, both very serious contenders to win individual state title, likely for rest / training purposes, and easily advanced.
http://www.ihsa.org/SportsActivities/BoysCrossCountry/StateSeriesInformationResults.aspx?url=/data/ccb/3winner.htmJones team lost out in close pack of 4 among the last 3 qualifiers the regional. They should have known their competition in that race, mostly city schools except for Illiiana and Fenwick just outside the city.
In several of the other regionals and sectionals those races may be the only times these teams compete against each other; possibly never seeing them in invitationals during the season.
In Illinois, the top 6 teams advance through the Regional meet, as well as the top 5 individuals who are NOT on and advancing team. The same holds true for the Sectional meet in order to qualify for the State Meet.
Some of the Regional meets are ridiculous, as only 7 teams are entered. Per the qualifying rules, the first 5 individuals on the 7th place team advance as individuals, though they can't score as a team since the team is not entered. Ridiculous. There are several examples of this occurring this year. In my opinion (which is correct) they should tighten up the qualifying for the state meet.
In Illinois in the 70's an individual qualified through regionals or sectionals only if you finished in the top 10 and your team did not qualify. It was tougher back then. Now you have runners advancing who placed in the 30's and didn't even break 18:00.
Earlier in this thread Craig Virgin made some interesting comments about the number of times a team races throughout the year. He stated that he raced 24 times from August through November. I believe him. I went back and looked at results from my senior year and I raced 18 times from September 9 through November 4 (State meet). During one stretch we had meets on Sat, Mon, Tues, Thur and Sat. Crazy.
For the record, I ran HS in Illinois and am the same grade as Craig Virgin, but only raced him once, and that was at the state meet. (Spoiler alert: he beat me.)
Correction. You have to finish top five at sectional to qualify for state in Illinois. Then they take the next seven individuals not on a qualifying team to state. The numbers differ between regional and sectional.
As a coach in Illinois who has held kids out of the regional, I can sympathize with the Jones coach. For his sake, I hope the sickness/injury stories are true. Having said that, you need to know your kids and the regional before you do something like this. Can the seven you are putting in the box qualify out of this regional? It can be a hard question because you have to be objective about who your kids are and you have to be knowledgeable about the other teams. It requires introspection and homework. In one facet or another, this coach may have messed up (unless he really had no other choice because of injury/sickness). Messed up results not withstanding (I've had that happen even at the state meet), his team failed to qualify out of the regional and therefore don't deserve to be in the state meet. As was mentioned earlier, they may have been ranked, but their sectional was going to be tough and they likely were on the outside looking in anyway.
I agree with this.
Thank you for providing more detail.
Question, not that it changes the issue, but in early 70's what was the set-up as compared with the current IHSA 1A, 2A and 3A divisions?
Avery2 wrote:
Thank you for providing more detail.
Question, not that it changes the issue, but in early 70's what was the set-up as compared with the current IHSA 1A, 2A and 3A divisions?
No divisions in the early 70's in Illinois. The split to two divisions A and AA was 76-77 year. The split to three divisions 1A, 2A and 3A was 2006-2007 year.
I also ran before the division split. We had a 9 team conference and we ran dual meets against every team and an invitational almost every weekend. We also sometimes had races on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in the same week. Granted some of the teams were so weak we didn't have to run hard in the dual meet.
oftenrunning52 wrote:
Correction. You have to finish top five at sectional to qualify for state in Illinois. Then they take the next seven individuals not on a qualifying team to state. The numbers differ between regional and sectional.
As a coach in Illinois who has held kids out of the regional, I can sympathize with the Jones coach. For his sake, I hope the sickness/injury stories are true. Having said that, you need to know your kids and the regional before you do something like this. Can the seven you are putting in the box qualify out of this regional? It can be a hard question because you have to be objective about who your kids are and you have to be knowledgeable about the other teams. It requires introspection and homework. In one facet or another, this coach may have messed up (unless he really had no other choice because of injury/sickness). Messed up results not withstanding (I've had that happen even at the state meet), his team failed to qualify out of the regional and therefore don't deserve to be in the state meet. As was mentioned earlier, they may have been ranked, but their sectional was going to be tough and they likely were on the outside looking in anyway.
The coach from Jones does this every year. Its unlikely half his team is injured/sick exclusively for regionals every year. Unfortunate for his athletes that this arrogance came back to bite them in the ass.
Ebola wrote:
oftenrunning52 wrote:Correction. You have to finish top five at sectional to qualify for state in Illinois. Then they take the next seven individuals not on a qualifying team to state. The numbers differ between regional and sectional.
As a coach in Illinois who has held kids out of the regional, I can sympathize with the Jones coach. For his sake, I hope the sickness/injury stories are true. Having said that, you need to know your kids and the regional before you do something like this. Can the seven you are putting in the box qualify out of this regional? It can be a hard question because you have to be objective about who your kids are and you have to be knowledgeable about the other teams. It requires introspection and homework. In one facet or another, this coach may have messed up (unless he really had no other choice because of injury/sickness). Messed up results not withstanding (I've had that happen even at the state meet), his team failed to qualify out of the regional and therefore don't deserve to be in the state meet. As was mentioned earlier, they may have been ranked, but their sectional was going to be tough and they likely were on the outside looking in anyway.
The coach from Jones does this every year. Its unlikely half his team is injured/sick exclusively for regionals every year. Unfortunate for his athletes that this arrogance came back to bite them in the ass.
Not knowing the Jones team except by reputation (they used to be 2A so we competed against them then, but only once or twice a year). I'd be careful with the word "arrogance." A mistake like this does not necessarily have to come from arrogance.
What a shame. I feel bad for the kids and to a much lesser degree the coach. Looks like Jone's top 2 are Seniors so they won't get to go after Allstate honors.
Baptism of Fire wrote:
Craig,
If a season goes from September 3rd to to December 10th (15 weeks) and the last meets of the season are state champs on Nov 26 and Footlocker on Dec 10, what do you think is an ideal race schedule to get the greatest peak out of an athlete in those last two races?
Dear Baptism:
Ideally, if I was coaching HS X-C Country today.....I would try to eliminate most dual or triangular meets during the week... (unless very early in season to help ID the Top 10-12 for Varsity... or unless there was a big rivalry with another nearby school)....that was a staple back when we were in school.... and focus mainly on invitationals on Fridays or Saturdays.... Obviously, conference champs and county champs might still need to be accommodated.
Also, I would only race 2 out of every 3 weeks... which would allow me to have a 10 day training cycle once every 3-4 weeks. Then I would schedule a lesser invite for the first weekend back after that long and hard 10 day training cycle and a really tough Saturday invite the 2nd weekend of racing.... before embarking on another 10 day hard training cycle... and so on ... and so forth... until you get to the state finals selection meets. You would need to ID the state champs date and work you way backwards all the way into August... to discover the rhythm and meets that fit your needs. The world is not always perfect.... but over a 2-3 years of doing this... you should be able to identify the meets and workouts that you need to hit... and when... to have your team ready for the post season and reach their true potential.
You must alternate hard and easy/recovery day workouts....and then figure out how much to taper/rest the team before a race... I worked off a 1 day taper before competition but 2 days for a selected mid- season race where I wanted to race all out as a mid season "gut check race"....and then at the state meet. You almost need to design another training rhythm program for post-state meet and again work your way backwards from the goal race or races... if you do both FL and NXN.
Good training is a combination of not only hard and easy days... but strength and speed workouts. The proportions of each to change as the season marches on.... obviously some strength and some speed work all year long... which is not always consistent with what some coaches do today. As a general rule of thumb.... underclassmen should work up to 40-60 miles per week...and upperclassmen should work up to 60-80 miles per week of total mileage. Of course, those figures are easier to obtain if the kids do several morning runs per week... for both recovery and training effects. There are exceptions o that target weekly mileage .... and those usually involve kids that are fast/talented.. but fragile and need less stress on their body..... and kids that are sturdy as an ox but lack much leg speed.... so strength is their salvation and they need higher mileage. The kids must learn to tolerate a steady diet of 6-8 mile "recovery day" runs and a 10 miler on the weekend/Sunday.
Okay, that's all I can write in the space/time allotted. I want to write a di-stance training book aimed at middle school and high school athletes before I die.... if God grants me the time I need. Certainly on my bucket list!!. I learned most all of this in my 4 years of HS and my 4 years of college. Good luck to one and all.... but just remember... a good coach is training both their body.... and their mind.... so be sure to explain to the kids what they are doing...and why....and help them cope with the mental stress encountered in the hard workouts... by teaching them how to be mentally and physically tough enough to handle it and survive/thrive. That is an art form and rarely practiced by most coaches. I learned it on my own. There are games one can play to cope....
Once the IHSA decided to go from 2 classes to 3 they should have eliminated the regional weekend and went to 7 sectional races instead of 5. The regional weekend is not needed. Giving the teams an extra week to train/rest would have made more sense.
onceafastcat wrote:
Once the IHSA decided to go from 2 classes to 3 they should have eliminated the regional weekend and went to 7 sectional races instead of 5. The regional weekend is not needed. Giving the teams an extra week to train/rest would have made more sense.
Yeah it would also make it so teams outside of Chicago and the west and northwestern burbs would not have to drive 5+hours to go to sectionals in Edwardsville.
To: BLTC
I'm guessing that we know each other. Who are you? Send me a message on Facebook if you can.
Birdlegs
Trialswatcher wrote:
I have another question for Craig.
How did you even run 24 times?
with 4 weeks a month even if you started early August , that's 15-16 weeks and 24 races?
I totally believe you, but that is what? 8 duel meets run in some weeks plus a an Invite or state meet at the end every week of the season?
That is insane, I think the pendulum did swing a bit to the light side...College is barely even a sport now.
But having kids run hard 5K's now, plus the year end stuff, more than ten times is more than triple the amount of 5K's an Outdoor collegian runs at high quality anymore.
I think 12 races is even a bit much(obviously unless they are walk overs). Today you would never have a top guy run 12 hard two miles in a season. It worked for you, but you were hardly the norm LOL.
********
Dear Trials Watcher:
First, I want to say to everybody on this thread that I would be cautious in labeling the Jones coach as "arrogant". Many coaches try to do this to some degree now... it is a trend...and almost a "badge of honor" for some successful H.S. X-C programs as it shows the depth of that particular program. But, one must be extremely cautious in deciding to hold out some of your best kids... voluntarily... not due to injury.... in any phase of the state meet qualifying system. You have to have lots of knowledge and facts about the competition in regionals/districts or sectionals to do that. If the situation is "close or dicey".... probably more prudent to run your Top 7 and then just have them "throttle back" in the 3rd mile if they get comfortably ahead.... but somebody better be keeping good score before you do that maneuver.
Second, I went over my H.S. career in great detail with my biography writer, Randy Sharer, of Bloomington, IL... and he was a huge help to me in finding and assembling the facts and complete statistics from my high school career... where even I think that I did some of my most precocious racing out of naivete.... We hope to have the book out yet before Christmas but you can go to Randy's blog to see some sample chapters and background. He is a veteran of Illinois prep sports reporting and a really good guy. Check out RandySharer.wordpress.com for free as an appetizer!
But, Randy helped me prove through archival research that I did 24 regular season and state championship series meets each year in my Junior and Senior year of H.S.! My senior year I even did 1 post state meet road race then a 6 mile X-C race at SIU Edwardsville before competing in the AAU (now USATF) National Senior (not Junior) X-C 6-mile champs race because it was held up in Chicago that year... about a 5-6 hour drive for me. No FL or NXN back then... I went from setting a still standing state meet record of 13:50 at the Illinois State meet to racing against U.S. Olympians just a couple months after the Munich Games that year. It was a real thrill and I got 12th against the "big boys" over that 6 mile distance as a 17 year old. That showed me that I would be "ok" at the longer college races the next year...and against the "older" athletes at the NCAA level. I just didn't know I would be running against 21-24 year old foreign freshman athletes....that was much harder than the longer race distance itself!
Why so many? Because my H.S. coach, Hank Feldt, had only been coaching X-C for 2 years before I came along. He was a former baseball and basketball player and coach.... and he was also the AD for Lebanon H.S. Well, basketball and baseball usually do 2 games per week.... so he just scheduled us for 2 meets a week while he was booking everybody else. He honestly didn't know better...and neither did I! I just thought that's how things were done. Many schools booked schedules somewhat similar to ours back then as another poster above pointed out. By my final two years in H.S. ... schools and AD's were calling my coach to see if I could run on their home course before I graduated....and Coach Feldt had a hard time turning them down as he was genuinely a nice man. Maybe too nice.....
The 24 meet season would have been bad enough... but then I got the bright idea of trying to break the course record at every meet I ran in... including my home course...and we ran at Horner Park frequently. So, I ran 48 races my final 2 HS years and won them all.... but, what amazes me more now that I have done the book project.... was the fact that I set course records in 46 of those 48 races! And, most of the records I broke were my own... so they weren't "soft." That self imposed goal of mine probably put more mental and physical stress on me as a prep.... than I needed.... but it taught me to be able to push the pace on my own....and to be mentally tougher.... a trait that served me well later in my career and life.`
Sidebar: Most people assume that my state meet course record of 13:50.6 is the toughest prep X-C record I ever set.... since it is still standing against a who's who of distance running legends out of the Illinois prep ranks....but, it is NOT. The TOUGHEST record I ever set was in districts of my senior year when I ran on my home course for the final time....and ran 14:11 for our 3-mile course that not only had "slopes" on several long straight aways... but required us to navigate a 2-story deep ravine 3X during the course of the race.... once through the dirt portion...and twice through the oil/rock road that did a hair pin turn at the bottom. I was in much more pain at the end of that race in the photos... than I was at my final race at Detweiller Park 2 weeks later. Both were tough records.... but my now abandoned home course was toughest from the participant's standpoint.
Finally, while we did definitely "over race" and maybe "over train" a bit back then....it created the "golden age" of H.S. distance racing from 1964-1984.... which still dominates most of the all-time lists in both X-C and track. Only in the recent years have preps started to compete again with the ferocity that was exhibited by many good HS runners back then... both in Illinois and across the nation. It is not that hard to make a case that too many H.S. and college coaches "coddle" their runners nowadays..... and "soft" training... and "soft schedules" does not always lead to peak maximum performance. There is certainly middle ground in training and racing to consider... out of common sense. And, that is all more than you probably wanted to know...
onceafastcat wrote:
Once the IHSA decided to go from 2 classes to 3 they should have eliminated the regional weekend and went to 7 sectional races instead of 5. The regional weekend is not needed. Giving the teams an extra week to train/rest would have made more sense.
I promise to quit after this but onceafastcat brings up a good point. When I competed... it was just one class.... and my school of 400 competed against schools like Evanston, IL who had nearly 4000 students. And, I think we finished 14th my senior year at state. Little Lebanon even got 4th the last year of the single class system.... and then won the inaugural Class A title. We all put our shoes/shorts on the same way...and we could only run 7 guys each race.... and so I never really felt that we were "second class citizens" just because we came from a small H.S. After all, they don't conduct ACT's or SAT's by the size of the school, right? However, I do see some rationale for 2 classes... but just can't stand the current 3 class system. It waters down both the A and AA class races somewhat... and more kids get to go to state as an "entitlement" than really should, in my humble (maybe cruel) opinion. It used to be a great honor just to- qualify for state... no so much any more. It is either another case of "political correctness" run amok or more revenue for our governing body, the IHSA. Maybe some other reasons as well.....
They need to run a separate Parolympic race for Tourette's, G@)%mmit!!
why should that be? wrote:
Mr. Obvious wrote:No, I don't understand. You said a different team had a runner who had Tourettes. If he did and had an outburst then he should not be disqualified.
Why not? He should be DQed if he committed a DQable offense, independent of his Tourettes.
Can anyone provide more detail about the "outburst". I get that he has Tourettes but what did he do?