I would like to see the school population of these NXN teams. I am from LI and we have had some very small schools qualify and do well (North Shore Girls). Is Nike considering creating a Large/Small classification?
I would like to see the school population of these NXN teams. I am from LI and we have had some very small schools qualify and do well (North Shore Girls). Is Nike considering creating a Large/Small classification?
bozeman- 2000 kids
large/small school classification would the the worst thing for this event
Broomfield HS 1695
Wayzata 3300 and Edina in the mid 2000's.
Are these number HS only, or K-12?
You should check their demographics as well.
Carmel HS 5010
Cash money wrote:
You should check their demographics as well.
Agreed. Overall student population is only part of the story. Plenty of big schools, but face it, there are certainly some school with more students in more advantageous situations.
School A - 2000 students/50%+ low income
vs.
School B - 2000 students/5-10% low income
School B's pool of athletes who can commit/have support athletically/academically will be vastly larger. If you don't agree you are fooling yourself.
It's much like schools that want to compare academic success (ACT, SAT, etc.) No doubt that the socio-economic aspect plays a bigger role than simple numbers.
Willmar senior high has 1200 kids 9-12 and over 50% of our students qualify for free reduced lunch. We might be the smallest public school in this race. Certainly one of the long rural schools.
Mahomet-Seymour has around 800 kids.
From Illinois, Naperville Neuqua Valley has 3764 students, Mahomet-Seymour has 958.
Jack Frost wrote:
Cash money wrote:You should check their demographics as well.
Agreed. Overall student population is only part of the story. Plenty of big schools, but face it, there are certainly some school with more students in more advantageous situations.
School A - 2000 students/50%+ low income
vs.
School B - 2000 students/5-10% low income
School B's pool of athletes who can commit/have support athletically/academically will be vastly larger. If you don't agree you are fooling yourself.
It's much like schools that want to compare academic success (ACT, SAT, etc.) No doubt that the socio-economic aspect plays a bigger role than simple numbers.
I am so thankful that we are now talking about issues of school size AND school demographics!
NXN should absolutely have multiple races! School size is easy to create multiple races. School demographics is much tougher to do.
I know my rural local school system has over 60% population of free and reduced lunch qualified students, but we race against a rich suburban school system whose parents are highly educated and work nice white collar jobs. We simply can't compete against that!
Now when we return to the question of NXN, how do schools with small populations complete against schools of 3000+ students?
High school sports in every state have classifications, why doesn't NXN and Footlocker?
Two classification championships would be great for NXN. Make the cutoff something like 1800 or 2000.
I've done a lot of research on demographics and success. School size doesn't correlate as well to success as does racial makeup of the school and socioeconomic status.
The population most likely to self-select into running is the same population most likely to self select into the swim/soccer pools - Caucasian. If you watched yesterday, there were long periods of time where only white kids were scurrying about.
The other thing is that many of the teams come from areas where less than 5% of the population is on school lunch.
Before you freak out on me, the same pattern exists for sprint success. Most top programs come from schools with large black populations that are more affluent relative to other black populations as this is the group most likely to self select into sprints.
Summary point - find people who like the event and can afford to get to practice and who have the right mindset for long term success. This makes the coaching job much easier and much more likely to reach a national level. It doesn't take away their accomplishments and demographics don't necessarily ensure success, but there are coaches who do more with less and coaches who do less with more. These factors seem to be present in the majority of the programs, though.
I coach in two different school districts.
In district A I coach XC - The school's total population is 1400 b/g
In district B I coach Indoor Track - The school's total population is 400 b/g
Both districts border each other geographically and are middle - upper middle class.
There is an enormous difference in the amount of kids on the team. District B which also has soccer, football, girl's volleyball, and girl's tennis in the fall can hardly field a scoring XC team. They typically have 5-7 girls. If they have one or two unmotivated members it takes their entire program down. It's a way harder job for that coach than it is for me. I have 30+ girls every year on my team in district A. Many are trying hard to make varsity.
I see the same impact around our state. Teams from smaller schools can do well but they definitely have bigger challenges than we do.
When I switch over to coaching track at the smaller school it's a completely different experience. I have one girl who runs distance for indoor track. She's really fast but again I have one who replaced the distance girl that graduated last year.
I am curious if there has ever been a public school at the NXN Championships in Oregon with a total school population of under 1000. if so, they deserve a lot of credit for getting there.
As far as having a two tiered championship for Nike. I really don't feel good about that. I've always liked there being one champion. I think categories of champions would really water down the event.
My proposal would be keeping one championship race but:
Allowing two - three small public schools from the same state to combine and form a team that can make a run. Maybe cap a combined school district team to a school population of 2000. This would balance the field with the large combined school districts that already include several towns. In doing this they could also reduce the number of individuals to say three from each region making for a better team race at nationals.
I can't believe the #s I am seeing here. Some of these schools are huge. NYS classification system is as follows:
A- 911 and higher
B- 470-910
C- 260-469
D- 259 and lower
North Shore girls were a B school and they qualified a few years ago. From what I remember they finished 7th.
Considering school district demographics, it would be impossible to quantify any objective formula. Middle/upper middle class districts have their own challenges.
I thought that every team had 7 runners on the line regardless of size 🤔
-Uncico Coleman 😘
High school only for both.
Uncico wrote:
I thought that every team had 7 runners on the line regardless of size 🤔
-Uncico Coleman 😘
FM only had 6 guys.
A great example would be Tatnall from Wilmington DE--I don't go there myself, but Keelin Hays of Tatnall went this year individually, and I believe they've sent 9 full girls teams since 2000. Coach castagno is truly a phenomenal guy and coach, and with around 60 kids per grade, his effort speaks for itself.