I'd have to guess that this year having been able to coach them from 7th grade on was a huge advantage when you score three freshmen and two juniors on the girls' side. Where were the seniors? 4000 kids, year-round great conditions for training, and winter soccer are big advantages for Great Oak. What's their feeder system like?
Doug Soles calls out NY/FM
High School Running
Training
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The first day of xc is the last day of track. get used to it.
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I'm just waiting for Soles to protest the results because the Reilly sisters wore the wrong chips / bib numbers.
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FM has 1526 students, I don't know where you guys are getting your numbers from
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Great Oak has 3660 over twice that of FM
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Well, I just lost some respect for Soles and GO.
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The dude just wants everyone to have the opportunity to work with middle schoolers. Either that or he's a diddler.
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For those of you that didn't watch the video, here is what was said,
When asked if FM could be beat, coach Soles said.
Coach Soles said:
They weren't going to get beat today. They run at a different level. The thing I struggle with is you've got them dominating on the girls side at a level that is beyond anything that I've ever sen but the boys take 19th two years in a row.
So, 'What's the difference between the girls side from boys side?' That's the question I pose. Why is one gender so much better than the other gender, doing the same training with the same coach?
That's where I think the middle school thing comes in. You have to have some sort of difference that is factoring in. That's the only thing I can think of - why he's able to have those freshman girls running like that. When they come in for me as a freshman, it takes three or four years to get to a level when they can compete up here....(then he gives a compliment out to Aris).
I personally think the rules need to be changed - we all need to run by the same rules. It wouldn't have made a difference today but at least we'd all be doing the same thing."
Here's my response to what he said.
1) Why does he think that men and women training under the same coach would have the same results? The NAU men are way better than the NAU women, the Providence women are way better than the Providence men. The Syracuse men are way better than the Syracuse women.
Yes, in college you are recruiting talent but men and women are different physiologically so they also respond to training differently.
2) "We all need to run by the same rules" That sounds nice but isn't reasonable. Ok, then that means we are going to have 3A, 4A, and 5A NXN races. The #1 thing to me is the size of the HS. The fact that he coaches a school that is basically twice the size of Manlius is a huge advantage.
So don't lose a race and then complain it's because everyone's not playing by the same rules because no one is playing by the same rules. In college, it's a hell of a lot easier to recruit to Oregon that McNeese State. In highschool, some schools are 4 times bigger than obvious.
3) To me, the answer as to why the FM girls are way better than the boys is obvious. In women's running, lifestyle makes much more of an impact. We've all seen it. When women go hard core about diet, etc - they can run really fast.
When women 'develop' they often get worse at running so it makes sense that there would be a lot of studly 9th graders.
4) In NY, if an 8th grade boy was good enough, couldn't he also run with the team? I only point this out because that means Soles argument makes no sense logically unless he admits that men and women are different physiologically.
5) I tried to go back and look and see how many 9th graders were in Manlius' top 5 over the years but amazingly most years NXN doesn't list the grades of most runners. How is that possible?
I'd love to see a breakdown of how many freshman women they have in their top 5 each year. -
A picture is worth a thousand words.
https://postimg.org/image/v6mvrch0z/ -
Guys, I'm not really sure what a diddler is, but I'm pretty sure that isn't what I'm shooting for here.
I appreciate the discussion, wish it was less about me and more about what I'm asking for but hey, this is let'srun, have fun with it!
My point is that we have a championship where not all of the participants compete by the same rules. I believe we should have all teams at NXN with the same rules once we arrive there. Other states can have whatever rules they want, but when we get to NXN we all have 9-12th graders competing for our teams.
That's it. Same rules for all at the meet. Equal footing at NXN.
We have advantages as a school much the same as a lot of schools do. We do not have rules at NXN that favor our program over others like some states do. I personally would like to see that switched and in speaking with a lot of coaches at NXN, so would many of them.
I'm dumb enough to post here so continue to have at it. ;) -
The Crying Jordan picture made me laugh.
That being said, I think people need to calm down. He's a coach that cares deeply about his team. Despite what I wrote earlier, he is right. I'm sure it's an advantage for them to work with 8th graders. But
I can relate to him getting hammered. When I was at Cornell and said something along the lines on the messageboard once about how I didn't think it was realistic for us to beat Princeton regularly in xc (due to a discrepancy in the talent due to Princeton's recruitin advantages), I was accused of not believing in my guys and throwing them under the bus.
For some reason, people in our sport want to believe that the system is fair and it's about who works the hardest and develops the best. That's a laughable assertion. Certain programs have huge advantages at both the HS and college levels and certain runners have huge genetic advantages as well.
Life is unfair. Get used to it. -
Rojo,
The crying picture offended me, but not as a person or coach. It offended me as a graphic design teacher. That is some poor Photoshop. ;)
I'm fully aware that most people who agree with the rule allowing middle schoolers will just call me a whiner and move on. That is fine. They called me a whiner when I said the original nxn course was an issue for California teams results up at the meet. Since we have changed the course my teams have 4 podiums and a 6th place finish over the last 3 years. I don't believe we would have had those same places at the old course. I believe the California results have shown that I was right in that situation. Those that yelled tough it out are the same ones yelling tough it out today.
I will go on record as saying that I made these comments well in advance of the meet, only Milesplit was forced to take that interview down by a company that didn't want the middle school rule discussed.
Here are some of the reasons I feel that we need to go to a 9-12 only rule:
1. Changes the outcome of the team races by allowing some teams to use them and some not.
2. No other national championship allows some teams to play by certain rules, and others to not utilize those same rules.
3. Forces younger athletes to train harder and push to be great sooner in their careers.
4. Huge advantage for the teams that come from areas that allow middle schoolers.
5. Since the inception of NXN, not one team that isn’t allowed to run middle schoolers has won the event. This is not the same on the boy’s side. Why? What is the difference?
6. Ties together 6 classes of athletes, when most other schools can only tie together 4. This makes a huge difference and allows those programs to stay relevant on the national scene when normal schools would fall a girl or 2 short while they wait for talent. In 2010, our girls team would have had a 7th Grade Destiny Collins on it, but did not and it changed our outcome for 2 years until she joined our team as a 9th grader. There are many awesome girls in 2010 and 2011 she never got the chance to run with and win with, but in NY she would have.
7. The case of North Rockland qualifying as an at-large in 2015. They aren’t even close without middle schoolers.
8. Saratoga made it to NXN using four 8th graders one year! Without the middle schoolers they don’t qualify.
9. Takes away opportunities for high school athletes.
10. There are other middle school races for them to focus on, facing age appropriate competition like the AAU Championships specifically set up for their age group at the same time as NXN.
11. If California allowed 9 varsity athletes to compete in XC instead of 7, would we get 9 at NXN?
Again, many will voice their opinion against. I have yet to see a valid reason why certain teams at NXN are allowed certain rules. I'm not talking about advantages which we all have or Oregon might have at the NCAA level, I'm talking about the actually rules at NXN. -
Enrollment vs. Middle School Involvement vs. Number of other Sports Offered vs. When these Sports are Offered vs. School's Socioeconomic Status vs. School's Latitude/Climate vs. School's Altitude vs. School's Ethnic Gene Pool vs. School's Athletic Gene Pool, etc. etc.
It's hard to make everything fair, but I would have no problem with limiting this event to only high school runners. That seems like an easy change that would help level the playing field a little more. -
Soles has a point. You're only allowed to compete for 4 years at Penn Relays. If a girl runs for her HS team as a 7th and 8th grader she has 2 more years of eligibility left, not 4.
Coach Soles would you be ok with a rule like this? -
who the f-uc--k cares about this? get a job
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Dictator Doug, shut up and run. NO whining in XC.
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Coach Soles don't like the set up at NXN simple then don't have your teams compete there.
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My mistake a 7th or 8th grader can't compete for her HS team
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Great Oak nearly broke their own state meet record this fall and still couldn't compare to FM. That is crazy.
Makes me wonder how much weather and course is a factor. I wonder if FM would be as dominant if the championships were held at Woodward Park in CA. I still think FM has the edge, but I think the difference is exagerrated when these girls have never run on grass/mud all year and are expected to do so at NXNs every year.
And there really is no grass fields in Temecula so there really is nothing Soles can do with this problem. -
Coach Soles wrote:
I will go on record as saying that I made these comments well in advance of the meet, only Milesplit was forced to take that interview down by a company that didn't want the middle school rule discussed.
Can you elaborate on this?
I do agree this meet should be HS only. But can you describe your involvement in the off season with your athletes through your track club? This would be prohibited in many states, correct? Does that include middle schoolers also? If so, doesn't that also allow you to train kids earlier than high school?
Finally, have any of your athletes used the open enrollment process to attend GO?
Clarity on these issues would inform the discussion.
