Doug Soles calls out NY/FM

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hs girls coach wrote:

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rojo wrote:

Ok. We were talking about this thread on our weekly 12 noon conference call. Our staff members hadn't really been following it . When I asked them why a woman's team would dominate more than a men's with the same coaching, one of them said, "I know why but I'm not putting it on the messageboard."

He told me his thoughts and I said, "I'm not afraid to say that."

He basically said, "Men/boys sports is much more competitive than women's sports. So if you get a group of girls/women are all in, there is a much more likelihood you'll dominate than on the men's side where there are a ton of crappy boys that are still into it. Men are just more into sports than women so it's harder to dominate with culture."

THat may not be PC but I do think the superior depth of men's sports sports is undeniable. It's an interesting theory.

That chart is a bit scary. Thank goodness, I didn't coach HS women. It would be so hard to get many of them to accept they are at their peak in 8th -10th grade.

But many girls don't improve and are worse as a 12th grader than 9th grader so starting younger certainly helps. But my my point is if we are going to top this rule, then where do we draw the line. Do we also draw a line on school size, etc.

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As a HS girls coach, I do think that there is typically more depth on the boys side on the national level. I think it's harder to predict at the state level. Our girls have 5 different sports to choose from in the fall (7 if you include competitive cheer and dance team), where the boys only have 3. The talent is spread among a lot more activities on the girls side.

That being said, I don't believe women peak in grades 8-10. If you look at the past few years in our division, 70% of all-state girls are juniors or seniors. That doesn't really line up with the theory that girls are getting slower with age. I do notice that my girls tend to have a "down" season for 3-6 months at some point during their HS career, but we can usually get them through that with some patience and strength work.

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midwestern miler wrote:

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No Federalism in NXN wrote:

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midwestern miler wrote:

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An Observer wrote:


A lot of you seem to be missing the point that aerobic development takes time. It's not just that an 8th grader can be an impact runner immediately, but they have an extra year of conditioning under their belt. On top of that they are likely to be slowing their rate of physical maturation which gives them another year or so of having a little-boy body to run with and ferritin is likely to stay higher with less supplementation.

The FM girls openly said on stage at NXN that each of them has been running with the team since 8th grade, although it sounds like some of them may have in 7th as well.

Imagine a national gymnastics championship where most states only worked with 9-12th graders, but NY could have 7-12th graders compete. What do you think would happen? The strongest girls team in NY would dominate, whereas the boy's team's would barely be effected.

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If NXN wants to limit the national meet to only 9th-12th grade, I'd understand. Trying to eliminate opportunities for coaches to work with middle schoolers and complaining about the fact that they do so is pathetic.

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I think Nike would be pretty stupid to limit the national event based on the lowest common denominator. They have a good product. Why would they want to cut out talent from the race? And imagine the backlash from teams from regions allowing middle schoolers to race up, because you'd also have to deny those teams' access to the regional events.

Moreover, the states that limit younger runners from "competing up" are often areas that don't support middle school running programs. For example, I live in the south in a moderately progressive, fairly good sized university city. Exactly none of the public middle schools here have cross country programs.

Bottom line, we shouldn't penalize the kids in NY or other states where they have an opportunity to compete mainly because other states and localities offer their kids inferior athletic opportunities.

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Apparently I should've clarified that when I said I would understand NXN implementing this at their national meet I meant that I would understand them implementing it at all of their meets (so the region meets as well). So states who allow middle schoolers to run varsity would not be able to bring those below 9th grade to the region or national meet until they are of age. Doesn't seem that outlandish to me, nor does it seem to be punishment to tell an 8th grader that has been racing with the team in NY all year that they don't get to go on and run at the regional and/or national high school meet until they are in 9th grade. They will still get 4 opportunities to do so.

That said, I don't have a huge issue with how it is done now, but I understand that gripe. Does it not make sense to limit competitors in a high school race to high school runners? Should they open it up to elementary school runners and college runners? While I know that sounds like an absurd stretch, I'd like to know why it seems reasonable to have a set cutoff as 7th - 12th grade for a high school race.

Unlike your area, we have middle school programs around where I live and they aren't allowed to compete in high school races - admittedly maybe that is shaping my opinion.

But you are right, Nike has little incentive right now to restrict it's allowed competitors. I doubt enough disenfranchised teams would boycott NXN to try to force change (and I'm not saying they should).

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Oh? wrote:

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might be rojo wrote:

Maybe Cali coaches should get off their asses and start motivating their middle school XC coaches to do a better job. Until they start coaching better they'll continue to be stomped by FM.

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Not all middle schools have XC programs, and not all XC programs have competent coaches (this is not just about California, but the nation as a whole). Similarly, not every area has a youth running club.

Plenty of areas around the nation, kids are introduced to XC for the first time their freshman year, and many of those areas track is only a sport for 10 weeks a year. That is a massive difference in how well they have been trained, and how far they can advance their training by the time they are seniors.

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Coach Soles wrote:

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.

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Coach Soles wrote:

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.

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Enrollment at FM is not 1500 if you include middle school. Most likely in the 2200 range. As for school size in general, I believe there is a critical point in enrollment. I think as school get smaller (under 1000) the difficulty grows. Most other sports teams have the same size no matter how big the school. Let's say soccer has 30 girls, field hockey 30, basketball 30, lax 30, softball 30, etc. Mrching band may have 60 or so. Those numbers will be very similar in schools of all sizes due to cuts. So let's say all non XC sports and band in a school have 200-300 girls. In a school of 1000, 500 or so girls, that leaves 200-300 to XC. At FM, with 2200 (1100 HS and MS girls), you will have 800 or so girls for XC. At GO, 1500 or so. I know my numbers are 'made up', but I think they prove a point. FM has a lot of girls. GO has more, but I don't think the number at FM hurts them as much as you think. A school of 1000 or less is hurt a lot more.

But as the previous post states, Nike will not and cannot control state organizations. Will not happen. Some states have 7th and 8th graders. Their team is their team and they should be allowed to run.

And please stop comparing boys XC to girls XC. They are completely different sports. Girls sports are not quite as competitive top to bottom. Girls sports are becoming more competitive but still have a ways to go. Look at the dominance in many girls sports at the NCAA and HS level.

FM has mostly 11th and 12th graders each year,
an average of 6 10th through 12th graders a year,
and only 1 8th or 9th grader each year, with 3/4 of those being 9th graders.

grade & # per year
8th : 3/11 = .27
9th : 9/11 = .82
10th: 19/11 = 1.7
11th: 23/11 = 2.1
12th: 23/11 = 2.1

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Geroge wrote:

Here is a breakdown since 2006:
2006: 1 (8th grade), 2 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), and 3 (12th grade)
2007: 1 (9th grade), 3 (10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)
2008: 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)
2009: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)
2010: 2 (10th grade), 4 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)
2011: 1 ( 8th grade), 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)
2012: 1 (9th grade), 2 (10th grade), 1 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)
2013: 3 (10th grade), 3 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)
2014: 1 (9th grade), 1 (10th grade), 2 (11th grade), 3 (12th grade)
2015: 1 (8th grade), 3 (10th grade), 3 (12th grade)
2016: 2 (9th grade), 4 (11th grade), 1 (12th grade)

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rojo wrote:

That chart is a bit scary. Thank goodness, I didn't coach HS women. It would be so hard to get many of them to accept they are at their peak in 8th -10th grade.

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Doug's constant litany is growng old....it's about time he got off it and give credit where credit is due...Aris can get kids to buy in where others cannot...THAT is why FM dominates.... I have never heard ( maybe I missed it ) Bill Aris lament the fact that Soles has 4000 kids at GO.... FM rarely has more than 20-25 girls on his squad.....not 125-150 like GO...stop the whining!

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totorious wrote:

It's only scary if you can't understand how to count, as clearly there were much more runners in 10th-12th than 8th-10th. All George was doing was saying how many girls were from each grade on their national team each year. Over the 11 years he detailed, the results were:

8th grade - 3
9th grade - 9
10th grade - 19
11th grade - 23
12th grade - 23

If you thought that they were listed in the order they finished then you are even dumber than I thought - it was very clearly listed in ascending grade order each year.

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Only 3 of 77 runners would have been different for FM, not a big deal.

I vote to keep the rules as they are, unless there's an adjustment for school size.

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Texas HS Coach wrote:I've noticed the same thing about down seasons for girls. It is almost always during sophomore or junior year.

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andicamp wrote:

People are kind of glossing over the fact that NXN is not sanctioned by state high school athletic associations. This is technically a club championship.
Sure, the typical practice is for high school teams to become club teams just for the NXN races, but I don't see anywhere in the rules where it says Great Oak couldn't bring middle school girls to the NXN races if they wanted to. Grace Ping ended up being allowed to run even though she currently lives in a state where she's not allowed to get bumped up to varsity as an 8th grader.

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I have no problem if NXN wants to come in and say, we will not allow girls (or boys, have to be fair) to compete at our championship meet. On that note they have no right to tell a state athletic association they cannot allow middle schoolers to train or race with high schoolers.

This G.O. coach definitely makes excuses, the course conditions, FM with middle schoolers. Hopefully the morals his kids pick up are more mature than his.

The fact is that GO is putting out National Record 4xMiles and other all-time great marks. Just plain to silly to blame middle schoolers. GO focuses on Track. FM focuses on XC.

Doug--Why don't you promote the sport and work with a club to start developing 7th and 8th graders? If you love the sport you would want more involvement-- not less involvement just so your team can potentially win an NXN title. What is the ultimate goal here? Isn't NXN an opportunity to grow the sport and make America a great distance running country?

[quote]Sour Grapes 123 wrote:

Grace has stolen this year,/quote]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

You have just won the "lowlife poster of the week"

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Sour Grapes 123 wrote:

Next there will (2003) freshman girls that will be hindered in comparison to Grace, not because they have inferior talent but they were not given the same opportunity to get experience like Grace did. There will be no compensating for this in the future.

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Dyestat Rumor wrote:

I have no problem if NXN wants to come in and say, we will not allow girls (or boys, have to be fair) to compete at our championship meet. On that note they have no right to tell a state athletic association they cannot allow middle schoolers to train or race with high schoolers.

This G.O. coach definitely makes excuses, the course conditions, FM with middle schoolers. Hopefully the morals his kids pick up are more mature than his.

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