Why do high school kids need a national championship?

Lighten up.

We don't need them but Nike is good enough to provide it for them so that's good.

I am more baffled by a baseball World Series for 12-year olds.

Agree -- all of these things are a waste of time and resources. Every kid who is in these championships, in any sport, could be working a low-wage job somewhere. They aren't going to learn any real life lessons about being used, by running or playing some other sport. All that does is perpetuate the illusion that someone gives a sh** about them, and that what they are doing matters. They need to get busy either making money, or doing labor that makes someone else a lot of money.

E. Bonix wrote:

I am more baffled by a baseball World Series for 12-year olds.

My hometown has won this thing and I agree with you.

But, it WAS very exciting for our town and the coaches did a great job keeping the kids grounded in reality.

They weren't arrogant at all- they were humble and thankful for the support.

Invisible Hands wrote:

Agree -- all of these things are a waste of time and resources. Every kid who is in these championships, in any sport, could be working a low-wage job somewhere. They aren't going to learn any real life lessons about being used, by running or playing some other sport. All that does is perpetuate the illusion that someone gives a sh** about them, and that what they are doing matters. They need to get busy either making money, or doing labor that makes someone else a lot of money.

You mean makes them a lot of money...that's the point of work.

Invisible Hands wrote:

Agree -- all of these things are a waste of time and resources. Every kid who is in these championships, in any sport, could be working a low-wage job somewhere. They aren't going to learn any real life lessons about being used, by running or playing some other sport. All that does is perpetuate the illusion that someone gives a sh** about them, and that what they are doing matters. They need to get busy either making money, or doing labor that makes someone else a lot of money.

who the hell are you?

How about an "international"high school football championship? Are you kidding me? XC makes sense, but not football. Are these parents so desperate to get another shiny trophy for the kids?

Sorry for the slight detour but this really annoys me. It's true, US v. Canada in football...stupid.

I would say the NFL and NBA are bigger wastes of resources compared to a high school national xc meet.

I would love to see HOKA do a REAL national team championship and the only way to do that is race relay or ekiden style. 5 runners, 5 laps of the course.

Just tallying up scores of individual runners have nothing to do with being a team. You could tally up an infinite number of scores from one race like the Jeffs against the Toms and they would be just as meaningless as club to club.

Realistic wrote:

I would say the NFL and NBA are bigger wastes of resources compared to a high school national xc meet.

Where do you rank making movies or TV shows in your waste rankings?

How about writing books?

How about posting or reading letsrun?

I totally agree we need to develop kids, but I do not see that a high school XC championship stunts development.

I think a stronger argument can be made at championships for younger kids. Aside from women's gymnastics and diving I cannot see a reason to have a national championship before the age of 16. In fact, many sports have dropped the younger age championships because they tend to promote single sport specialization.

Now I can understand if a HS coach is burning out his/her kids to reach Footlocker or Nike but is there any evidence this is happening?

While it is not causation, I think the fact that the US is now very strong in the distance events belies your argument. Maybe having a national championship helped the sport?

Why do college kids need a national championship?

Maybe OP is jealous that his low mileage runners won't qualify for nationals because they're focusing on the "long term development" which will also never happen

GaryOak wrote:

Why do college kids need a national championship?

Why do sports even exist?

why not do it right and take all 50 states best team and run one big championship. 50 teams in a race isnt a big deal

Realistic wrote:

I would say the NFL and NBA are bigger wastes of resources compared to a high school national xc meet.

Define waste. The NBA and NFL bring in a lot more revenue than they have expenses despite the extremely high contracts given to players. That’s what we call profit. Good luck finding any profit in running outside of Nike’s running merchandise. So no, the NBA and NFL are definitely not a waste. Running on the other hand I would consider very wasteful as at least the top high school prospects in basketball and football can have very lucrative careers in their sports. Look at Nick Symmonds. Dude is trying to sell running gum. He was better off dedicating his career to being a computer programmer than a runner.