Unethical runner on my kid's XC team

Sometimes elbows fly in a race, its a known thing in packs that there is a bit of pushing and shoving when it comes to position. I teach my kids to defend their position but throwing bows is defensive, not offensive. Sounds like the best thing to do is to go to the coach as a collective with your complaints but you better have proof. Sounds like the kid is a dirty runner willing to do anything and he must be confronted properly.

I'm sorry, but it bothers me that this is an issue for the parents. If we had had a kid like that on my highschool xc team, we wouldn't have gone complaining to our parents. We would have told him to knock it off as a group and bullied the crap out of him. As far as the coaches go, all they need to say is, "Athletes X, Y and Z say that you've behaved in this manner. If I see you throw ONE elbow at a teammate from this point on, you're done." And then monitor the situation closer than they have been.

pictures for course cutting is the only way you can actually do anything about that. As for the elbows get over it cross country is a rough sport people get pushed

Yeah, let's let a bunch of hovering, nothing-better-to-do parents orchestrate a solution...said no one.

Call doubler

You are a helicopter parent. Stay out of it. If he’s throwing elbows then the boys will sort it out on their own. Don’t try to control everything.

^^^^^This^^^^^

Disregard all posters up to this point...

I would recommend a team meeting (assuming you are the coach). This meeting should be used to generally address the issues. Elbowing is a part of the game in cross country, but you don't elbow your teammates. Give examples of how this kind of behaviour can negatively impact school/work/life relationships. Also, state that cheating in any endeavor is unacceptable. Cutting a course is cheating. It's no different than taking performance enhancing drugs, stealing from someone, etc... Again, give examples of how this kind of behaviour negatively impacts school/work/life relationships.

Your job isn't to protect the student-athletes from the unethical actions of others, it is to show them the difference between ethical/unethical actions and to prepare them for making (hopefully) ethical decisions in the future.

Best of luck.

Lots of bad advice wrote:

Disregard all posters up to this point...

I would recommend a team meeting (assuming you are the coach). This meeting should be used to generally address the issues. Elbowing is a part of the game in cross country, but you don't elbow your teammates. Give examples of how this kind of behaviour can negatively impact school/work/life relationships. Also, state that cheating in any endeavor is unacceptable. Cutting a course is cheating. It's no different than taking performance enhancing drugs, stealing from someone, etc... Again, give examples of how this kind of behaviour negatively impacts school/work/life relationships.

Your job isn't to protect the student-athletes from the unethical actions of others, it is to show them the difference between ethical/unethical actions and to prepare them for making (hopefully) ethical decisions in the future.

Best of luck.

Agreed... if the OP is the coach.

Since when is elbowing "part of the game" in any form of running?

There might be the odd piece of pushing or shoving early in the race to keep balance or when things are tightly packed together at the start but after that any form of deliberate contact is completely wrong and nothing to do with running and racing as I know it.

Lots of bad advice wrote:

Disregard all posters up to this point...

I would recommend a team meeting (assuming you are the coach). This meeting should be used to generally address the issues. Elbowing is a part of the game in cross country, but you don't elbow your teammates. Give examples of how this kind of behaviour can negatively impact school/work/life relationships. Also, state that cheating in any endeavor is unacceptable. Cutting a course is cheating. It's no different than taking performance enhancing drugs, stealing from someone, etc... Again, give examples of how this kind of behaviour negatively impacts school/work/life relationships.

Your job isn't to protect the student-athletes from the unethical actions of others, it is to show them the difference between ethical/unethical actions and to prepare them for making (hopefully) ethical decisions in the future.

Best of luck.

Wrong. Leave kids alone. High school kids don’t need to be given yet another lecture. That kind of lecture to the team would be annoying and insulting to their intelligence. The Cheater already knows right from wrong. He is choosing to cheat, just like a cheating adult. Give him a warning and then kick him off the team if it happens again. As for elbows. Let the boys sort it out. That’s how life works.

He sounds like the extreme, edgier runner the IAAF has been waiting for! Don't stunt this kid's potential with your softness. Let the kid be.

Why is this coming up in February? XC has been over for months

Elbows at the start line is kinda just part of the game, but for everything else, I would hope that the coach could listen to a story or stories corroborated by the athlete, and then the coach should say to the kid "none of that stuff or your are off the team, simple as that. Consider this your first strike. 3 strikes and you are out." or 2 strikes, whatever.

Don't solve your kid's problems. The moment you intervene, it's going to be you the parent against the other kids' parents and be ready for that fight.

Evidently, unethical behavior is what makes America great again. So, rather than punishing this runner, he should be named captain! The other runners could really learn from this cat and further their chances for success in life.

Trump in 2020!!

OP trolled almost the same topic in the fall. Hard to allege course cutting during indoor track.

Had a similar situation on my team a couple years ago. I simply had a team meeting without pointing finger. We discussed what a team means and how a team works together. Also demanded that it stopped or there will be consequences. Never had a problem after that.

No one would actually say who was doing it. I only found out later during track season.

I taught my kids early on that not everybody plays by the rules, and God gave us elbows so that we can use them when we need them. I told them if someone in a race tries something like that to not hesitate to see if they can take it as well as dish it out. I also told them that if they tripped or knocked someone down intentionally to always politely apologize for the contact. One of my sons post-collegiately ran a few 1500s in Europe and subsequently told me that I the early advice I had given him was excellent.

Gunner213 wrote:

He sounds like the extreme, edgier runner the IAAF has been waiting for! Don't stunt this kid's potential with your softness. Let the kid be.

Posts like this are why I still read these boards lol.