NXN adds individual at large qualifiers

They are trying to defeat Footlocker by allowing the top runners to run NXN without qualifying. This is a dangerous policy because a top kid could merely call Nike to express interest and notify them that he/she will be training through the qualifier and not competing but would like to compete at nationals.

slippery slope maybe but in the southwest region:

Cole Sprout

Cruz Culpepper

Ares Reading

All as individuals as teams wont qualify

Easton Allred if Vista (3rd ranked) does not qualify

If DK has a bad day from 3-6 then add in Ohlson and Vancil

all these huys have top 25 potential. This doesnt even include AZ, NM, and Utah.

This is all just so touhy is guaranteed at nxn even if she chooses footlocker regionals.

Is there any reason to believe that Tuohy won't run both this year as clearly she will win both easily if she does?

Predictor wrote:

They are trying to defeat Footlocker by allowing the top runners to run NXN without qualifying. This is a dangerous policy because a top kid could merely call Nike to express interest and notify them that he/she will be training through the qualifier and not competing but would like to compete at nationals.

It’s a double edged sword,... My guess is it was looking like Touhy was favoring Footlocker this year, and they couldn’t at large her team in like they obviously did last year just to pull in an underperforming sick individual. Now they can.

However, the cost is some credibility, (I.e. if you couldn’t run your way in do you really belong,) Footlocker already has the edge here as they only allow and have only ever allowed regional top 10 to qualify to race. Being a Footlocker Finalist has always been a badge of honor that you can wear for a lifetime, no backdoor to get in. Whereas Nike there are kids that where the number 7 runner on a team from an easy region that aren’t even being recruited to college calling themselves Nike Qualifiers.

More top individuals may now opt for Footlocker believing they can get an “at-large” bid if they miss the Nike qualifier. This will revamp the Footlocker regional races and they will return to being nearly as competitive (at least individually in 30-100 range) as the Nike National race due to Nike’s watered down team format.

There is still the big “edge” Nike has on Footlocker and that is giving the Californian Merged qualifiers a free ride, that’s tough for them to refuse, though Claudia Lane has done so twice. But again there is some credibility cost associated with this policy. (Ie a merged race is not the same as head to head)

I guess what I am trying to say is it will likely improve both Nike and Footlocker at the National meets.

At the same time it will likely hurt the Nike Regional meets, but help the Footlocker Regional meets, which are already way better due to there being only four of them.

Since Tuohy is a defending NXN champ I wonder if she could get an at large bid even if she doesn't run at the NXR NY regional. That way she could still run FL NE, NXN Nationals, and FL Nationals if she wanted to do both. Which is unlikely but could be an option.

Well, unless they are convinced her team has no shot at making NXN, the thoughts seem to be they will run NXN, which would take her out of FL. Some discussion of this on the Sunken Meadows thread. http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9057352&page=13

Duane wrote:

Well, unless they are convinced her team has no shot at making NXN, the thoughts seem to be they will run NXN, which would take her out of FL. Some discussion of this on the Sunken Meadows thread.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9057352&page=13

Why would it take her out of NXN?

I don't understand your question "Why would it take her out of NXN?" My post was that it would take her out of FL. NY NXN and NE FL races are at the same time. Now IF, her team decides not to race NXN, she could race FL and then get and at large from NXN as well. But you can't do the reverse.

My guess is Tuohy still does Footlocker, if not both...but I'd lean toward the former.

North Rockland is barely a "bubble" team right now, but every one if them is back next year, including Tuohy. They've gotta be planning for NXN in 2019.

If she doesn't do Footlocker this year, she probably doesn't ever.

Wildcard Guess...

Send Tuohy to the Footlocker regional, and send the other six girls to NXN-NY.

They certainly won't qualify without Tuohy, but they're still good enough to be in it.

And they can say "Hi! Just letting ya know we're here! See ya'll next year!" to everybody.

how do the at-large bids even work? Do you have to run the NXR or can you just opt out of the regional and still potentially get to nationals?

That seems to be an open question

Obvious why wrote:

Predictor wrote:

They are trying to defeat Footlocker by allowing the top runners to run NXN without qualifying. This is a dangerous policy because a top kid could merely call Nike to express interest and notify them that he/she will be training through the qualifier and not competing but would like to compete at nationals.

Footlocker already has the edge here as they only allow and have only ever allowed regional top 10 to qualify to race.

In fact they only allowed 8 for quite a long time.

Allowing for 5 individuals to qualify who didn’t necessarily run the NXR race means one thing: all the kids who want a shot at making it without doing NXR better be Twitter friends with Rich Gonzales.

I thought the whole point of NXN was that it was team nationals. They are now accepting 25% more individual qualifiers than Footlocker does. It’s not adding to the quality of the race either. It simply makes for a course that gets that much more chewed up for most of the runners there as teams.

I’m neither for or against this, but Footlocker continues to be stagnant and Nike is pulling further ahead for better or worse.

Nike seems like it is trying to make money off of the whole thing while Footlocker is doing it for the kids. The cost of Nike is significantly more than Footlocker and participation is greater. I really wish they could come to an agreement to have Nike for teams and footlocker for individuals. Maybe go to a combined regional qualifier so that kids would only have to run once and then could compete at 2 national meets if they and their team are good enough. I would go with 10 regionals to cut down on travel and have 6 individuals move on go to footlocker and 2 teams to Nike.

North Rockland ( Tuohy ) was going to run. NXRNY and not run FLNE Regionals...

Deadstream wrote:

My guess is Tuohy still does Footlocker, if not both...but I'd lean toward the former.

Wildcard Guess...

Send Tuohy to the Footlocker regional, and send the other six girls to NXN-NY.

They certainly won't qualify without Tuohy, but they're still good enough to be in it.

And they can say "Hi! Just letting ya know we're here! See ya'll next year!" to everybody.

That wouldn't work either. NR #2 probably has a better chance to make FL Nationals than getting an at large for NXN. So she would prefer to go to FL regionals.

However NR has a real shot to make NXN

Deadstream wrote:

My guess is Tuohy still does Footlocker, if not both...but I'd lean toward the former.

North Rockland is barely a "bubble" team right now, but every one if them is back next year, including Tuohy. They've gotta be planning for NXN in 2019.

If she doesn't do Footlocker this year, she probably doesn't ever.

Wildcard Guess...

Send Tuohy to the Footlocker regional, and send the other six girls to NXN-NY.

They certainly won't qualify without Tuohy, but they're still good enough to be in it.

And they can say "Hi! Just letting ya know we're here! See ya'll next year!" to everybody.

No no no. If you have any chance of qualifying for the meet this year, you go for it. You never play the wait until next year game if you have a shot now. You never know what will happen in a year.

im confused wrote:

how do the at-large bids even work? Do you have to run the NXR or can you just opt out of the regional and still potentially get to nationals?

My understanding is this:

Auto qualifiers still need to run at NXR. In the past there were a certain amount of at large teams that were added...usually just missed the top. Now it will add at large individuals. Top 5 still qualify but there will be an additional 5 individual boys/girls chosen at large from among all areas. So we are NOT talking about kids that don’t run NXR in order to run Footlocker. We are talking about an extra 5 individual spots that will be chosen from individuals that ran at NXR. This might open a spot for say the number 6 individual runner from a really strong regional race.