Who's the best inner city cross country team?

i will second/third the fact that loyola is NOT an inner city school--let's be clear that a school charging 20k tuition for the year is probably nowhere near even the ambiguous parameters set up for inner city on this thread. hope no one wants to suggest that mater dei is an inner city school in santa ana either.

to the point, though: historically, it'd be hard to not consider belmont h.s. in east l.a. back in the 80s. their legendary athlete, roman gomez, is still the only dude to win the double in the 16/32 twice (now called the "double-double") at the california state meet. unfortunately, the california x-c state meet didn't begin until 1987, after the best of the those teams...

So prior to '87 there was no Cali state xc meet? Or was there just not an 'official' state meet?

There is a history of Catholic schools existing in the heart of a city near downtown of larger cities. Some posters do not like Catholic schools to be considered inner city. Do you want inner city to mean an inadequately funded public school that no white upper middle class kids attend? If that is your definition of inner city, one can find schools like that in rural areas of southeast and Native reservations all over US.

John Bowne High School (NY) had a pretty legit XC team. In fact, at one meet - one of the athletes was so generous that when the starters gun wouldn’t go off - he gladly offered his 9mm ....

The OP probably means poor school more than simply location. Such as a school with more than 50% of it's students receiving free or reduced lunch. Here in WA there really is no school like that with much success. Rogers of Spokane has had success in the 60's with Gerry Lindgren teams, and off and on success in the 80's. Actually North Central and Lewis and Clark are both inner city Spokane and very successful. NC is pretty dang poor. Just not as poor as Rogers. If NC qualifies as poor, then they probably win this title with all the state and NXN success they've had.

I went to Taylor allderdice. We are an inner city school. The girls team has not been awesome lately but we were piaa runner ups when I went to school there and the boys team is currently pretty decent.

I thought State College High School was near the Penn State campus not the Philadelphia U of Penn campus.

Do you guys mean inner city or schools with no white kids? wrote:

There is a history of Catholic schools existing in the heart of a city near downtown of larger cities. Some posters do not like Catholic schools to be considered inner city. Do you want inner city to mean an inadequately funded public school that no white upper middle class kids attend? If that is your definition of inner city, one can find schools like that in rural areas of southeast and Native reservations all over US.

The phrase "inner city" has never meant just "in the heart of a city near downtown of larger cities." It means, at the very least, an urban area with social and economic problems. (And of course nobody would refer to a rural school as "inner city" just because it's in an area with similar problems.) You're right that there are tons of Catholic high schools both in urban areas generally and in specifically in areas that most would call "inner city." Whether a school is an "inner city school" simply because it's located in an inner city area, even if the school doesn't share the area's problems, strikes me as a fairly pointless debate. But I certainly wouldn't say that someone's clearly wrong for trying to draw the distinction between an "inner city school" and a school that's merely "in" the inner city.

Anyway, my point about Cretin was entirely different. I wasn't saying anything about the school, but simply where it's located. Nobody refers to areas like Highland Park in St. Paul as "inner city." It's basically suburban. It's a long ways from downtown, with low population density, mostly residential, with minimal commercial activity and only a few bars.

State College is not an inner-city school. It is not near UPenn. It is near Penn State, a much different locale.

Sesamoiditis wrote:

In Massachusetts BC High, Brookline, Cambridge, Lowell have been pretty good over the years.

Brookline High has had an excellent XC team for years, no doubt, but Brookline is definitely not the inner city. Brookline is one of the wealthier towns in Massachusetts.

I don't think that anyone who didn't go to jones college prep would say they have been better than whitney young. I think if you asked a random runner from a downstate team they would know of whitney young but not jones college prep. Jones had 1 great team about 7 years ago and have been consistently pretty good ever since. I think the fact that they haven't been able to even make it to state since being moved to 3a 5 or 6 years ago means they aren't the best choice here

I'm always amazed thinking about the Hammond High team of Rudy Chapa, Carey Pinkowski and Tim Keough (all sub-9) running through the streets of Hammond and loops around a tiny city park. I think those 3 went 1-2-3 at state cross country but the team "only" managed a 2nd place.

East St. Boogie wrote:

East St. Louis Lincoln High (IL) was really tough in the 80’s and early 90’s.

Sadly, the school is now closed.

Chicago Mendal Catholic was also good at that time. Private, but most definitely an inner city demographic. Closed now too.

The common thread between the two schools was dynamic and dedicated coaches.

ESTL was legendary for track but I'd have to disagree on Lincoln in Cross Country. Back then the southern cross country sectional was just a battle of 4 teams to take 5 spots. ESTL was not one of the 4. The western sectional was the same. A lot of teams made it to the state meet out of these sectionals do to lack of competition. The top teams in those Sectionals seemed to do well at State but the bottom teams hardly ever were in the top 15.

When did the school close? Watched them in track last year?

state the case wrote:

So prior to '87 there was no Cali state xc meet? Or was there just not an 'official' state meet?

no state x-c meet at all, official or unofficial. season ended for most at sectional races--for schools like belmont and the rest of l.a. unified, our season ended at l.a. city finals. kinney/footlocker had just come into existence (1981 i think), but i don't think guys like roman ever extended his season...

also, to add to the discussion: long beach poly would also be an inner city school, as would santa ana h.s., and both have had good teams present and past (poly just placed in the top 10 at the california state meet in the largest division, D1)...

I guess it was Sr. I watched.

asdasdfsffasfsdf wrote:

...

LOL there's a big difference between "in a city" and "inner city". Any good Compton XC teams?

While Compton certainly is part of the "ghetto" it is not inner city. It started as and remains a suburban community to LA. P.S. the Catholic schools recruited most of the good athletes out of Compton.

Loyola has an incredibly diverse socio-economic class range with many of the kids receiving partial if not total financial aid. While not all kids are, many great Loyola runners have most certainly been "inner-city".

C4L wrote:

Well, technically, Loyola High School of Los Angeles

Please stop right there

CARMEL, Indiana