1. NY and NE need to be combined
2. Reshuffle the regions, try to move teams to more geographic area
3. Streamline at large selection criteria
4. Date changes to allow for athletes to race NXR and Footlocker
5. Date changes so that NXR races are same weekend to allow for all teams to be on even playing field at NXN, not one region with 3 weeks and 1 with 1 week.
Add your ideas
More gear at nationals, look at how much swag Footlocker athletes get compared to Nike ones.
GET THE NIKE NORTHWEST REGION OUT OF THE S#!T COURSE IT'S ON RIGHT NOW. So many coaches in the northwest dislike the course that it's on right now. Keep it in Boise and keep Ryan as the RD; but there's gotta be another park in Boise.
They at least need to fix the start. The ground is so bumpy and rough I'm afraid every year one of my kids is going to roll their ankle.
1) Agreed
2) Which states would you reassign and why? I think the regions are fine.
3) I am sure there is plenty that can be done to help with at-large but my suggestion would be to remove it and take 3 teams from each region - but it's not my money.
4) HS XC is already longer than college. I don't know how much longer you can keep pushing stuff back. Maybe there is a solution I am not seeing but sometimes you just don't get to do everything you want to.
5) The dates for NXR are dependent upon the conclusion of the state meets for those states. Not sure there is a better solution that what is in place now.
Other ideas: Make all teams from all states play by the same rules.
Move the Heartland course to the population center at Iowa State University or Des Moines. Almost no runners come from NW of the current location. The course is way too tight. Change the NXR meet schedule so that the varsity teams can get home before midnight.
Publish weekly rankings of top 25 teams and 25 individuals. At large teams would be the next best ranked teams that did not qualify. Therefore, there would be no surprises and teams would know if they should keep on training for NXN. Do the same for individuals. Only individuals who competed and ae in the next 5 that did not qualify would get an at large invitation.
I agree on the Heartland comments. Iowa State has a wonderful course that would be great. I also absolutely agree with changing the schedule so kids can get home sooner. They claim every year that the Heartland has the largest participation numbers of any region (and maybe they do) but they need to run the Championship races sooner and also fix that awful, awkward and time consuming awards ceremony. Forcing kids to try to put on their All-Region t-shirt on over their sweats and jackets when it's 10 degrees outside is stupid. Everything about the awards ceremony is fairly annoying.
Id love to see Delaware moved to the NE.
Its a 4.5 hr trip to the NE site and its a 6.5 hr trip to SE site.
Allow individuals and teams go to the regional of their choice and allow them to compete multiple times.
Step 1. Eliminate Middle Schoolers from the meet so everyone is finally playing by the same rules. Here are the results of the girls race this year without middle schoolers:
Girls Championship Team Scores
1 Summit OR 118
2 Naperville North IL 180
3 Niwot CO 212
4 Vista Murrieta CA 223
5 Great Oak CA 240
6 Battle Mountain CO 244
7 Fayetteville-Manlius NY 252
8 Boise Senior ID 262
9 Wayzata MN 264
10 Claremont CA 268
11 Jesuit OR 268
12 Yorkville IL 272
13 Mountain Vista CO 278
14 Liverpool NY 283
15 North Hunterdon NJ 300
16 Saratoga Springs NY 323 Projected because over half their team were middle schoolers
17 Edina MN 343
18 Flower Mound TX 382
19 Champlain Valley VT 399
20 Prosper TX 426
21 Blackdburg VA 428
22 Chiles FL 446
2. Once you take out the middle school athletes, combine the NE and NY into one region. Add 2 teams to the at-large pool.
3. Use sawdust and wood chip on the bad areas of the course to ensure better footing and a better racing experience for the athletes. Lets figure out who has the best team, not the best mudders.
Doug
Get NXN back to its roots....teams only. Let the best individuals not on a great team run FL. Then two years later, combine the races into one somehow.
NXN Lover wrote:
1. NY and NE need to be combined
2. Reshuffle the regions, try to move teams to more geographic area
3. Streamline at large selection criteria
4. Date changes to allow for athletes to race NXR and Footlocker
5. Date changes so that NXR races are same weekend to allow for all teams to be on even playing field at NXN, not one region with 3 weeks and 1 with 1 week.
Add your ideas
Instead of combining NY and NE regions... split New York. Hudson Valley (sections 1, 2, 7, and 9) with the New England states, the rest of the state with NJ and PA in a "Metro Atlantic" region. This would serve three purposes: 1) deny the NY boys two automatic slots and five individuals (which frequently isn't warranted); 2) strengthen the NE girls, who are almost always among the worst teams at NXN; and 3) jazz up the regional experience for the NY kids, instead of just another race against the same competitors you've been seeing all year.
Since the NE and NY regionals are currently held in the same place on the same date, there would be no logistical change required in order to do this.
I also like the idea of going back to teams-only at NXN. Makes it a better, more unique event IMO.
Doug, really enjoy this idea. Cant be that hard to somehow stabilize that first left turn on the course. Dont know why Nike hasn't addressed that issue.
Get rid of baby nationals and keep FL.
- Many teams in the SW have a 12+ hour drive to the regional location in the crap hole they call Big House which has no hotels or amenities. Find a location that is more central.
- Consistent rules are really a must (and pretty easy to enforce) - 9-12 grades; not eligible for HS team, not eligible for Nike; etc...
- combine NY and NE and add two more at-large
NY teams have won HALF of the NXN team titles... they don't need to be combined with anybody.
Maybe Nike should host the meet on the East Coast every other year, so the California guys bitching about 8th-graders can experience the joys of cross-continent travel to the meet.
provide meth at the afterparty @NXN
Try the SW wrote:
- Many teams in the SW have a 12+ hour drive to the regional location in the crap hole they call Big House which has no hotels or amenities. Find a location that is more central.
- Consistent rules are really a must (and pretty easy to enforce) - 9-12 grades; not eligible for HS team, not eligible for Nike; etc...
- combine NY and NE and add two more at-large
I think the issue with the Southwest is probably that they don't want to have the meet at altitude, which means Arizona and Nevada are the only options.
I agree about HS only competition.
I don't think the solution to regional realignment is to simply combine NY and the NE, and give the extra spots to the national at-large pool. I think more could be done to make other regions more accessible at the same time. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen as long as Nike is having to compete with Footlocker to get kids to their meets (that more or less limits where the meets can be held, because they have to remain competitive with FLS and FLNE for accessibility to the same kids). In an ideal world, you do a significant realignment to not only combine NY with the Northeast but rebalance the entire eastern US (at minimum) while keeping the same number of regions, meaning you also make adjustments to the Heartland, Midwest border, Southeast, in addition to a new Mid-Atlantic region.
Oh? wrote:
In an ideal world, you do a significant realignment to not only combine NY with the Northeast but rebalance the entire eastern US (at minimum) while keeping the same number of regions, meaning you also make adjustments to the Heartland, Midwest border, Southeast, in addition to a new Mid-Atlantic region.
For all the geniuses who want to throw NY back into the NE region... that creates a region that would be about half again as large as California and over four times as large as the Northwest, on a population basis. And oh yeah, would also have almost 60% of the team titles awarded to-date. I know there are geographic concerns, but c'mon... that's nowhere near "ideal".
I think a lot of the thought about combining the NE with NY isn't about how great NY is (because it is). Rather, it is about how weak the rest of the NE is. Teams from the NE as a whole don't perform historically great and may seem "less deserving" than a few other possible at-larges out there from other regions. So by combining, if there is a deserving NE school, they will either be in the top 2 and earn it, or get the consideration from being in the top 4.
Some might reply that it would be very tough to break into those top 2 or 4 spots with many good NY teams... California is the same way and leaves home many very good XC programs every year; same with the Midwest; same with the SW; same with almost every region.
but what about the rest of the NE wrote:
I think a lot of the thought about combining the NE with NY isn't about how great NY is (because it is). Rather, it is about how weak the rest of the NE is. Teams from the NE as a whole don't perform historically great and may seem "less deserving" than a few other possible at-larges out there from other regions. So by combining, if there is a deserving NE school, they will either be in the top 2 and earn it, or get the consideration from being in the top 4.
Some might reply that it would be very tough to break into those top 2 or 4 spots with many good NY teams... California is the same way and leaves home many very good XC programs every year; same with the Midwest; same with the SW; same with almost every region.
You haven't addressed the population issue. You think it's remotely fair to have 55 Million people, a full 6th of the country, in one region?
NE girls have been lousy, granted. NE boys teams have two wins, which puts them "middle of the pack", not "weak".