Now the Pings are moving to Arizona?!

Dad is planning to have him go pro before high school.

Young talent wrote:

Does Desert Vista allow 7th or 8th graders on varsity? The Pings have a brother that will be in 7th grade soon and could maybe crack their varsity line-up in middle school.

Do not encourage middle school athletes participating as varsity athletes. Garry Bjorklund participated in Minnesota Athletics prior to middle schoolers being allowed to participate as varsity athletes as middle schoolers. Dick Beardlsey & Steve Hoag were not middle school varsity athletes. Deion Sanders, Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson were all great Pop Warner Am. football players, but none were allowed to participate as varsity high school athletes as young kids.

Ryan Ping, father of Grace, Lauren, and Jamison, received a job promotion at from Edward Jones; he is brilliant at what he does professionally and has a proven record of success. The company promoted him, and that required a move to the Phoenix area.

Tinman puts a period at the end of the sentence. Crickets from the haters.

The Pings will be missed in the MN scene. Hopefully they’ll be back at some point.

Tinman wrote:

Ryan Ping, father of Grace, Lauren, and Jamison, received a job promotion at from Edward Jones; he is brilliant at what he does professionally and has a proven record of success. The company promoted him, and that required a move to the Phoenix area.

Is that what Ryan Ping told you? You do know Edward Jones in headquartered in Saint Louis, MO. There are plenty of financial service firms in Minneapolis-Saint Paul-Bloomington, MN area.

Once an Electric... wrote:

Arizona is a terrible state if you want to be challenged as an elite runner. Deseret Vista is the only team that has ever gone to nationals here and the boys went once, I think the girls went once. There are dozens of programs in more competitive states closer to home they could have moved to. Obviously they moved for non-running reasons and picked the best team in the area to attend. That's good parenting.

Agree with the non- running reasons, but you would want to check those stats.

Desert Vista's coach, Jeff Messer, has taken two different girls teams from Arizona high schools to NXN 3 times - finishing 5th in 2014 and 6th in 2016 with the Thunder, and an 8th with the Xavier Prep girls in 2011.

3 appearances with two different schools in 6 years, plus the Desert Vista boys appearance doesn't make Arizona a powerhouse state, but you could definitely do worse.[/quote]

I did not know he coached at Xavier previously. So outside of a Messer-coached team, no team had ever gone to Nationals in AZ. Ever. That proves my point. The high school running scene is very bad here. There is one good coach in the entire AIA.

I'm much more familiar with the boy's scene in AZ because most of my kids/relatives have been in boys teams here. Since 2008, AZ teams have only had 7 top 10 finishes at the Nike SW meet. No AZ boys team other than Vista has broken the top 10 since 2013 when Corona did it.

In contrast, Utah has had over 60 top 10 team finishes from a variety of different schools. Colorado has had 27 top 10 finishes over this time period. There have been years when 12 Utah teams faired better than the best team in Arizona.

do not encourage ... wrote:

Is that what Ryan Ping told you? You do know Edward Jones in headquartered in Saint Louis, MO. There are plenty of financial service firms in Minneapolis-Saint Paul-Bloomington, MN area.

Yeah, the idea of moving to get a promotion is complete nonsense. Nobody in corporate has ever done such a thing.

Lateral moves aren't always easy, so I'd go easy on the snide, Slick.

You got him, Slick, you really got him wrote:

do not encourage ... wrote:

Is that what Ryan Ping told you? You do know Edward Jones is headquartered in Saint Louis, MO. There are plenty of financial service firms in Minneapolis-Saint Paul-Bloomington, MN area.

Yeah, the idea of moving to get a promotion is complete nonsense. Nobody in corporate has ever done such a thing.

Lateral moves aren't always easy, so I'd go easy on the snide, Slick.

Thank you for posting Ryan Ping.

The Pings have more money than they will ever spend. All of their moves are for personal reasons which sounds noble on the surface but it really all centers on the kids' running. They will never be satisfied once the times level off. I think Grace will have a difficult time this year being 3rd or 4th on her team when she was 2nd best in the country a few years ago.

The Ping family's Winona, MN home is on the market, and it's quite lovely.

Child Protective Services wrote:

These parent have their priorities messed up that they’ve moved their family 3 times in four years based on their kids’ cross country preferences.

They move around like NBA players.

I neither agree nor disagree with the premise of this thread, and I certainly don't care for the Username - totally uncalled for.

HOWEVER, I find it somewhat sad that many of these prepubescent prodigies are either being driven or driving themselves to greatness as middle schoolers or even earlier. The majority of them will be done with the sport by age 16. Only the ones who don't develop boobs and hips will continue to improve. I see so many parents driving their poor girls with unrealistic expectations. A prodigy at age 8 does not make a prodigy at age 18. In fact, it almost guarantees the opposite, with only a handful of notable exceptions.

That girl whose dad runs for Nike doing 60 miles per week as a 13 or 14 year old? Someone should rein her in. In fact, why do regionals and nationals even exist, and they are so late in the year? If a girl wants to peak in high school, then I guess have at it. But, otherwise, they should be playing soccer or basketball or swimming, with only a little running thrown in. Man, I see so many state champions or would-be state champions get caught up in the injury cycle, only to never be heard from again. When will coaches ever learn?

For perspective, families have been doing the "move to access a coach" for a while. I've included links to an article about families moving to Phelps old club.

I've mixed feelings. If it was just one kid in a family, then why not? Families move for parents work all the time. If you're the non athletic kid in the family, that'd be possibly awful.

The Pings do seem intense, but if this coach IS amazing, then why not?

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bal-te.sp.nbac14aug14-story.html

One of the kids referred to - Elizabeth Pelton - went to Cal, won at least one NCAA event and finaled a LOT. Very, very impressive. Is that "worth it?" Only she and her family can answer.

https://www.collegeswimming.com/swimmer/235029/

Why not? The girls are on the downswing but the parents are treating them like future Olympians. The girls will have a difficult time when they are just regular college runners after all of this moving and travel and special treatment.

MN girls rule wrote:

Why not? The girls are on the downswing but the parents are treating them like future Olympians. The girls will have a difficult time when they are just regular college runners after all of this moving and travel and special treatment.

I'm sorry to see that your lobotomy wasn't successful.....

So you would rather kids just sit around all day snaptwittering , facegramming, and getting fat?

Isn't this HS in Yuma where it's 110 degrees in the shade?

Yuma and Phoenix are both hot but not anywhere near each other. We all practice at 5 am this time of year as it's too hot in the afternoon. My assessment of the Desert Vista situation is as follows:

1. DV has had a successful program for some time and they get a lot of kids into the program every year.

2. Word around the campfire is that there is some "recruiting" of runners prior to high school based on their 8th grade times. Not a formal thing but they supposedly pitch the dad's on the success and they cherry pick runners who would otherwise go to other schools.

3. The training programs are very aggressive in terms of mileage and intensity. This does develop the athletes faster but also leads to injuries - but they have enough runners that they can withstand attrition that other schools don't.

4. Messer is a good coach but I don't think his methods would fit all programs. Heard he wanted to go back to Xavier a few years back but had worn out his welcome.

5. In terms of coaching development, I think the coaches at Highland High school continue to do the best overall job. They don't get extra athletes from other districts but they do a great job with development and you can see it over time.

6. The Pings should be successful in Arizona, but as others have pointed out it's hard to say how much more upside they have as they've been training intensely for several years. DV varsity runners don't run very many races in XC. They generally train for the month of September while everyone else is racing.

Come on!!! Enough with the Ping bashing!! I don’t know them at all, but was a competitive runner and have two kids that run in high school. Their times are impressive and seem to love running. If I was moving to a new location, one of my main focuses would be to find a school that had a strong academic record and also had a very knowledgeable coach. Both Tinman and Dr. Messer are exceptional coaches that will guide those girls correctly. Sadly, many kids are locked into coaches that don’t know what their doing. The Pings are lucky that they can avoid this. Good for them!!