Are the top high school XC programs in Colorado recruiting?

It's embarrassing. 2 private schools piling up "state titles" in all sports, competing against the public schools they cherry pick talent from.

I’m fine with private schools recruiting. How else do you get students for your private school? But private schools should play in their own league. I know that happens in many states. Or at least it use to happen.

It’s especially wrong in sports like football where these schools round up literal all star teams and run their program almost at the college level of coaching and facilities. They then go out and humiliate the majority of their public school opponents throughout the season on the path to the state title game. Fine if you recruit and try to be the best. It’s a free country. God bless, but you don t get to play in our league with those circumstances.

So what kids are transferring this year?

the funniest part of this thread is the dopey valor coaching trying to say it's about people's faith. Eff that noise. People once again justifying all kinds of terrible behavior because of religion. We all know valor is a sports factory, it's not turning out priests or pastors.

Yeah it’s funny all the Valor apologizers in this thread that act like everyone in the state doesn’t already know that they actively recruit across all sports. Who cares though, it’s always been that way. I don’t blame the kids for going there, some of the public school coaches suck. No reason to put up with a crappy coach and a crappy team when you really care about a sport and work your butt off in it.

Unreal wrote:

ColoradoXCEnthusiast wrote:

In fact, let’s also talk about how the Niwot XC coach has almost faced every type of suspension there is when it comes to recruiting. Nobody seems to care.

Not almost.

People do care. It'll stay quiet only so long.

Ok, let's talk about it... I will wait. What, two weeks have gone by and you have: nothing. It appears this is hate directed at a program (Niwot) that is doing well. Is it that no one seems to care, or that there is not anything but some bile from a coach at another school with a program you are associated with not doing as well at the moment? Without any evidence to the contrary, it seems the latter, to which, I will point out, being a sore loser is bad sportsmanship.

You are right however, that Niwot recruited. What if I told you that I have that evidence? Interested? They recruited Kelly Christensen. They recruited the coach. I do not believe CHSAA has an issue with that.

A bit of a let down for sure for those keyboard warriors out there.

Cheyenne Mountain (another team projected to contend for a state title and an NXN bid), had one transfer come in before the 2020 XC season and another one before the 2021 track season.

One of Cheyenne Mountain’s top guys transferred out of the school before the 2020 XC season.

Boulder bro wrote:

Reality of CO HS athletics wrote:

Anyone who thinks private schools don't recruit is lost and naive. Period. Welcome to the world of inequality in high school athletics. Valor is a joke in religious disguise... It's called entitlement. Valor Track Academy = recruiting.

Reminds me of Rhode Island La Salle&BishopHendricken

Yep. This happens with the girl’s team at Lasalle

also. The parents help recruit from the middle schools. Then there has also always been one or two of their top runners that were all state their freshman year on a different team.

some neus wrote:

https://in.milesplit.com/articles/291400/center-groves-drew-costelow-transferring-to-valor-christian

To me this is very different since the family moved into the state. I will not deny that athletics might play a role, but academics at Valor are pretty good too.

This is very different to me than a kid transferring from one local school to another.

Also, things are a little complicated in that CO (as mentioned) has very lenient rules in terms of what school one can attend. If you want to attend a school outside your district you can apply and if there is a spot you can go there. I am amazed how many kids in Colorado Springs do not go to the high school in their district. (Although in some cases the parents moved within the city and kept their kid in the original school.).

Private schools are tricky (I went to a private high school) since they can draw from anywhere. Some states have gone to separating private and public schools.

Will this help or hurt Valor's recruiting efforts?

Okay, let's talk about it. Niwot undoubtedly violates recruiting rules, both explicitly and behind the scenes in less direct ways. Maybe this Niwot parent doesn't know anything about it, but I've heard directly from parents that have told me that Niwot coaches have asked their middle schoolers where they're going to high school and have directly appealed to them to attend Niwot. That is an unequivocal and unambiguous violation, as high school coaches are by rule not allowed to discuss high school plans with middle schoolers. And this is recently, under the leadership of Christensen.

I have also heard from parents at non-Niwot feeder middle schools that Niwot parents have advocated that their kids go and run at Niwot. Sure, it's possible that they've not been encouraged to do it by Niwot coaches, but where there's smoke there's fire. I've heard of this so often that it doesn't seem coincidental and someone's encouraging it, and it absolutely blurs the lines of recruiting.

Similarly, literally two days ago a middle school cross country coach at a Longmont (non-Niwot) feeder was telling me that he had a bunch of Niwot parents volunteer to help with his cross country race he hosts and that Niwot runners wanted to come run with his middle school runners, which he wisely declined. Former Niwot Parent, are you telling me that Niwot parents spread throughout the district volunteering at middle school meets out of the generosity of their hearts and the love of the sport? Or that Niwot runners are volunteering to run with students that and in non-feeder schools for the same reason? C'mon.

And then there's a crapload of strong circumstantial evidence. There's the overwhelming amount of coaches on the Real Training staff that are Niwot coaches. When I, as a coach, get an invite to a Real Training XC race and on MileSplit and it says the host is Niwot High School, that's a pretty obvious direct line. When the director of Real Training's middle school program is a Niwot assistant coach and middle school runners from all over the Front Range run with Real Training, you cannot tell me that isn't an undue influence. I personally know a talented 8th grade runner whose parents have been directly asked by coaches where he is going to high school. Guess who the kid runs with? Real Training. And guess where he's going to high school? Niwot.

I could go on, but Niwot's recruiting is one of the worst kept secrets in northern Front Range XC. All of us coaches joke about it and kinda shrug our shoulders because there doesn't appear to be anything we can do. Saint Vrain Valley School district's current athletic director and superintendent are former Niwot employees and only seem to be willing to look the other way. CHSAA has been made aware multiple times of what's going on at Niwot and also looks the other way. A local coach wrote a letter outlining this which only resulted in getting yelled at by the St Vrain AD. I'm starting to wonder what it would take for anyone to do anything, media attention? At the very least Niwot should be moved up to 5A for competitive reasons.

What do you have to say, Former Niwot Parent? Maybe you didn't witness any of this stuff, but it's going on and has been for awhile.

Agreed that direct appeals are not cool.

OK, this is where it gets really sticky really quickly. Yes, there are rules about being "agents" of a school and such. But from a parenting point of view, it's a messy rule. All schools are not created equal. All XC programs and cultures and coaching staffs are not created equal. Parents should have the right to choose what they believe will be best for their child. If there's a Science magnet HS school in a large school district, no one bats an eye if parents enroll their science-loving kid into that school, right? Should there be some sort of embargo over parents talking to other parents about their experiences? This rule - when followed with absolute fidelity - harms kids. Niwot HS is doing a great job of giving kids a great running experience. Instead of restricting this, we should be emulating what they are doing as far as creating a culture that kids want to be a part of.

Why aren't enough Longmont parents volunteering? Are the Longmont runners coming to run with the middle schoolers?

So you think the world would be a better place if no one offered these races instead?

And the best way to combat this influence is to either create your own middle school program, or become part of the sphere of influence of an existing program. I'm sure REAL Training will gladly take on more coaches if you don't want to start from scratch.

At the end of the day, success begets success. There are plenty of young kids who just love to run that want XC and Track to be an integral part of their HS experience. Currently, Niwot is doing a better job than anyone else on the northern Front Range at offering that experience. They honestly have no need to illegally recruit in order to attract the most talented kids. I'm not saying they are or they aren't, but I am saying that they don't need to - kids are headed there anyway.

If you're mad that they recruit, that's one thing. But if you're mad that they're getting the talent, the best defense you have is a good offense. I can tell you that the best thing that has ever happened to our HS program has been the presence of a competing local club. It has forced our program to get better, because if we didn't, then our kids would go elsewhere.

Part of the reason Colorado HS running has FINALLY reached its massive potential is the club model. Don't try and beat it - join it.

Why does it matter? Let the kids and parents pursue what is in their self interests. Let the schools try to recruit however they wish. Some do it with academics, others with athletics. It's only high school running. It's not like they are generating massive amounts of revenue.

Recruiting is wrong because it changes the level of the playing field drastically. If all the best kids just go to the same school teams are not losing because that team has a supieror coaching or training . It is because they had all the talent. It's a high school sport. It kind of takes the fun out of the sport for the majority of the teams who lose to a team that poaches the best runners in the area . Also it's against the rules. It's the same as getting disqualified for cutting the course in a race. Recruiting in highschool is like cutting the course for coaching. It's a lot easier to win if you recruit outside your area. Also academics is not a good comparison because you are not competing for a championship. Where there are certain rules you have to abided in order to win fairly.

I think the most frustrating part for most coaches is that CHSAA simply doesn't care. Both schools have had coaches on probation, but when they get caught again, nothing happens. They have coaches breaking rules over and over, and CHSAA looks the other way. Why make rules if you are too chickensh!t to enforce them?

So I agree that recruiting is wrong and illegal and should not be done.

But I see a lot of people equating recruiting to kids going to schools outside of their "home school". Two very different things.

Families have more freedom now than ever before to choose which schools their children will go to. Sure, it's no fun for anyone when all the kids go to one school in the area. But instead of just locking kids down and not allowing them that choice, I think it's incumbent upon coaches to try and be the one school in the area that kids go to. (without recruiting). And if you're lucky, you'll get a situation where most of the area schools are pulling out all the stops to be the best option for these kids. In this scenario, kids win. Parents win. The schools and coaches who succeed win.

Again, two separate things. I think academics is a good comparison, because teams that are competing for championships are also likely teams that have healthy culture and allow kids to better reach their potential. Plenty of kids go to specific high schools for their band programs...is that academic?

The rules are clear. But just because a kid decides to go to a school that isn't his "home" school does not mean recruiting has taken place; it just means that family has made a choice they believe is best for them.

On the flip side, here's something that's not fair: a kid running for a HS where the coaches aren't overly dedicated, one where there are few peers for the kid to run with, or maybe there's just a personality conflict between the kid and the coach. Telling that kid that he must stick with his program, that he isn't allowed to pursue his full potential, that if he DOES choose to follow his passion elsewhere he will be punished by losing a year of eligibility...that's pretty unfair to the kid.

RunningRunner wrote:

All of us coaches joke about it and kinda shrug our shoulders because there doesn't appear to be anything we can do

Seems like you found your solution - hurling secondhand accusations anonymously on the internet - gold star coach!

You sound disgruntled. Don't get angry, get even. Obviously you believe that you are a superior coach and that you would be winning if those darned other schools weren't poaching the talent from your local schools. So, you simply need to start a club and convince the parents of a bunch of elementary and middle school kids that they should shell out a decent amount of coin to have you train their kids (that's what the competing clubs essentially are doing). Then you don't have to worry about other people putting a bug in the ear of kids you feel like you own. Of course those picky parents might still prefer to send their kid to a school where the academics are better, bad behavior is not tolerated and more kids get into more prestigious institutions.