I'm a volunteer for my former High School in a densely populated county in the Mid-Atlantic. I am trying to assist the coaches of the Boys and Girls XC and Track & Field teams in making their teams competitive. We would love to get them to begin to be competitive on the County level, and then grow to be competitive at a Regional and state.
The large issue we face is numbers. The XC teams have a COMBINED total of 20 or so kids on girls and boys, and track isn't much bigger. Schools in our county who are of comparable size (~1700 - 1800 students) are getting 70+ kids on their teams. While I know it is about quality and not quantity, having more kids increases the chance that we get those kids that are exceptionally talented. We are really making a push for next XC season. Besides just getting kids in the school to come out, we also want to get incoming freshmen interested and even possibly jogging a bit in the summer.
Does anyone have any experience with really turning a team around? What (serious) methods did you use that you found helped? I'm all ears...