In a lot of ways I'm very excited about the 2011 cross country season. It's obvious to me from the Ragged Mountain Cup that most of our returning runners, and in particular the ones who went to camp, are much improved from last year. Eric, Patrick, Seth, Helen and Rain all seem poised to blow away times they ran in 2010. Kauri also had an impressive race at Ragged Mountain, but we really don't have a benchmark time for her in the two-mile to know how this will translate to the longer runs. We've also got new, dedicated runners in Cecil, Amanda, Zach and Caroline and they will probably be dropping a lot of time as hard as they've worked since practice began. I look for us to win our first couple dual meets and to make some of our best showings in the invitationals that come later. We have dedicated runners, not kids going through the motions.
On the other hand, I am frustrated by a couple of things. First of all, this $100 pay to play fee is not helping us at all. It's not easy for a kid to come out for cross country for the first time and if they're on the fence then $100 might push them over the edge (not to mention that we then make them sell a $100 raffle ticket). This fee has got to be keeping our numbers down.
Speaking of numbers, this is my second frustration. We are a AAA school with 1600 students. We showed up at Ragged Mountain with a team of 5 varsity boys and 5 varsity girls. The single A schools easily had triple our numbers. This is embarrassing and it says something about our community I've yet totally to figure out. I joke with the other coaches that our "bottom" five will beat their bottom five, but it's not funny; it's a shame. We lost two runners who would have had big years this fall and looking at the performances of an elite boy and an elite girl from Albemarle and Western who missed cross country last year and came back this year, it appears that a year off from cross country is a loss that is incredibly hard to almost impossible to make up. Only having five or six kids on the teams leaves us with no margin for injury and causes kids to try to race on injuries because they don't want to let the team down. These low numbers are, quite frankly, dangerous.
I think my biggest frustration was that we had to decide last year whether or not Helen should practice for track at the middle school or at the high school. She ended up deciding to practice at the middle school (and likely cost herself some seconds off her mile and 2-mile time as a result) to drum up support for cross country this year. No less than 7 kids at the middle school and 4 at the high school that looked me in the eye and said with conviction they were running cross country never came out. To be fair, I don't blame the kids: I blame the parents. Either it's inconvenient to get them to practice (it really isn't--as I told every one of them I'd pick them up and bring them to practice), or it's expensive (who would let the fact that they're too proud to apply for a scholarship for the $100 pay-to-play fee keep their kid from doing something that's good for them). I think I will forever be thinking in Helen's junior and senior year that we could have been so much better (district championship or even more) if these kids' parents had got on ball and made sure their kids were ready to go on August 8th.
Then we have the whole, "I play soccer (or whatever sport) instead," line. This is such a joke I don't even know where to begin. The schools that will be kicking our soccer, tennis, baseball, basketball, and wrestling teams' butts this year will be the teams that have 80 running cross country because the soccer, tennis, baseball, basketball and wrestling coaches strongly encourage their kids to run cross country. At some schools you are automatically cut for some sports if you can't run a mile or 2-miles in a certain time.
I know the argument is that if you want to get better at sport x then time spent practicing and playing sport x will make you better at sport x than at sport y, and I agree if all things are equa. So why is it that in almost every sport that kids who end up with college scholarships are much more like to have run cross country than kids who play the sport and and don't get scholarships? Well high schools with winning sports programs and college recruiters have figured out that it's real simple. Kids playing rec league aren't getting much out of it in most cases. It's not every day...the coaches aren't experts on conditioning like the cross country coaches. The competition is spotty. The bottom line is that if a kid runs cross country they REALLY train hard for three months, and if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that you don't train that hard in rec league or on your own (except for super rare personality types). You're a big kid now; let's play big kid sports. Western Albmarle probably has beaten us 80% of the time over the years if we're considering all sports. Here's the secret (everyone always asks what it is): they're beating us with their cross country team. That's right, Western's cross country team is better at just about every sport than our team in that sport is. It's even worse in the Commonwealth district where a boatload of kids actually run cross country AND play another sport in the fall. They get to skip conditioning at field hockey practice, or whatever, because they do the cross country workout.
On the other hand, I am frustrated by a couple of things. First of all, this $100 pay to play fee is not helping us at all. It's not easy for a kid to come out for cross country for the first time and if they're on the fence then $100 might push them over the edge (not to mention that we then make them sell a $100 raffle ticket). This fee has got to be keeping our numbers down.
Speaking of numbers, this is my second frustration. We are a AAA school with 1600 students. We showed up at Ragged Mountain with a team of 5 varsity boys and 5 varsity girls. The single A schools easily had triple our numbers. This is embarrassing and it says something about our community I've yet totally to figure out. I joke with the other coaches that our "bottom" five will beat their bottom five, but it's not funny; it's a shame. We lost two runners who would have had big years this fall and looking at the performances of an elite boy and an elite girl from Albemarle and Western who missed cross country last year and came back this year, it appears that a year off from cross country is a loss that is incredibly hard to almost impossible to make up. Only having five or six kids on the teams leaves us with no margin for injury and causes kids to try to race on injuries because they don't want to let the team down. These low numbers are, quite frankly, dangerous.
I think my biggest frustration was that we had to decide last year whether or not Helen should practice for track at the middle school or at the high school. She ended up deciding to practice at the middle school (and likely cost herself some seconds off her mile and 2-mile time as a result) to drum up support for cross country this year. No less than 7 kids at the middle school and 4 at the high school that looked me in the eye and said with conviction they were running cross country never came out. To be fair, I don't blame the kids: I blame the parents. Either it's inconvenient to get them to practice (it really isn't--as I told every one of them I'd pick them up and bring them to practice), or it's expensive (who would let the fact that they're too proud to apply for a scholarship for the $100 pay-to-play fee keep their kid from doing something that's good for them). I think I will forever be thinking in Helen's junior and senior year that we could have been so much better (district championship or even more) if these kids' parents had got on ball and made sure their kids were ready to go on August 8th.
Then we have the whole, "I play soccer (or whatever sport) instead," line. This is such a joke I don't even know where to begin. The schools that will be kicking our soccer, tennis, baseball, basketball, and wrestling teams' butts this year will be the teams that have 80 running cross country because the soccer, tennis, baseball, basketball and wrestling coaches strongly encourage their kids to run cross country. At some schools you are automatically cut for some sports if you can't run a mile or 2-miles in a certain time.
I know the argument is that if you want to get better at sport x then time spent practicing and playing sport x will make you better at sport x than at sport y, and I agree if all things are equa. So why is it that in almost every sport that kids who end up with college scholarships are much more like to have run cross country than kids who play the sport and and don't get scholarships? Well high schools with winning sports programs and college recruiters have figured out that it's real simple. Kids playing rec league aren't getting much out of it in most cases. It's not every day...the coaches aren't experts on conditioning like the cross country coaches. The competition is spotty. The bottom line is that if a kid runs cross country they REALLY train hard for three months, and if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that you don't train that hard in rec league or on your own (except for super rare personality types). You're a big kid now; let's play big kid sports. Western Albmarle probably has beaten us 80% of the time over the years if we're considering all sports. Here's the secret (everyone always asks what it is): they're beating us with their cross country team. That's right, Western's cross country team is better at just about every sport than our team in that sport is. It's even worse in the Commonwealth district where a boatload of kids actually run cross country AND play another sport in the fall. They get to skip conditioning at field hockey practice, or whatever, because they do the cross country workout.
I used to coach football and baseball. I used to think I was practically committing child abuse on my kids because our conditioning was so tough. After seeing cross country workouts I can only say that my 10-0 football teams and 19-1 baseball teams weren't in shape at all. If they had run a little cross country I doubt I would have had to do any conditioning at all.
We've got a lot to work on at Orange if we're ever going to be competitive in AAA. It starts with kids running cross country or track in the off seasons of their sports. You'd be surprised how fast we'll be competitive if we'll just make that little step.
We've got a lot to work on at Orange if we're ever going to be competitive in AAA. It starts with kids running cross country or track in the off seasons of their sports. You'd be surprised how fast we'll be competitive if we'll just make that little step.