Centerville OH runs jv at district, fails to advance

Exactly. Plus, it's not like they're resting up to make some run at state title or NXN. No one is beating Beavercreek this year.

Let the girls run and enjoy themselves. If it is a case of not thinking the top runners could hold back and relax and just qualify through, then that is a sign of poor coaching as well. That is a skill that has to be developed.

The idea that a high school runner racing 4 weeks in a row is too much is ludicrous.

Let's start with this..... wrote:

The idea that a high school runner racing 4 weeks in a row is too much is ludicrous.

This. Only a 5k not 10k's and 1/2 Marathons......jeez. Just be smart about recovery during the week.

na, Hilliard Davidson are a bunch of queefs.[/quote]

+1

Not sure if this was already put in here, however the Cross Country and Track forum for Ohio (Yappi) has three pages of discussion it. Some good insights.

http://yappi.com/forum/index.php?threads/district-results-centerville-girls.327270/

Yeah it’s only a 5k, I don’t get the big deal about racing 4 weeks in a row. If anything cut out early season invites or dual meets. Or cut one or two workouts.

Not really worth the risk at all to rest a qualifying meet. Sorry for the varsity girls that lose out even though they didn’t get a chance to win.

iwasthere? wrote:

is that the douchey school where they do not have school name on their uniforms? just black tanks

Both Centerville and Hilliard Davidson have worn plain blank uniforms in the past. I assume to try and hide in the race, but I don't know that for a fact. I don't like this tactic for a few reasons, but that issue seems pretty minor after this weekend.

From what I read on the Yappi post, Ohio Milesplit's virtual meet projected their JV team to finish 8th, and only 7 teams moved on from that race. So it wasn't even that they totally bombed, the JV girls finished right around where they should have been. I feel bad for the Varsity girls, but I think I feel even worse for the JV girls who had to toe the line. They should have never been put in this position.

I feel like we could beat a dead horse all day here, but like a few people have pointed out, there are so many other and better options. If it was me, just have your varsity girls race dialed back this week. Centerville was good enough to finish 2nd* in this race without an all-out effort.

(This will make about 0 sense to people not familiar with the SW Ohio District CC, but 2nd* in this race would have actually made them District Champion. Instead of running two separate, seeded District races, as they do at the VOA District (vastly superior way to do it) the Cedarville District combines them into one race (stupid, lazy, etc.).

1st place and 2nd place are District Champions. 3rd and 4th place are District runner-ups. It's idiotic, I know, but anyways)

Either way, it's a whole lot better to toe the line with an extra race on your legs, than not at all.

Obviously, their coach has had some great success, but man, this blunder is darn near inexcusable for me. Who knows what will happen, it's been a mess over there at Centreville recently.

It amazes me how warped grown adults get with sports. At the end of the day, we're talking about 14 to 17-year-old girls playing sports. Most of these girls are closer to elementary school than adulthood. I'm all for high level, competitive varsity sports, but have some perspective here. Work hard. Compete well. Have fun.

Like Bill Bowerman said "You’d think any dmn fool could do it."

It's not an "all or nothing" situation where they had to run the top 7 or next 7. Sit a couple runners this week and a couple next week if you are that concerned, and still qualify easily.

What an epic coaching failure. I'd fire him.

Let's start with this..... wrote:

The idea that a high school runner racing 4 weeks in a row is too much is ludicrous.

This.

Too many precious athletes and coaches. Especially coaches

crumpet wrote:

Let's start with this..... wrote:

The idea that a high school runner racing 4 weeks in a row is too much is ludicrous.

This.

Too many precious athletes and coaches. Especially coaches

While I agree with this, I'm not really sure why they need to have multiple rounds of qualifier meets. In PA, they just have a district championship and a state championship. This works just fine, and I've never heard anyone argue in favor of adding another qualifier round between districts and states.

While it shouldn't really be a problem to race the extra meet, it does seem kind of pointless.

crumpet wrote:

Let's start with this..... wrote:

The idea that a high school runner racing 4 weeks in a row is too much is ludicrous.

This.

Too many precious athletes and coaches. Especially coaches

I read some of the Ohio board. Many of the posters think it may not have been about rest, but truly about showing up other district teams that they can advance with their JV. I hope this is not true.

LRC Jon Gault should go interview!!! Fascinating arrogance!

I've been coaching my whole life and this thought never crossed my mind. I believe racing is a skill. It must be honed week after week.

This actually made the local news.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/sports/centerville-girls-cross-country-postseason-unravels-district/hT8rYEUc9EIIjEKxB9OQoL/

If you haven't read the Yappi thread about all this, you need to. Commenters are doing a good job explaining the ins and outs of this. Here is a post that I think sums things up nicely by "ccalum"

"Centerville coach, in the Dayton Daily News story ... "It didn’t come through the way that we researched."

I don't know the coach or anyone on the girls team. And honestly, I don't care about the argument made on this thread about teams being offended that Centerville runs its JV at district. If my goal is to win state, and I think this will help, I'd do it in a heartbeat and apologize to no one.

But I question whether the research the coach mentions was really done.

Centerville had done this "rest the top girls" thing for multiple years. But each year was a little different.

In 2016, they rested runners #2-5 and finished 3rd at district (the top 8 teams advanced)

In 2017, they rested runners #1-6 and finished 5th at district (the top 8 teams advanced)

In 2018, they rested runners #1-5 and finished 5th at district (the top 8 teams advanced)

But in 2019, they rested RUNNERS #1-6 AND #8-9 ... in a year when instead of 8 teams advancing, only the top 7 advanced. Why would you rest more top kids than you had ever done, in a year when fewer teams advanced to regional? To do that, you'd have to be really sure of yourself. ... Or just sloppy.

Coming off GWOC, they had to know Beavercreek, Springboro and Lebanon would beat their "B" team. Since Talawanda put three girls sub-1940 at Centerville's own meet, they had to know that's a fourth team. Since Troy won their league meet with their fifth at 20:28 (faster than the Centerville district team's #2 ran at GWOC, that's five teams. So it came down to Fairmont, Miamisburg, Bellbrook and Centerville for the last two spots. ... Before I even go into the next data, that by itself should be enough to set off alarms and tell you, I can't rest 8 of my top 9. That's too little margin for error.

If you rerun the GWOC results, taking out the runners Centerville rested at district, Centerville actually beats Fairmont 131-137 and beats Miamisburg 131-151. Anyone who knows anything about XC knows that 6 points (the margin over Fairmont) is nothing. It's one kid waking up with the sniffles on Saturday, or a girl getting bumped off-stride at a key point and not recovering quickly.

So this coach is saying he was so confident that none of his # 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 runners would slip even a handful of seconds, AND that Miamisburg (or Bellbrook) would not see their girls break through with a strong race. ... That's crazy.

Why is it crazy? Because there are seven teenage girls who worked their butts off since June, doing everything their coach had asked, to become one of the top few teams in the state. And they don't get to run a single Ohio postseason race. If online results are right, two of those girls are seniors. Can you imagine going out like that? My team lost state by one point 32 years ago and I still remember the guy who passed me as we were rounding the final turn (Jay Anzellotti, if you're reading this, nice kick). But I had a fair chance and got beat. To not even have a chance? ...

Last thought: People on here have speculated about the coach's ego or some grand plan, or whatever. In my career field, people are fairly often accused of some bias or vendetta or scheme ... but in truth, when an error happens, it's usually because somebody overlooked something, or was too busy that day and didn't do quality control steps, etc. Again, I don't know the coach. But I wonder whether he said ... I've been doing this for years and we've never finished below fifth. We'll be fine. ... And didn't do the real research to make sure a bunch of hard-working teenage girls didn't get hosed.

In the end, for the girls, it doesn't matter how it happened. Because they did get hosed. And that sucks."

Another good one by "Mr. Slippery"

"Because as long as nobody is complaining, most ADs aren't paying much attention to what the cross country team is doing. It's just not on their radar most of the time.

I haven't given any thoughts on this situation yet, so I'll say this:

I can't defend the coach in this situation. If one plays with fire long enough, one will eventually get burned. It's nice to think that there are some years when the JV squad is good enough to advance the team to regionals. This wasn't one of them. I'm all for getting more athletes to contribute to the team's success and to get them into situations where their race day contribution takes on added significance, but there's a time and a place for that. The postseason isn't that time or place when better options are available. There are too many variables, and just when you think nothing will go wrong, it does. Years ago, my school was racing at a very large invite with a very skeleton crew (ACT and injuries). In the prerace huddle, I told them "you will not finish last." 1/2 mile into the race, the #1 guy sprained his ankle and had to drop out. Another got sick during the race and was much slower than usual. Guess where the team finished. Yup, Last. I've had a kid fracture a hip while running a leg of a relay. I've had kids run 30 sec. slower than normal on a 4x8 leg because of "female issues," and they didn't bother to tell me beforehand and thought they could tough it out. You never really know what's going to happen, so why handicap your team further in a tournament setting?

Is this something I would ever try? No way! The negatives far outweigh the positives. Not only do you have the variables I mentioned before, but there's also the simple fact that winning a district title still means something to me.

I once saw a team use the district meet as a fartlek. They basically gave away a district title. My school was in the race. I wasn't offended by it, but I thought it was crazy to throw away the chance to win another district title. That program won 5 state titles and was state runner-up at least 4 times that I can recall. This fall, they didn't field a team. My point being that the good times never last forever, so don't take it for granted when your team has opportunities to win postseason hardware."

Wait a minute, some things are not adding up here...

Centerville didn't run 1-6, plus 8 and 9? Why not 8 and 9? It's not like those runners figure to get another chance later on. It appears to be strictly run seven in Ohio districts and regionals. That 8 and 9 sat out is a fact in search of an explanation. Not saying there are no possible explanations, just that it's weird not to run 8 and 9 if you're resting six of the varsity seven.

Also, in the article from the Dayton newspaper, Dobson is quoted as saying, "We felt like we had a strategy that would allow us to advance and also help our athletes who would compete at the regional and state level perform well. That was the intention. In this case, it didn’t come to fruition. It didn’t come through the way that we researched."

Left unsaid here is who "we" is. Was Dobson using the royal plural or did he sit down with at least one other person and actually research this out? If so, how did the other people (person) not see what is glaringly obvious in retrospect?

Are we to believe that no assistant coach, possibly no AD, no parent, nor any team member attempted to put the brakes on this plan? That seems to be the hint Dobson is dropping in the interview.

I see one other thing missing from the Dayton newspaper article. It could be the author left it out (but why would he?), but where is Dobson saying, "I feel absolutely terrible about this!"

All strange things in the larger story.

I always like to look on the positive side of things.

At least now we know who gets the "Over coaching douche of the year award"

Amazing to me that coaches are this arrogant and take chances like this. What a tool! It must have been a miracle that my team in HS raced every Saturday for 10 weeks in a row, ran as hard as we could, and still won state in a very tightly contested meet. How did we survive? Surely we all needed 2 or 3 weeks off from racing in there to do our best right? So stupid.

another perspective wrote:

Amazing to me that coaches are this arrogant and take chances like this. What a tool! It must have been a miracle that my team in HS raced every Saturday for 10 weeks in a row, ran as hard as we could, and still won state in a very tightly contested meet. How did we survive? Surely we all needed 2 or 3 weeks off from racing in there to do our best right? So stupid.

You survived and won state because every team did it then. No one was smart enough to rest their runners.