It didn't say in the email, but from what my wife is being told by other parents, something like a 20 minute for 3 miles My son can't run that fast, unfortunately. He is trying right now to do the summer list of running, but he is more like doing a 25 minute 3 mile run according to his garmin when he said he tried to run his fastest. I know that he isn't the most talented, but he is willing to run anything the coach asks of him.
i would recommend that your son ask the coach for further clarification as to what the actual time cut off is
done appropriately, time cuts are one of the best things a coach can do for the long term health of the program as a whole, but also great for the individuals involved
it's saturday and the beach is calling my name, so gotta run, but if any coaches out there want a breakdown of what worked extremely well for me i'd be happy to share details or answer questions
as i pointed out in the post i made on southlake carroll, this is just not true. they dominate texas XC with dozens of kids on subvarsity including kids barely breaking 30.
i think some of this trades in the insinuation the slow kids aren't trying or are disciplinary risks. i remember refereeing pro wrestling antics on the pad between our state champ pole vaulter and state qualified high jumper. i had varsity distance friends who would go hide in the bathroom for parts of workouts. future D1 and minor league soccer player i knew got sent to alternative school for drug dealing. good or bad runners can equally be goof offs or problems. you're making the popular let's run assumption that result = hard work in practice. result can just = talent or years put in.
we had a regional finalist hurdler and shuttle hurdle record holder who only occasionally got meets on our strong junior high team. that junior high team won area and had more than enough kids to fill the events. we rotated events and got those kids occasionally races, not ever meet, not necessarily the championship, but kept them in.
and you can still kick off the kids who don't try or cause issues. i'm saying wait for that to happen instead of assuming the slow kid ruins the team. because they could be a big deal in a few years.
re the time drop discussion, every year there's a story some kid who was running 18 is down to 14 or 15 and competing for state and headed to a D1.
too old for this, I am going to be honest. That was a bad decision on your part. Does not matter how slow the kid is, he showed up. And he quit because you quit on him. Bad coaching. Would you have cut the kid with cerebral palsy because he would run slow?
I would not have allowed them to race.
Since when was it our job to make sure everyone is given a chance to compete?
I have never been in the business of letting kids out there because they work really hard. There’s a lot of kids in other sports that work hard that never touch the field/court. I have a lot of girls on my track team that show up and work hard every day. I try to figure out ways to get them in track meets if I can, but sometimes there’s just not the space. So, they don’t compete either.
as i explained, this is not soccer or football with 11 on a lineup, a team score, and the risk they help lose a game. and even then scrubs get in blowouts. or do people not get the real meaning of "rudy."
and JV XC may not run by varsity 7 man limits, and JV TF may not have varsity 3 entry per event limits. like i said on southlake, they had dozens of kids on their JV. they likely won't score. their fight may be for DFL.
but the point is the only "limits" are either budget/jerseys -- and i have pointed to football teams often don't have those same concerns, even if their scrubs might be the equivalent of your scrubs, they get a varsity jersey at least as a senior -- or "you."
when "you" are the limit, that becomes inherently subjective. would that kid get to finish their local road race? are those organizers, spectators, racers, families, "embarrassed?"
it's a mentality thing. "rudy" or a girl playing football is "fun." but somehow you're making a slow XC runner into an embarrassment. that says more about you than them.
what you are throwing around is the idea that you being a taskmaster has to happen to have a good running team. bull. my HS TF coach was completely chill, girls won state a couple times, few state records, multiple individual state champions. knew every kid's parents on down to the kids on subvarsity and could compliment them with specifics.
and, oh, he could break down your race, but you listened and ran hard for him because he wasn't a jerk.
by contrast HS XC coach was a jerk, ran me into the ground after 2 years, ran off a bunch of people, could hang his hat on some successes in a hard hard area but we could barely have a subvarsity he ran off so many people. and since he did, everyone left was good. and my experience he took credit for how good the team was. yeah, a bunch of my buddies and soccer teammates quit.
And Centro ran 3:50 at the Olympics. The kid ran 19:30 as a freshman. Nobody is cutting a freshman running that fast. Not even close.
nah, you were pretending these kids don't exist and are now splitting hairs about who counts as those kids.
you're finessing that you would have probably cut the kid in the preseason before he ever broke 20. you're forgetting the game here is being cut in august for times then, not what they manage by november if allowed to stay around. which makes our point for us actually.
you're also cherry picking out some other time and ignoring at his district championship meet as a fish he was over 20.
Not a fan of liars. Go read my post on the 1st page. We typically don't cut freshmen. We cut about 22 minutes for guys who have been on the team before. 55 is outer number due to uniforms and busing. A 19 minute freshman is very good.
We very strongly suggest that everyone shows up with some level of fitness like the ability to run two miles without stopping or walking. First day of practice is always a two-mile run on the track. We won't cut anyone the first three weeks, but if they skip practices, lollygag through workouts, or get caught walking during off-campus distance runs, then we have no hesitations about booting them off of the squad. No program needs a bunch of lazy cancers around. Once a couple of kids start walking or goofing off, others join in. We nip that in the bud and quickly.
I'm running a program for athletes that want to improve and represent themselves and their school to the best of their abilities. I am not running a Couch-to-5K fitness program or creating subscribers for Runner's World.
If you were replying to me, things like walking on off campus runs fall into the non-compliance category I mentioned. Hopefully we don't disagree on that or that I don't care how fast a kid is or isn't as long as he does his best. Doesn't mean that the kid competes on the varsity, but he can at least practice and run some JV races where entries are unlimited. If nothing else (especially if the kid thinks he would be embarrassed) he should be able to time trial or compete in a relay-style workout or something.
I'm not accusing you, but I have the (perhaps incorrect) impression that some coaches want to be competitive so badly that they discourage kids who won't be at the top from coming out for the team. One of my favorite athletes to coach went from 27 minutes as a freshman to 16 min as a senior!
Since when was it our job to make sure everyone is given a chance to compete?
I have never been in the business of letting kids out there because they work really hard. There’s a lot of kids in other sports that work hard that never touch the field/court. I have a lot of girls on my track team that show up and work hard every day. I try to figure out ways to get them in track meets if I can, but sometimes there’s just not the space. So, they don’t compete either.
as i explained, this is not soccer or football with 11 on a lineup, a team score, and the risk they help lose a game. and even then scrubs get in blowouts. or do people not get the real meaning of "rudy."
and JV XC may not run by varsity 7 man limits, and JV TF may not have varsity 3 entry per event limits. like i said on southlake, they had dozens of kids on their JV. they likely won't score. their fight may be for DFL.
but the point is the only "limits" are either budget/jerseys -- and i have pointed to football teams often don't have those same concerns, even if their scrubs might be the equivalent of your scrubs, they get a varsity jersey at least as a senior -- or "you."
when "you" are the limit, that becomes inherently subjective. would that kid get to finish their local road race? are those organizers, spectators, racers, families, "embarrassed?"
it's a mentality thing. "rudy" or a girl playing football is "fun." but somehow you're making a slow XC runner into an embarrassment. that says more about you than them.
I probably should’ve pointed out the kid that couldn’t break 42 minutes was a senior. I’m all for growth and helping underclassman progress, but once they reach their junior or senior year, time is running out on their career.
i also think you are confusing your duty to sort out who is on the 4 or runs anchor leg on the mile relay, or which 3 varsity kids to enter in the mile to the area championship meet that progresses to state, with do i allow a 12th kid on open entry JV.
this is not us challenging man management at varsity meets that we all agree mean business. you can cut there. this is you saying the kid doesn't last more than a day or week on subvarsity, even if you may not really have to cut anyone.
i also think there are more constructive ways of going about this. if this is a hefty kid, you introduce him to the track coach and say you might have a thrower prospect for him. or the football coach.
if this is a normal size kid, maybe he's meant to be a hurdler.
or maybe the kid has never tried being an athlete, out of shape, and might benefit from (a) the consistent workouts XC will give or (b) being directed to something like JV soccer or tennis. the kid runs around and plays a year or so, gets in soccer shape, you maybe get a runner back.
when i hear a kid on this forum say a lousy time at x event, my usual response is not you loser, it's maybe this isn't what you're meant to do. are you sure you're not a tall potential hurdler, burly thrower, just miscast. but i wouldn't tell anyone that until they've run for a few years.
Ye syou have the wrong impression. Mote bodies always better because some kids make huge jumps. No coach wants to cut. We cut for budget/uniform/busing. And cut for safety reasons. Sending a hundred kids out into the community with 1 or 2 coaches is unsafe.
I may get flamed for this, but running sub 20 minutes as a freshmen is not hard at all so long as you put the training in. That's what, something like a 6:40 mile pace?
About 1/2 of our freshmen show up August 15 not having run for 3 months. We do a time trial after one week and after 2 weeks. We rarely cut freshmen but occasionally do if they can't run 3 miles after 2 weeks.
About 1/2 of our freshmen show up August 15 not having run for 3 months. We do a time trial after one week and after 2 weeks. We rarely cut freshmen but occasionally do if they can't run 3 miles after 2 weeks.
A guy I ran with 'ran' 28 minutes or so for 4000m his first year on the team as a freshman. He was new at school, hadn't previously done any athletics, and was overweight. After running track and A LOT the following summer, he made our varsity the following year and ended up running 17:20s for 5k.... Point is, it's pretty stupid to cut anyone that is willing to try.
I would not say that it's the norm, but it is common. Let me use my own HS team (30+ yrs coachining) as an example. We require our kids to have some minimum amount of fitness for a couple of reasons. [Our standard is 40 minutes without walking and 2 miles on the XC course (semi-hilly at altitude) in a time of 18 minutes for boys and 19 minutes for girls]. We ask for those two standards for two reasons; 1- we run off campus for many of our training runs and even with a large coahcing staff it is hard to supervise everyone when the kids in the back might end up being miles away from the middle group. and 2- we feel like some students either want to "run XC" to do a sport, have it on their resume for college apps, or have a parent that says "you should run XC" and thinks we're "jogging club". We ask for our minimum standard, and I feel like is is very obtainable, to let them know they need to do some prep work in the summer.
I wish your son well. I think you are going to enjoy being part of the sport.
Attrition is more the norm than cuts. After experiencing a week of 6 mile runs many of the kids who didn't run all summer quit. Sometimes returnees who didn't run all summer quit too.
