Are high school cross country tryouts the norm?

High School Running

Page 6 of 6

1 5 6

Next Last

2 weeks ago 07/18/2024 4:24pm EDT

re: StinsonAV

personally i think you're trading in the myth that everyone on every other sport with a roster limit, on down to JV and frosh, are amazing. which is bull.

get down off your high horse and go watch a JV/soph/frosh team in another sport. like my HS was taking anyone who wanted to play tennis for numbers' sake. my normal sized brother was playing nose tackle subvarsity trying to beat some 250 pound center.

i get roster or budget limits but i think in 95% of the XC world it's the opposite problem. it then becomes do i want my team artificially smaller than who showed up, to prove some point besides i was told i can only keep 50. i say that because a roster limit isn't a time limit, as the time to make the roster might vary each year, no? if you are actually a good coach the team might be even harder to make next year. or if you graduate a good group, easier. cause it's not really a time, is it? it's finite bodies. and at the nth body, you cut. they have a time, but you could like the effort and time on n+1 and he's one too many, cut.

so saying the 2 are the same is false. like using time to exercise discipline.

2 weeks ago 07/18/2024 4:27pm EDT

re: Vee Eye Tee

Football teams typically 15 kids per coach. They don't leave campus. Cross country could have 100 to 1 without cuts and the kids run around town. Some of you don't seem to want to listen to real life coaches. Come be a full time volunteer if you want cuts to stop. Every school would take you. But then you will have to foot the bill for another bus for 10 meets so you will be donating $2500 also.

2 weeks ago 07/18/2024 5:11pm EDT

re: joe coach

You hate to see coaches making arbitrary cuts for any sport, but every sport is going to have an upper limit. If you are just sending kids out for a run every day "around town" then I suppose you could scale cross country to over 100 kids. What's your plan if you want to get on the track once in a while? Or the weight room? Or you want to do hill intervals on a narrow trail? Coaches committed to trying to build a competitive team may have a hard time scaling their methods to an infinite number of kids. At what point does it stop being an interscholastic sport and more of a running club?

Having said that, I'm not a fan of arbitrary times used for cutting. I'm not convinced the threat of cuts by time is going to make your program better, if that's the real reason for it. Like another said above if it's a numbers issue simply cut your roster off at the number that can be reasonably handled at your school.

2 weeks ago 07/18/2024 5:31pm EDT

re: Vee Eye Tee

Vee Eye Tee wrote:
55YO wrote:
Here is a true scenario from my first year coaching. The coach before me did not cut anyone, and the culture was a lazy one. The real runners did not run, because they saw it as a joke.
Anyway, she had a boy who was a junior, and had run for three years, but got slower each year, because he ate to much and ran too little. He would not have made the girls varsity team, and they were not competitive in our District. When I came in, I had a large group of freshmen join, and they started out at his level. In just a couple of weeks, they had surpassed him. He was not happy, and started trying to get them to slack off with him. Some did, but others came and told me what was going on.
Serious question: what would you have done?
Here is what I did. I se a minimum standard for Track events, and for XC events. His lack of effort in training left him short of the standards, although he had made them previously. Are you saying I should have tolerated his poor work ethic?
Like another poster said on the first page, itis the parents of the slow kids who cause the problems. His Momma complained at the awards banquet that he did not get an award. I asked her who got the award that her son should have gotten. She refused to answer.
look, i am sure southlake has some sort of effort or discipline boundaries too. but i would assume that instead of being insincere and policing "discipline" with "time," they literally identify "discipline" problems. because there might be kids who have "time" issues but give full effort. you're looking for your CYA such that you're willing to toss nice, hard working effort kids to maintain your smokescreen on tossing discipline problems.
as someone who got tossed off the hurdle squad because despite being the fastest team member, placing in the area, i was often at soccer practice instead, and laughably bad at close-order hurdle drills (as opposed to form) when i showed up, to the point i would start giggling, i think some of this is just about showing who was boss. i went over to sprints with college recruitable hurdle times. they lost their best hurdler. they got rid of their giggler. my experience, counterproductive. i find a lot of this to be macho bs.

The time conditions set the tone. By removing the runner from competition, it sent the message that working hard to make a standard is the way to ensure a spot. Ever since, I have only had one guy not make the time, but he was a kid who had a physical disability, and we waived it because he was a good teammate. He worked hard and improved. He also helped the other kids with the team supplies at meets, unlike the previous one.

I did have a few freshmen girls unable to make the time, at first, but knowing they needed to make a standard, they pushed to get there by the end of the season. They made it with three meets to go.

Our standard was set early on: you work and improve, or you hit the showers on your way off the team. I never had to remove another slacker. and, the team more than tripled over the ten years I had the team. We went from ten total kids the year before I took over to 36 the tenth year. I am now at a new school that had six total kids last year, three of which graduated. I have six kids already, and school has not even started yet. I will grow this team, and not have to make cuts because I will set the standard high, and the kids will attain it.

You don't know me. I am passionate about the sport that I love, and my runners learn to love it like I do, because I train them well, and they respond well. I am not the guy you think I am.

2 weeks ago 07/19/2024 12:23pm EDT

re: Vee Eye Tee

Vee Eye Tee wrote:
55YO wrote:
Here is a true scenario from my first year coaching. The coach before me did not cut anyone, and the culture was a lazy one. The real runners did not run, because they saw it as a joke.
Anyway, she had a boy who was a junior, and had run for three years, but got slower each year, because he ate to much and ran too little. He would not have made the girls varsity team, and they were not competitive in our District. When I came in, I had a large group of freshmen join, and they started out at his level. In just a couple of weeks, they had surpassed him. He was not happy, and started trying to get them to slack off with him. Some did, but others came and told me what was going on.
Serious question: what would you have done?
Here is what I did. I se a minimum standard for Track events, and for XC events. His lack of effort in training left him short of the standards, although he had made them previously. Are you saying I should have tolerated his poor work ethic?
Like another poster said on the first page, itis the parents of the slow kids who cause the problems. His Momma complained at the awards banquet that he did not get an award. I asked her who got the award that her son should have gotten. She refused to answer.
look, i am sure southlake has some sort of effort or discipline boundaries too. but i would assume that instead of being insincere and policing "discipline" with "time," they literally identify "discipline" problems. because there might be kids who have "time" issues but give full effort. you're looking for your CYA such that you're willing to toss nice, hard working effort kids to maintain your smokescreen on tossing discipline problems.
as someone who got tossed off the hurdle squad because despite being the fastest team member, placing in the area, i was often at soccer practice instead, and laughably bad at close-order hurdle drills (as opposed to form) when i showed up, to the point i would start giggling, i think some of this is just about showing who was boss. i went over to sprints with college recruitable hurdle times. they lost their best hurdler. they got rid of their giggler. my experience, counterproductive. i find a lot of this to be macho bs.

You know, you never answered the question about what you would have done with this kid.

2 weeks ago 07/19/2024 9:05pm EDT

re: StinsonAV

It's a lot different when you have Cali and Texas teams with hundreds of runners. Most programs are happy to get 20 kids to run, so cutting kids makes no sense.

2 weeks ago 07/19/2024 10:08pm EDT

re: StinsonAV

the put up or shut up type line is area where i grew up he wouldn't be finishing last on either JV or frosh. and we usually had one of the medalist teams at state. and he would beat 8 kids in southlake carroll's JV district, including 3 from southlake itself, and southlake competes for texas 6a state annually.

it is generally NOT the case that texas teams have 100s of kids. that was not my theory. most probably have a dozen or two and could use anyone who shows up. which was point 1. but point 2 was that if a state champion type team can have like 100 kids out and still win, and i am talking from 15 minute wonders to 30 minute mascots, then this is budget politics or coaching egos. you do not inherently have to run a team this way, at least not unless your principal/AD requires it, and even then i might push back and say, dude, how many kids get to play football every fall.

Page 6 of 6

1 5 6

Next Last

Reply Replying to

Username

Password

Leave the password field blank to post anonymously.

Post Preview

By posting you acknowledge that you have read and abide by our Terms and Conditions.

Remember me on this device.

Are high school cross country tryouts the norm?

Of General Interest

This thread has already been deleted.

You have been subscribed.

Are high school cross country tryouts the norm?

Jump To A Page

Follow CO Coach

Block CO Coach

Jump To A Page

Of General Interest

This thread has already been deleted.

Reply Replying to

You have been subscribed.