FL/NTN: A plea for sanity

Combine the team and individual race and find a true national champion. The Northeast won FL wihtout some girls who would have been there if the Regionals weren't the same day.

What do we think it would take for Footlocker and Nike to work together to get the championships combined? It would be interesting. I'm sure there are also state rules in the way (stupid states).

Nothing short of an act of god.

you mean... work together? wrote:

What do we think it would take for Footlocker and Nike to work together to get the championships combined?

I don't think much is going to change because at the high school level by and large the top individuals are not at NTN.

I think there were 2 boys total at Footlocker who ran NTN.

At the NCAA level, it is a different story as by and large the team and individual championship really overlap. I just looked and roughly 29 of the top 40 were team qualifiers not individuals.

So it's really two separate championships at the high school level, the best runners in one and the best teams in the other. Very little overlap. Nike may be trying to own everything itself but Footlocker isn't seem to be going anywhere. Nike perhaps if it allows individual qualifiers is trying to push out Footlockers but the regionals (at least in some regions) are the same weekend. The top individuals will still run Footlockers.

Sure a few kids have to race a lot but that is only 1 or 2 people and only if they try and do both.

Plus in a few states I know athletes are not allowed to run NTN. It's against their state rules.

you mean... work together? wrote:

What do we think it would take for Footlocker and Nike to work together to get the championships combined? It would be interesting. I'm sure there are also state rules in the way (stupid states).

Actually, Nike tried to get Foot Locker to change their system to include a team component and to include a few more regionals so certain areas of the country weren't stuck with huge travel demands. Foot Locker liked what they had and refused to budge.

Round one to Nike, it would appear.

not changin wrote:

I don't think much is going to change because at the high school level by and large the top individuals are not at NTN.

I think there were 2 boys total at Footlocker who ran NTN.

Kudos to Ben Johnson, who put team ahead of self. Don't know that his personal resume needs the help, but I'm thinking he just started looking better to a bunch of college programs than the top ten FL finalists.

All high school events (XC, Indoor Track, & Outdoor Track) after the state meets are done on an individual or club basis (though, I think all members of a club must be from the same school for NTN). Schools have nothing to do with them officially. Athletes and coaches must pay their own way. Only Footlocker finalists and a few elite runners at the track meets get travel assistance.

The fact that so few athletes have to face a conflict suggests the current design is fine.

Footlocker finals is truly the best-of-the-best and the athletes are treated like stars. It's truly a unique experience. If you tried to combine it with a team format, the sheer number of athletes skyrockets. This would make the costs, which are already incredible, skyrocket too. Footlocker pays the entire tab for 80 athletes to travel to San Diego and stay at one of the best resorts in the country for the weekend, not to mention all of the other costs. I just don't see Nike doing this for 300 athletes on the teams, not to mention what resort could handle that.

Leave the intimacy and richness of Footlocker Finals as it is and keep the team orientation of NTN as well. There's no need to combine them. The few kids who might be impacted by both will have to make a decision to run one or the other, or both. It's not worth getting rid of either event to eliminate the need to make this decision.

Quick note to the poster above I think Nike pays for all the athletes to go to NTN.

I like the current system. Footlocker is the creme de la creme. High school running is way different than college running where the top runners are on the top teams. In high school, that is not the case. So if you had a team and individual national champs in one race basically all the individuals would be ahead of all the team runners.

I'm actually surprised Nike gets away with the state federations putting on a team championship. Certain states don't let their schools run but most do. Imagine if they tried this with a basketball championship. It wouldn't be allowed.

Which reminds me of a point someone that came up on a run since the teams are "clubs", what prevents 5 kids from the same region from just getting together and forming a team?

Footlocker isn't going anywhere. Perhaps people associated with the Nike regionals are trying to circulate that idea but it seems like the 2 different systems will continue to exist.

Nike clearly want to control the high school national championships but have run into a roadblock with Footlocker's. Now they may try and do an end around around fooltocker but most top individuals will still go to Footlocker's.

How can you say "Round 1 to Nike?" I'm curious as to what you mean by that. Perhaps Nike people have created the impression Footlocker is going away but that doesn't seem to be the case. The races in actuality cater to two different sets of athletes.

While Katie Flood had lots of back to back meets other athletes were forced to choose between the team and footlockers. NTN Champ Alabama's Madeleine Morgan didn't have the opportunity to qualify for FL because her NTN regional meet was on the same day. Same thing for NY runners Samantha Roecker and Hannah Davidson who both finished less than five seconds behind Flood at NTN. Davidson passed up the opportunity to be a 4x qualifier.

Wejo,

I'm the one who posted "Round one to Nike, it would appear."

I make that comment based on my own perceptions, not anything I've heard from Nike, though our team was involved in an NTN regional championship meet.

Chris Derrick and Colby Lowe run NTNs with what has to have been a pretty clear understanding that they were jeopardizing their FL chances. Ben Johnson opts out of FL entirely to run NTN. Numerous girls attempt to run both with more than a few who had a shot at making FL nationals (though maybe none with a credible shot at winning it) running only NTNs. Did Madeline Morgan have a shot? Maybe, but a long shot if she did. She certainly could have been top 10 at FL.

While I think it's clear that Nike did what they could (whatever their motivation--and I don't know what their motivation was, so this isn't sarcasm) to avoid conflicting the NTN regionals with FL regionals, the first year of NTN regionals did appear to thin out the FL regional fields to a significant degree. Moreover, I think Nike has been light years ahead of FL in responding to what the competitors want from the event. Nike actually gave away some gear at the regional meets whereas Foot Locker continued to chisel away for every little item. It's not the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me, but I appreciate the NTN regional hat they gave us there. It's little things like that that start adding up to good will and returning runners down the road.

It's true that FL had more of the most elite of the high school elite individuals at its national meet than NTN did, but it's not true that a combined race would populated up front solely by individual runners. The aforementioned individuals make that evident. Yes, the top 20 would definitely be tilted toward individual runners, but how is that a terrible thing? Six out of seven people on every team are used to not being the frontrunner, anyway. For the seventh one, a little stiffer competition just might be a good thing.

So, I still say "Round one to Nike."

they did wrote:

So, I still say "Round one to Nike."

And I'll call bullsh!t on that. Footlocker had a really good thing going with their nation XC meet. Nike saw an opportunity to piggy back on it and went for something that clearly conflicts with a really good event. It just took away from Footlocker, especially when they make individuals choose between the two events. I look at the results of NTN and I can't even figure out what teams they are, since they are forced to use some cute club name to disguise the fact that they are a high school team.

I would be willing to give Nike a pass, except for the fact that they did the exact same thing with indoor track. Their attitude seems to be 'we can either come in and greatly help a wonderful event or set up a mirror event and make two mediocre events. Lets make two mediocre events.'

Like it or not, high school xc is primarily about the team, not about the individual superstar, which is the reason I've never been a fan of Footlocker as it's set up. You take a kid who (ideally) has been a part of a team and place him or her in a track-like situation (in which he/she runs solely for himself/herself). That's not the way the sport is really set up here.

I do like NTN's focus on the team and on getting the entire team to travel together. We went this year, and they paid for a varsity plus an alternate, along with the club coach who coached them in my stead. The boys were treated like rock stars and had the athletic experience of their lives. We also had the opportunity to run against some truly deep and terrific teams.

I'm at a loss to understand how this is not good for the sport. Perhaps if a less-monolithic company like Brooks sponsored it more people would think it was actually a good thing?!

Bingo! Well said.

johnny rotten wrote:

Like it or not, high school xc is primarily about the team, not about the individual superstar,

That is ridiculous. By nature, distance runners are individuals. While you could say some pacing or pack running could be considered a team concept, it is such a small part of a race as to be irrelevant. The scores are merely a collection of individual performances.

If given a choice, people will tend to decide in favor of a team because of the peer pressure and need to fit in but there is a reason most of the footlocker finalists do not have to make that choice. That reason is their individual desire got them to where they are regardless of how good their teammates were.

I was the best basketball player in my class at my school, but my sophomore year a new coach came in, didn't like the way I played, and relegated me to 7th man. What good did the thousands of hours of practice and years of camps do for me sitting on the bench?

I quit basketball that year and began running year around. Of course I excelled and set some school records. The individual times do the talking in xc and track, not whether some coach decides to let you run or not.

To be honest, I don't see how any national championship for a high school sport is really in the best interests of the kids. It's more like adults dangling a carrot in front of kids to get them to live out adult schemes and desires. Kids compete enough during their scholastic seasons, between xc and track. Junior nationals is fine enough for the best-of-the-best, pushing kids to over-race (especially mixing in additional high-level races) hurts this sport tremendously and is a prime reason why the majority of prodigies never fully develop. Lydiard would be disgusted with all this over-racing of young runners.

Don't forget you still have AAU nationals as well. So that is three post-season options.

I like the concept of Team Nationals because many times your best team may not have a lot of top individuals. Now instead of arguing who's the best team in the nation we can find out with NTN.

Alan

Not depending on others wrote:

I was the best basketball player in my class at my school, but my sophomore year a new coach came in, didn't like the way I played, and relegated me to 7th man. What good did the thousands of hours of practice and years of camps do for me sitting on the bench?

I quit basketball that year and began running year around. Of course I excelled and set some school records.

Wow, your school kept records for humility?

let me guess wrote:

Wow, your school kept records for humility?

I am just stating the facts. Everybody knows who the best players are on a team. I will put it another way. I was the leading scorer, the leading offensive rebounder, the best free throw shooter, always guarded the other teams best scorer unless he was a center, and had all the out of bounds plays set up for me. Why? Because of the thousands of hours I practiced that the others didn't and the many years of camps I went to that the other players didn't go to. I just worked harder at it BUT I was still dependant on the coach playing me. That is not the case in running. Everyone runs and the fastest wins. Period...........

The point isn't about me. It's that if you work harder, then you will excel UNLESS you are playing a team sport which xc is not.

3x10 wrote:

It's more like adults dangling a carrot in front of kids to get them to live out adult schemes and desires.

Wow, where's that coming from? Seriously, I don't see it the same.

I would argue that having an indoor season (hs or college) has done much more to promote over-racing than Foot Locker or NTN.

FL didn't seem to hurt Hall, Kennedy, Davis, Goucher, Ritz, etc.