Cross Country 2009

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run4fun
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by run4fun »

Healthy is what I call it. Have a great season whether you are competitive or just "run4fun".
Last edited by run4fun on Sat Sep 19, 2009 8:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

hzy
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by hzy »

Good points, todaresq. I have to admit I stand corrected in that maybe the public schools are the ones that need to change, not the private schools. There needs to be santctioned sports programs at the intermediate level, with league competition that encourages more participation. If this were the case I think it would go a long way to increase the competition between public and private schools. Most states have established middle school athletic programs that gets kids involved in sports at a much younger age. Like run4fun said, this is not only great from a competitive stand point, but more importantly it encourages kids to live a healthy lifestyle. This would greatly increase the chances of them becoming healthy adults.

Good luck to everyone as we all enter the heart of the season. Stay healthy!

mauioutlaw
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by mauioutlaw »

In response to 808runner, as I am from Maui I cannot speak for the other islands but perhaps others can fill in concerning 'recruiting' by private schools. If the private schools recruit for other sports why would they not recruit for crosscountry or even track? I do know for a fact that on Maui, Seabury Hall recruits for running among a few other sports. In fact I could probably tell you one of the girls you will see running next season.
As for the 'STATE' argument against DI and DII, whether based on student population or Public versus Private, it just doesn't hold water as just about every other sport (and cross country IS a team sport) has different divisions that play in State tournaments. Also as nogutsnoglory stated plenty of other states nationwide have at least 2 divisions. For the sake of brevity due to the smaller population, as I stated previously, the divisions could even be run simultaneously.
I am not trying to be argumentative but put yourself in the place of the public school teams when looking at past championships, its almost as if why bother unless you are an outstanding individual and can garner individual honors.

RunJonPaulAMPM
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by RunJonPaulAMPM »

So does this mean public school coaches are incompetent and public school athletes don't work hard enough and are inexperienced? - NO! It means that good coaching can only get you so far in the public sector, where you can only choose from the students in your geographic location, who decide to come out for the sport. Private schools have the luxury of picking athletes from the entire state and maybe even the mainland, and participating in the sport is more valuable to private school athletes since they count towards school credits. Not to mention that many would be athletes in the public schools may opt to work at a job rather than compete in sports.

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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by RunJonPaulAMPM »

Successful public school like Leilehua and Radford are able to succeed when they have talented kids from the mainland transfer in from the military, or when they have foreign exchange students come in like when Kalaheo won. Also, when private school coaches try to coach in the public school system they are able to put together decent programs, but aren't able to dominate the sport without the easy source for talent they had in the private sector.

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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by Pun Dad »

Why have these teams won State Championships?

Leilehua Cross Country and Football, Kahuku Football, Konawaena Basketball, Pearl City Judo, Millilani Softball and Soccer.

Hard practicing athletes, Good coaching, high student participation, Youth feeder programs, summer conditioning.

Why do Punahou, Kamehameha, HBA, and Iolani win State Championships? Same reasons.

None of the listed factors is restricted to Private Schools, and the programs listed above prove that public schools can compete. But it is difficult and takes work. So If it makes you feel better thinking Punahou is offering free tuition to 6th grade Cross Country prodigies, that is your choice.

The reality is that 80 intermediate students at Punahou just finished Cross country practice, 70 will never score in a State meet, the 10 who do couldn't be picked out today, will run 5000 miles in the next few years, and won't recieve a penny for there efforts. If Millilani or Aiea get 90 intermediate students running, and who run 6000 miles in the next few years they will have a good chance at finishing ahead of Punahou in the 2014 State Championship. As I said, it is difficult and takes work.

Waipi'o Lookout
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by Waipi'o Lookout »

It's too bad that there are not two divisions for X-country. Honoka'a is a small (750 students) rural school on the Big Island that has placed in the top five at states (boys) each of the past four years. They are two-time defending BIIF champs and had the second place individual female runner at states last year (Tialana Greenwell). They are the overwhelming favorites to repeat as BIIF boys champs and have a competitive girls team this year but, unfortunately, they have a difficult time competing for top team honors statewide because of a lack of depth. Two divisions would give the small schools like Honoka'a a chance to better compete for state team honors.

mauioutlaw
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by mauioutlaw »

In response to Pun Dad, with all due respect, I think the State Championships that are being refered to here are for Cross Country. Football, Basketball, etc. are another matter and several private schools are really too small to field enough great players to be State Champs. Cross Country however is a small enough 'team' sport to allow even a small private school to field a team of exceptional runners. The following quote stated previously kind of states what is happening:

"Another reason I disagree with divisions based solely on school size is because of the number of team titles in both Cross Country and Track and Field that have been won by private schools, with Punahou leading the way. Looking back at the history of state champions in Hawaii, why haven't public schools with high enrollment numbers won state championships more regularly? Leilehua is the first public school to win a state title in boys Cross Country in 20 years, and on the girls side it's been nearly 30 years since a public school won a state championship! I don't want to assume an elitist attitude for those that don't see this as a problem, but how can these facts be ignored?"

The fact remains that the private schools have and are giving financial aid in return for participation in certain sports and this has kind of made it lop-sided in the Cross Country arena for the past quarter century. Setting up seperate divisions based on public and private might be something to look at. If there is fear of NOT knowing who the fastest runners are because they aren't being 'pushed' by another runner, that can be corrected by having all runners compete at the same time and just seperate the runners for scoring as is done now for non-scoring schools.
As for the statement that some of the 90 runners for Mililani or Aiea running faster than say average, there is a good chance, it seems to me, that one of the private schools might just make an offer to that student, whereas another public school would be unable to do that due to geographical constraints.

Person
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by Person »

Okay well first of all, I think geographical constraints benefit public school more than private schools. Private schools students are more spread out around the island and im sure you know yourself, that its harder to train by yourself. Its much easier to run with a friend or fellow peer, which makes it "in my eyes" harder to train on the off season. Secondly i do not believe many private schools actually recruit for cross country. I actually beleive little to none do. Cross country is not a sport where youd spend your recruiting money into, especially when there is higher favorites like football or basketball.
Talent is bound to come around at every school.
And so does hardworkers that make up for their lack of talent.

Public or Private, runnining is running, the faster person will always win, and the better team will always win
i'm excited to see the new talent with this years new runners, and previous years returnees and see how they compete

run because you can
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by run because you can »

Person wrote:Okay well first of all, I think geographical constraints benefit public school more than private schools. Private schools students are more spread out around the island and im sure you know yourself, that its harder to train by yourself. Its much easier to run with a friend or fellow peer, which makes it "in my eyes" harder to train on the off season. Secondly i do not believe many private schools actually recruit for cross country. I actually beleive little to none do. Cross country is not a sport where youd spend your recruiting money into, especially when there is higher favorites like football or basketball.
Talent is bound to come around at every school.
And so does hardworkers that make up for their lack of talent.

Public or Private, runnining is running, the faster person will always win, and the better team will always win
i'm excited to see the new talent with this years new runners, and previous years returnees and see how they compete
Well put. Cross country and track are not big money sports. They are not sports the boosters and alumni associations will put their focus on. How many fans come out to watch xc and track other than the families who's child is running. When i ran most of my friends didn't even know i ran track of xc they thought all i played was baseball and soccer. As much as i enjoyed running other sports playing on the same day would draw the fans from our school. I would go from a track meet straight to a baseball game and i wouldn't see one kid @ the meet from my school who wasn't there to compete in the meet. When i arrived @ our game you would see students everywhere who came to watch our games. I guess xc and track came off as "dorky" sports to most in highschool, but certainly not to me i enjoyed it. When I first started I wasn't very good but it was a challenge to me. But by the time i got to highschool all the hard worked paid off. Making it to states as a freshmen was a big thing for me, and it was something that i worked for. The only thing that i didn't like was when people would talk and say where did this kid come from as if I was recruited from somewhere. I can honestly say that I was not going to school to play sports. I do not know about other sports but im confident that xc and track are not sports the private schools will try to dominate

What I see on this board are a lot of people with to much pride. Let your kids run. My advice to you is to not fill their heads with information on other runners around the state. Its just added pressure that they don't need. The reason why I feel I did well in my running career is because I thought of everyone else as non-athletes when I competed. I later found out that there are some athletes who run. In those earlier years most kids who come out and have had success don't know who is good and not good so they just run with pure passion. There is a trend in the elite girls in the state not all but alot of them. They do really good their first year when they are fearless but the next year they think oh i have to train more if i want to be better, so they go and run 45 mile weeks during the summer. Boom as soon as season kicks off they get injuries or sick. I see a lot of parents pushing their kids way to hard. Let their coaches coach them. There are a lot of good coaches in all the leagues I have met a lot of them and each has talked to me and gave me advice all of which was good.

There's so much drama in sports these days and I see A LOT of the parents living through their child.

mauioutlaw
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by mauioutlaw »

I think the point is being missed with respect to the private/public school discussion. No one is disputing that the faster runner will win and the 'better' team will win. In fact that is the point. It has to be more than coincidence or training that private schools have won basically every Cross Country State Championship for the past 20 to 30 years.
To address some of the latest comments, geographical constraints, meaning school boundaries, affect the athletes available to each public school but do not affect private schools who are able to 'recruit' talent island wide. It may not be as evident on Oahu with a large population but is on the neighbor island where the talent pool is much smaller. As for training off season, most students on the neighbor islands live some distance from the schools and don't have the public transportation option that Oahu does. So a lot of the runners most likely train on their own or meet somewhere with someone to train.
As I stated before, I am not from Oahu and can't really speak for sure (the stats do speak for themselves though) but I do know that there is 'recruiting' going on on the island I live on. It really doesn't have much to do with dollars, how much does it cost a school to add a few students to its overall roster, especially in the large private schools on Oahu. Yes talent is bound to come around to every school, that is evident by some of the individual runners, but the disproportionent amount of wins by the teams of the private schools equates to something out of the ordinary.
Cross country just happens to be a sport of pride more than dollars, but to high school athletes, pride (school pride) is what they do it for. And it can't be too 'dorky' of a sport, it is included in many colleges as a sport and they DO recruit for runners.

XCfun
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by XCfun »

On Maui, public high schools would have more competitive running programs if there were good middle school programs feeding them with young runners. As an example, I don't think Kalama or Iao Valley intermediate has a program.

With the exception of large private schools like Punahou, public schools have the advantage of a larger student body to draw from than the smaller private schools like Seabury. Of course a private school has the possibility of attracting students and athletes from any locale but to the best of my knowledge they seldom if ever actually recruit or offer athletic scholarships for cross country. Sometimes a programs success and reputation builds on itself - public or private.

In the MIL this year it looks like Maui High, Baldwin and Maui Prep are the strongest teams. Based on the 2009 results to date, Seabury is moving into a rebuilding phase.

Regarding overzealous parents pushing their kids too hard, of course there out there and we have all seen it. The question that is not so simple to answer is, what is too hard? Many injuries are caused as a result of inadequate training, not over training. There are divergent views on what constitutes a good work out for a serious high school runner. There are also many injuries caused because kids are not wearing good running shoes, have not been checked to see if they need orthotics and are running on a steady diet of hard road surfaces.

I think the sport needs more parents involved, paying attention and helping (sometimes pushing) their kids to discover the joy of feeling fit and running to their abilities, be it first place or 100th.

Also, some kids may not want to know who is doing what on which island. The fact is we live in the information age where access to sports results is near instantaneous. It can be fun to learn about competitors and use the information to generate race strategies and even friendships. It doesn't have to be a stressor for kids to have information. I think becoming knowledgeable about who is out there competing helps to bring the running community together for the kids and the adults.

todaresq
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by todaresq »

With all this healthy discussion about "recruiting", dividing into 2 divisions and staying injury free... the clear advantages for private schools over public schools is this. Private schools make their student bodies active in extracurricular activities, be it band, drama, ballet or athletics. It is a big part of their educational program (school credits), whereas public schools have to contend with only those who choose to come out and participate in athletics (P.E. is not mandatory for 4 years). The chance of spotting a potential runner in private schools is far greater than in public schools especially when you have active students. If public schools made their student body compete in athletics for P.E. credits, you would see a major jump in participation and thus better chances of spotting a potential runner.

As far as recruiting on "Maui"...that argument is getting old. You can't blame a parent who's child is being offered an education at a private school with "tuition assistance". Certain parents choose to send thier kids to schools outside their district because there's a program there and the coach "had a chat" with them. If you don't agree with that check the rosters, i've seen lots of upcountry athletes get "district exemptions" to run with schools downtown. If every athlete on that island ran for their respective district, then the running scene would be more balanced. Bottom line is, rather than worrying about competing for state "team" titles, why not groom your athletes to run for the state "individual" title. If you happen to have enough bodies to contend for the team title, great!

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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by hzy »

Just a few observations and points:

1. People associated with private schools don't see anything as being unbalanced between them and public schools. Since they've won nearly every state title in Cross Country, why would they.

2. People that attend private schools are disproportionately more affluent than those attending public schools, and therefore they are statistically more likely to achieve success in academics and athletics. This comes from a more ingrained culture of support from parents and boosters.

3. People associated with private schools see problems public schools face and think that's just another reason to attend a private school, not help the community with solutions.

4. How would geographic constraints benefit public schools? That gives you no choice about who attends. You only benefit if your high school is in an affluent area.

5. Maui definitely needs to develop an intermediate Cross Country league so their high schools can compete with those on Oahu.

6. Mandatory participation in an extracurricular activity inherently benefits a Cross Country program, particularly if that program has been successful. 80 intermediate runners at Punahou!? They better win championships with those kinds of numbers.

7. Of course a kid's parents will take "tuition assistance" if it is offered to them. This is an athletic scholarship and it is part of the recruiting process. Pun Dad, unfortunately there are 6th grade running prodigies on Maui that are being sought after for their services. Sad when you think about it.

8. The more kids that attend private schools further depletes the public schools of these athletes and, more importantly, these students in the classroom. Sure doesn't help the scores on those federally mandated tests. The same ones that some private school folks probably point to in order to show the failure of the public school system.

9. Person and Pun Dad, because public schools haven't won the past 30 state championships in Cross Country, who are you to assume that any of those schools aren't working hard enough? For 30 years no public school girls team has worked as hard or harder than private school teams?

10. It is getting towards the end of the season and it is fun to watch the competitions, but I hate feeling like I know what to expect out of the girls State Championship race. Maybe my team and I aren't working hard enough.

xcfan
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Re: Cross Country 2009

Post by xcfan »

Anybody know the results from the Iolani Invitational meet today?

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