Several years ago we had a slogan - Five On The Line - for encouraging coaches to get five cross country team members to toe the starting line. They had to take one step and it counted as a team. Every two years there is a team count and it determines our district set-up. The more teams we have toe the line the better it will be for our district over the following two years. Even if you have a team member on your eligibility sheet who is on crutches let them toe the line and take a step for the count. This year during the season there were 17 or 18 schools who had full teams - at the district we had 11 for girls D-III.
Terry Young has a copy of all of the stats from the D-II and D-III district. I have asked Terry to email it to Bart Smith so that Bart can share it at our next meeting. it is an interesting little piece of information.
I am already working to get a full team of girls for next season and i believe we will have one. I would like to ask for suggestions for recruiting purposes and what it is you may do.
Cross country for next fall
-
Flatulence
- Freshman Team
- Posts: 204
- Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:08 am
Re: Cross country for next fall
#1 get the girls basketball coach on your track staff. The first 2 or 3 weeks of basketball is conditioning so 3 days running and 2 days in the gym.
#2 Track girls,, even sprinters. Allow them to workout for track. Ie 100 repeats, strength training, hurdles ect. then late in the season have them run 1 meet and go from there.
#3 Advertise it is a varsity leter... assuming your school does the run in so many meets to earn a letter.
# 4 Gym credit... some schools offer gym credit for particapating in a school sport.
# 5 if you have girls soccer see if you could have some kids dual sport.
# 6 Give them stuff as team members.. nice tee shirts and hoodies given to the team can cause other kids to want to be apart of the the group.. If the cash is available purchase some top end nike uniforms.. I know it is BS but uniforms matter
. If they did not then nike would never create those special ones for the football teams.
#2 Track girls,, even sprinters. Allow them to workout for track. Ie 100 repeats, strength training, hurdles ect. then late in the season have them run 1 meet and go from there.
#3 Advertise it is a varsity leter... assuming your school does the run in so many meets to earn a letter.
# 4 Gym credit... some schools offer gym credit for particapating in a school sport.
# 5 if you have girls soccer see if you could have some kids dual sport.
# 6 Give them stuff as team members.. nice tee shirts and hoodies given to the team can cause other kids to want to be apart of the the group.. If the cash is available purchase some top end nike uniforms.. I know it is BS but uniforms matter
. If they did not then nike would never create those special ones for the football teams.
Re: Cross country for next fall
I only have about 1/4 of your experience....so it feels a little silly for me to give any advice....but I will play along as it could possibly help others.
My school has the fewest number of girls (78) in the SE district to choose from (of the schools that support a XC program).....and of those 78 roughly 18-20 of them live more than 25 miles from our high school and also in a low economic area of the district making it virtually impossible for those kids to play sports as they simply have no ride to stay after school and get a ride home as they would need $10-$20 in gas a day and it just isn't feasible for those particular families. Our district is 41 miles wide and the high school is literally 3 miles from the west boundary......anyways there is one of my excuses.
Regardless, I have fielded a team every year from 2009-2013 and I had 8 girls this year and zero seniors. I hope to have 10-12 girls next year....
My keys:
1. Basketball is king at my school (even though they haven't been successful in a while)....our grade school kids have basketball practices starting in mid September and they end well into March. One of my big selling points is that they can go to everything basketball during our season. 6 of my 8 girls would go to XC practice and then to "weight lifting, conditioning, open gym" nearly every night from 6:00-8:00. When they had basketball after school I would let them leave early to go do their running, cut it but short and they were free to leave when they were done (often 15-20 minutes earlier than everyone else)......(once I realized there were 2 D3 races this year I did have those girls avoid conditioning and there were times I recommended they not go as their legs were getting too much work....but only did this for the final 3 weeks of prior to the regional meet)
2. This one you guys will probably shake your head at....but we NEVER EVER practice on Fridays and we only practice Mon-Thurs from a few minutes after 3:00 and we ARE done by 4:00. It is short and it is sweet and we rarely run the same course through town. I take it super easy on them until after their first meet (now they can't quit) and then we progressively pick it up the rest of the season so we can peak at league and districts. You would laugh at our weekly mileage totals...but it works for us. (3 regional appearances in 5 years)
3. You have to break the "but I'm not fast and I can't run that far" thought.....do anything to get them to a practice or two and reassuring that they did really well for the first day. I figuratively do a lot of "hand holding" until they see that they can do it. I'll take forever just getting them to 3 miles if I have to.
4. After thinking about it.....this one is huge for me. I go after the really good kids, the perceived non-athletes. I've went and recruited valedictorians, band members, FFA leaders....but kids I knew that if I got them, they'd be competitive in our district. 4 straight years my girls XC team has been honored at the spring all-league banquet for having the top combined GPA for any team in the league...any sport. Almost all the top girl athletes are on the volleyball team....if I had a few of them we could actually compete a little at the regionals, but I never go after those girls to run.
My school has the fewest number of girls (78) in the SE district to choose from (of the schools that support a XC program).....and of those 78 roughly 18-20 of them live more than 25 miles from our high school and also in a low economic area of the district making it virtually impossible for those kids to play sports as they simply have no ride to stay after school and get a ride home as they would need $10-$20 in gas a day and it just isn't feasible for those particular families. Our district is 41 miles wide and the high school is literally 3 miles from the west boundary......anyways there is one of my excuses.
Regardless, I have fielded a team every year from 2009-2013 and I had 8 girls this year and zero seniors. I hope to have 10-12 girls next year....
My keys:
1. Basketball is king at my school (even though they haven't been successful in a while)....our grade school kids have basketball practices starting in mid September and they end well into March. One of my big selling points is that they can go to everything basketball during our season. 6 of my 8 girls would go to XC practice and then to "weight lifting, conditioning, open gym" nearly every night from 6:00-8:00. When they had basketball after school I would let them leave early to go do their running, cut it but short and they were free to leave when they were done (often 15-20 minutes earlier than everyone else)......(once I realized there were 2 D3 races this year I did have those girls avoid conditioning and there were times I recommended they not go as their legs were getting too much work....but only did this for the final 3 weeks of prior to the regional meet)
2. This one you guys will probably shake your head at....but we NEVER EVER practice on Fridays and we only practice Mon-Thurs from a few minutes after 3:00 and we ARE done by 4:00. It is short and it is sweet and we rarely run the same course through town. I take it super easy on them until after their first meet (now they can't quit) and then we progressively pick it up the rest of the season so we can peak at league and districts. You would laugh at our weekly mileage totals...but it works for us. (3 regional appearances in 5 years)
3. You have to break the "but I'm not fast and I can't run that far" thought.....do anything to get them to a practice or two and reassuring that they did really well for the first day. I figuratively do a lot of "hand holding" until they see that they can do it. I'll take forever just getting them to 3 miles if I have to.
4. After thinking about it.....this one is huge for me. I go after the really good kids, the perceived non-athletes. I've went and recruited valedictorians, band members, FFA leaders....but kids I knew that if I got them, they'd be competitive in our district. 4 straight years my girls XC team has been honored at the spring all-league banquet for having the top combined GPA for any team in the league...any sport. Almost all the top girl athletes are on the volleyball team....if I had a few of them we could actually compete a little at the regionals, but I never go after those girls to run.
Re: Cross country for next fall
Having been part of a program that was rebuilding this year here are some things we did.
1. Make a list of kids to recruit start with your track kids first.
2. Try to work with the kids as much possible.
3. Team Gear does matter make sure you all look alike. If looks cool or says Nke like jump high says the kids will love it even more.
4. Try to have a fun type of workout once a week!
5. Talk to kids on the soccer or football team who might not be playing and say hey you might be able to help us.
6. Make sure you recruit even harder at the ms level because it's your future i know that doesn't exactly help now for the count, but future count years it could. Start a 6th grade running club.
1. Make a list of kids to recruit start with your track kids first.
2. Try to work with the kids as much possible.
3. Team Gear does matter make sure you all look alike. If looks cool or says Nke like jump high says the kids will love it even more.
4. Try to have a fun type of workout once a week!
5. Talk to kids on the soccer or football team who might not be playing and say hey you might be able to help us.
6. Make sure you recruit even harder at the ms level because it's your future i know that doesn't exactly help now for the count, but future count years it could. Start a 6th grade running club.
Re: Cross country for next fall
Points #2 and #4 are pretty important IMOwch125 wrote:Having been part of a program that was rebuilding this year here are some things we did.
1. Make a list of kids to recruit start with your track kids first.
2. Try to work with the kids as much possible.
3. Team Gear does matter make sure you all look alike. If looks cool or says Nke like jump high says the kids will love it even more.
4. Try to have a fun type of workout once a week!
5. Talk to kids on the soccer or football team who might not be playing and say hey you might be able to help us.
6. Make sure you recruit even harder at the ms level because it's your future i know that doesn't exactly help now for the count, but future count years it could. Start a 6th grade running club.
And as for #6....I am the elementary phys ed and from 1st grade on....the kids are used to running. My school always has great participation at the annual Highland Co Elementary Mile race and we had 4 of the top 5 girls in the entire county and 5 of the top 10 boys (all 4th grade and under)....so I do have an advantage there but volleyball still takes all the top athletes....but even the future band, FFA, Hi Q girls still know how to run and pace.
-
Flatulence
- Freshman Team
- Posts: 204
- Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:08 am
Re: Cross country for next fall
Ironman, I may have experience but I need to use it to the best of my ability to get others thinking. I may only be around for two more years and then jetting on out to the remainder of my life. So, in the years to come you cna ask these questions and try to get some help to the young coaches. Always, always, always pay forward!