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Dan · Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:48 pm Post subject: year-end accolades

I generally don't post much about my own coaching activities, so for those of you curious what I've been up to, here are the articles from the area paper for last week's all-region cross country awards. The articles usually stay up for a couple of months.

Girls Athlete of the Year article:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071214/SPORTS/712140327/1018

Boys Athlete of the Year article:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071214/SPORTS/712140326/1018

All-Region teams:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071214/SPORTS/712140325/1018

(I coach at McKay, in case you didn't make the connection that that's me in one of the pictures.)

Dan
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AM_Runner · All-Star Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 776 Location: NYC

Congrats to you and your athletes there Dan - looks like you have a good stable of athletes there - and of course a great coach never hurts either.

Awesome job to you and your charges.
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Dan · Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:21 am Post subject:

Thanks.

It's a small group (barely a full varsity lineup), but they've put in a lot of hard work.

Dan
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Dan · Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:25 pm Post subject:

Also, here are the season stats for the team:

http://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/Team.aspx?SchoolID=269&S=2007

The #8 boy and #8/9 girls accounted for a total of 5 races between them (no injury or health issues), so effectively just 7 of each.

In addition to the three that earned All-Region honors, two others were 1st Team All-League (top-7).

Dan
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Indeurr · Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:22 pm Post subject: Congratulations:

That's a great happy moment; I have not been this happy, since 1996, and have not even come close to true happiness over the last 4 years.
But, I am not even jealous, since I am too much of an individualist. I am happy for you; and I am happy for your runners.
Congratulations!
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Dan · Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject:

Wow, that's a lot of happiness for one post... Thanks, I think.

Dan
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tristan8 · Lurker Joined: 10 Dec 2007 Posts: 7

Congrats on your coaching Dan. (I love your sig Razz

)
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Dan · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:06 pm Post subject:

Thanks, seemed fitting. Cool

Dan
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Angelo Z · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject:

That's pretty cool, and great times also at that age. I just have one question about track and XC in highschool. Lets say you have a handful of XC runners that can run their 5ks in 20 minutes, and only one that can run it in 15:20. Could that one kid get the XC team to state championships since he could easily beat every other team?
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Dan · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:51 pm Post subject:

XC has both team and individual qualifying. In Oregon, the top two teams from each league qualify for the State Championships, along with the top four individuals not on qualifying teams.

Our boys made it by placing 2nd, while our girls got edged out (missed 2nd by 6 points) and only the two qualified individually by placing 3rd and 4th (off day by our top girl; she beat the two girls ahead of her by a wide margin at State). Our 3rd girl was 7th place and did not make it, as the top four places this year were all individual, non-team qualifiers. Every other league in Oregon, she would have made it easily with that place (but not necessarily with that time). I believe 10th was the next highest to not make it from another league.

So, to answer your question, it is very unlikely that a team could qualify like that, unless they had an extremely weak league. First place is 1 point (low score wins), but you'd still have places 2-5 (five runners score) adding a lot of points, more than negating the strength up front.

Dan
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AM_Runner · All-Star Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 776 Location: NYC

Thats all great Dan... Honestly the fact that you have a small team bespeaks your excellence in coaching against the larger schools.

Again congrats on an awesome XC season. How big is indoors out there?
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Dan · Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 10:14 am Post subject:

Well, we are a big school, just with very small participation numbers in most sports... 1,800 students and we struggle to get 20 girls out for track. For XC, it's considered a minor success just fielding a scoring squad.

Indoor is virtually non-existent here. You have to drive 4+ hours (Seattle or Idaho) to do any racing.

Dan
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AM_Runner · All-Star Joined: 28 Jul 2004 Posts: 776 Location: NYC

I meant that you are probably competeing against schools with large teams - I did not know school size - thats one cool thing about XC its a great evener in that its only the 5 scorers...

but its easier to field a better team when you have a large team to draw from that you have a good team on few runners in my mind bears out the fact that i am sure you ae a very good coach
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Dan · Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:18 pm Post subject:

There are some positives to a small team, too. More of my attention can go to each athlete, and there tends to be less stragglers to account for in the various training groups. The latter can be a real challenge with long run checkpoints.

Still, I'd take the larger group any day and deal with the difficulties as they arise. For next year, we only have three boys definitely returning and no new ones we know of coming in. That makes it tough to develop continuity.

We're definitely an oddity, both in the league and in Oregon. The past two years (my tenure as head coach), we've been the smallest team in the league yet have qualified the most runners to State each year, including the boys team both times. Every boy who's been able to run has competed at State during that time, as we've only had a Varsity lineup. However, we've had the last finisher in the State meet both years, so lack of numbers definitely introduces some weaknesses top to bottom.

There are a few schools in the state with over 100 kids on the team. Most of the big schools (our level) have maybe 30-40 on average.

Dan
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