Contributor: The Nerd
Sports parents, play your role
If you follow us on social media, by now you're tired of my shameless promotion for an article written for our website by Jeremy Haselhorst, a certified mental performance coach and the girls cross country coach at Papio La Vista South high school. For the past year Jeremy and I have been discussing how parents can better support their student athletes, and ten days ago he sat down and wrote an incredibly helpful article on that topic. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to click here to go to the article. In addition, I encourage you to share the article with your student athlete and his/her coach, along with a request to "lovingly correct me if I step outside my parent role." If you're a coach, please consider sharing the article with your athletes and their parents.
Simple is great
Fifteen years ago I coached Little League baseball and attended a few clinics hosted by Ed Servais, the current Creighton baseball coach. Ed was an old school guy who preached fundamentals over complexity. He told us that some of the most natural hitting swings he'd seen were from little kids playing wiffleball, years before parents, hitting coaches and YouTube videos turned the kid's swing into a Frankenstein patchwork of fads and hunches.
Mrs. Nerd is in the middle of a long trip so I've been given the greatest of responsibilities: caring for two basset hounds and a miniature dachshund. Last night we were on a walk and I happened upon an eight-year-old girl playing soccer with her little brother. When the boy's kick missed the soccer goal, I watched his sister chase the ball for about forty meters. Her gait was so athletic and fluid that she reminded me of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. This neighbor girl is not on a track team. She's just a kid who naturally knows how to run because, well, humans are born to run.
If you've been to a youth baseball or softball game, chances are that you heard someone yell at the batter to "raise your elbow" or some other nonsense. If you've been to a cross country race lately, you have probably heard "lift your arms" or "lift your knees." In both sports the advice is unhelpful, particularly in the heat of competition. Some coaches may try to fix an athlete's poor natural biomechanics but the best 'fix' may simply be more more time on their feet. The kids who run like awkward giraffes in seventh grade may have beautiful strides in two or three years as repetition improves efficiency.
If you take the 'Sports Parents, Play Your Role' article to heart, the conversations with your athlete will help replace form critiques with verbal support they find more helpful.
Photos
With the season halfway completed, the Nerds are in peak form. In the past week they've posted albums from PRR junior high, Harold Scott, Ali/Joe Tupper, Harold Scott, Norfolk Catholic, Norfolk High, Fillmore Central, Heartland Classic (Pella), O'Neill, Wayne, Nike Preview (Sioux Falls), Ravenna and Greeno/Dirksen (collegiate). For meets through last Saturday, we still owe you Pender, Wahoo and a few Ravenna junior high pictures.
While many of you are only interested in the race where your kids compete, I get to look at all of them to prepare for the Nerdsletter. As usual, they killed it this week:
If you're wondering where we'll be this week, take a look at the results tab at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/xcresults. The meet schedule and our Nerd assignments are a little lighter this week with the UNK meet coming up on Monday, September 30. A large contingent of Nerds should be at Kearney to capture the day's events. No matter where you are, if you see someone wearing Nerd gear and carrying a large camera, be sure to give us a 'Howdy Nerd!"
Rankings
Each Tuesday we release individual Top-15 and watch list rankings for each Class. Approximately every two weeks the coaches release updated team rankings. You can find the rankings for all season at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/rankings.
Results
Every Sunday we publish the meet schedule for the week and then we post meet results at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/xcresults. A few notable results from last week:
The Hemingford girls swept the top three spots at the Bridgeport meet on Tuesday, their fourth team title out of four meets this season. They added a fifth title on Saturday at Alliance. They're the two-time defending champs and currently ranked 2nd behind McCool Junction in the coaches poll.
The Doniphan-Trumbull and North Platte St. Pats boys see a lot of each other, and they clashed again at Ravenna. Kaser Johnson (Class D #4) and Tice Yost (#6) took the top two spots for Doniphan-Trumbull while NPSP's Coltan Ham (#7) and Dimitri Pettit (#9) placed 3rd and 4th. Both teams are title contenders.
Dawson Meyer (17:24) of Oakland Craig and Ava Brennan (20:22) of Ponca each won titles at Pender by over 25 seconds. Ava's second career win was impressive given that there were four other previously-ranked girls in the field. Both have quietly put together impressive seasons.
Class B#3 Austin Carerra of Hastings held off B#4 David Krier of Pius for the win at Harold Scott followed by A#5 Kaden Boltz of Grand Island and B#5 Joe Majerus of Pius. Pius won the 21-team meet and moved from 3rd to 1st in the latest Class B coaches' rankings.
Kearney's Abigail Burger went into the meet ranked 4th in Class A. She won in 19:09 over then-ranked B#4 Leah Robinson of Elkhorn North and A#1 Kate Ebmeier of Millard West. In this week's rankings, Nerd Junior kept Ebmeier at #1 but moved Burger up to #2. Top-ranked Millard West won the girls title while Elkhorn North took second.
The top three ranked boys in Class C faced off at Fillmore Central on Thursday. Tyler Hetz of Gothenburg regained his #1 ranking with the 16:24 win, finishing 20 seconds ahead of Lincoln Christian's Trevin Opp and 26 seconds ahead of Avery Carter of Milford. Freshman Kayleigh Betka of McCool Junction won her second title in two weeks, edging teammate Leah Dawson. On the strength of that showing, McCool Junction moved to #1 in this week's Class D coaches' poll. The next three spots at Fillmore Central were taken by freshmen - Madison Shaw of Sandy Creek, Sage Holtmeier of Tri County and Lily Daly of Hastings St. Cecilia - and they are 8th, 9th and 10th in this week's rankings.
We were told in the preseason that B#10 Herson Rodriguez would be Lexington's leading runner, and he's proved it in his two races this season. He won the Central City meet in 16:10, seven seconds ahead of D#3 Jacob Swanson of Nebraska Christian.
Hailey O'Daniel and Kolby Tighe of Arlington won the Blair titles. Arlington has competed in a series of small meets thus far so the UNK meet on Monday will be Hailey's first serious defense of her top ranking in Class C. Kolby jumped from #15 to #9 in this week's rankings.
Lucy Fierro of Westview won the Bennington meet in 20:04. That is the first varsity cross country title won by any Westview athlete since the school opened.
D#11 Kael Garrett of Medicine Valley won the Arapahoe meet, his second title of the week, in 18:40. D#2 Ashley Robertson of Wallace won her third title of the season. Her only loss was in the first week when she finished 2nd to A#15 Kori McClain of North Platte.
Kendall Zavala of Norris won the Waverly meet in 19:04, fourteen seconds ahead of teammate Atlee Wallman. York's Annah Perdue (B#4) finished 3rd in 19:48. Zavala took back the B#1 ranking from Wallman with that win. Top-ranked Braden Lofquest of Class B Gretna East cruised to the win in 15:34; Josiah Quinones (16:28, B#6) of Beatrice edged Waverly's Jared Schroeder (16:30, B#7) for 2nd.
Josiah Bitker of Lincoln North Star won the Norfolk meet in 16:03, twenty seconds ahead of teammate Easton Zastrow. Bitker and Zastrow are now A#2 and A#3. Tatum Nielson of Bellevue West was the top Nebraska girl in 19:31.
XC District proposal
In my 2023 State Recap article posted in late October, I advocated for a change in District qualifying for individuals. If you're unlucky enough to be in a District that has a few powerhouse teams, particularly in Class A or B, it can be exceptionally difficult to qualify as an individual. For example, out of the 60 automatic qualifiers at Class A Districts in 2023, only 12 were from non-team qualifiers. While the numbers are better for Class C and D because they have more District sites and smaller team sizes, it's still tough to scratch out a State bid if your team doesn't qualify.
I can't propose changes to the NSAA qualifying rules but athletic directors can. With Coach Lia Raabe's assistance, the Wisner-Pilger athletic director has submitted the following proposal for consideration by the NSAA member schools:
Summary: This proposal states that at the district cross country meets, if the number of top-15 individuals who are NOT on state-qualifying teams is less than 10, the next fastest individuals would qualify for the state meet until reaching 10 individuals not already on a state-qualifying team. If there are instances where 4 or more (3 or more in class D) individuals from a non-qualifying team qualify, they would run as individuals at state and would not score as a team. Only the top 3 teams from each district would be eligible to score as a team, as is done currently.
Rationale: In many cross country districts, it is difficult for individuals to qualify for the state meet if they are not on one of the qualifying teams, especially in districts with dominant teams. In 2023, in classes A and B, all districts except one (both boys and girls) had four or less individual qualifiers. Several of those districts only had two runners who were not on qualifying teams. Even in classes C and D, where fewer athletes are allowed to run on each team, that number was 6 or less in more than half of the districts.
This proposal would allow for runners who are not on a strong team to have a better opportunity to qualify for the state meet. In 2023, the number of runners in the state races ranged from 83 to 131, while the number of runners at the UNK meet held earlier in the year on the same course ranged between 167 and 339, so even with the addition of these extra runners, each race should still be a manageable number.
If applied to the 2023 State Meet the increase in numbers would be:
Class A Girls: +23 Class A Boys: +28
Class B Girls: +26 Class B Boys: +30
Class C Girls: +21 Class C Boys: +21
Class D Girls: +17 Class D Boys: +17
Pros: (a) Lessens impact of districts with powerhouse teams. (b) Helps struggling teams trying to build a program. (c) Ensures that fewer top-quality individuals are left home. (d) More similar to NCAA qualifying procedures.
Cons: Schools may have to pay for hotel rooms for additional qualifiers.
Whether a coach supports or opposes the proposal, I encourage them to give their input to their athletic directors. One of the challenging features of the NSAA legislative process is that athletic directors vote on these proposals whether or not they have a cross country team at their school, and some ADs will vote 'no' if they haven't heard support for the proposal. If you believe that qualifying more runners for the State meet will help grow the sport, make sure your athletic director (and maybe the neighboring school district athletic director) knows your opinion.
If approved, this new policy would not go into effect until the 2025 State meet.
District assignments
Thanks to a coach-led proposal a few years ago, Class B District assignments have moved to a two-site format where a seeding system is used to divide top teams between the two District races at each site. The division of schools between the two sites is largely based on geography to reduce travel time, with eastern schools assigned to District B1 and B2 and schools in Lincoln and to the west assigned to District B3 and B4. Last week the NSAA announced the teams assigned to each Class B site; we'll have to wait a few more weeks to see how the teams are split at each site. Here's the link to the site assignments.
Class A is similar to the Class B approach with two sites each hosting two Districts, but there is no geographic bias in Class A. Class A Districts are assigned based on a seeding process. Each Class C and D site hosts only one District and there is no performance-based seeding. Here is the link to the District locations for all Classes and the District assignments for Class C and D.
The changing recruiting landscape
You're likely familiar with how Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) sponsorship deals are changing the landscape of recruiting in major college sports like football and basketball. A proposed settlement for a NIL-related lawsuit between athletes and the NCAA could also have a major impact on cross country recruiting beginning with the 2025-2026 academic year.
While details (a) are still being hammered out, (b) are subject to judicial approval and (c) may only apply to a limited number of Division 1 schools, the proposal would expand the maximum number of cross country scholarships at each school from 5 or 6 to 17, and in track and field from 12.5 up to 45.
Sounds good, right? Maybe not. The settlement also says that cross country rosters would be limited to seventeen athletes while track rosters would be limited to forty-five athletes. I did a spot check of the cross country roster sizes at several Power 5 schools and found that four of the five women's teams were over the proposed limit of seventeen: Iowa (21), Oregon (26) Tennessee (27) and Oklahoma State (29). Of the rosters I reviewed, only Nebraska-Lincoln was under the limit, with twelve athletes on both the men's and women's teams. If a 17-athlete roster limit was enforced, in theory that's going to force a lot of talented runners into the transfer portal, and those runners could take away spots at other schools that would traditionally be offered to a high school senior.
Could this change lead to a dramatic increase in the number of D1 scholarships offered to cross country runners? Given that cross country is a non-revenue sport, it seems doubtful. There may be a a few powerhouse programs - or wannabe powerhouse programs - that would use all of their scholarships. However, with talented quarterbacks demanding NIL deals of $1 million or more to commit to a university, we doubt there will be an influx of scholarship cash into cross country programs.
I've reached out to Nebraska-based coaches at the D1, D2 and NAIA levels to see how they think the proposed rules will impact recruiting. At this point it's unclear whether the rules would apply just to Power 5 schools or if other cross country programs like Creighton would fall under the rule if, for example, their baseball or soccer teams decided to take advantage of the expanded scholarship limits.
My initial reaction to the proposal is that this it's a win for high-level runners like Juan Gonzalez who have their choice of D1 programs - and a loss for the next rung of athletes who typically mature from bottom-of-roster D1 athletes as freshmen to consistent contributors by their junior years. If so, those athletes will gravitate towards D2, D3 and NAIA programs. In the end, if you ignore the perceived glamour of a D1 program, that may result in a better fit and a better experience for those student athletes.
Once I'm done collecting feedback from college coaches - who are waiting for more details from the NCAA and their athletic directors - I'll post an expanded discussion about the proposal. Until then, I encourage high school juniors and seniors to read our article on selecting a collegiate cross country program.
This and that
Jon Preister, the Omaha Westside girls T&F coach, announced this week on X that he is joining the College of St. Mary T&F coaching staff. He'll continue to teach in the Westside school district and be an assistant coach for the Westside XC team.
During the Fremont cross country team's appearance last week on a Fremont radio station, Juan Gonzalez said that he's early in his college hunt but is interested in Wake Forest, Oklahoma State, Oregon and UNK.
Ryun Godfrey has left his UNL XC head coaching position to take an assistant coach position at Oklahoma State. He has been replaced by Megan Elliott, who spent nine years as the director of XC/TF operations at Arkansas before spending last year as the Razorback's assistant coach.
My biggest dilemma of the week? I drove past a high school cross country meet yesterday - in beautiful shooting weather - but didn't stop because I knew I had to write the Nerdsletter. It hurt my heart. Those would have been cool pictures.
Brent Wagner of the Lincoln Journal Star continues to stand out among sportswriters in Lincoln and Omaha for his coverage of XC and T&F. He interviewed Austin Carrera of Hastings after the Harold Scott meet last Thursday, a meet that offered an equal mix of Class A and B teams. Class B competitors Carrera and David Krier of Pius took the top two spots and Class B had four of the top eight finishers. Austin gave Brent the quote of the season: "Class B is better than Class A. That's my hot take," Carerra said. "The only person Class A has is Juan Gonzalez. Class B would go 2-3-4 in Class A. It's easier to get second in Class A right now than it is in Class B."
One of the few large meets remaining on the regular season schedule - and thus one of the few chances for Class A and B stars to face off - is the UNK meet on Monday. The UNK organizers allow individual runners to opt up to a higher class for that race, which is why we saw Wallace's Trey Robertson (Class D) in the Class A race in September 2022. As of Tuesday, I didn't see any Class B athletes opting into the Class A race, so I guess the argument about whether Class A or B is better this year won't advance beyond the newspaper.
Cross country is cool
I strongly believe that distance running is beautiful, simple, heroic and a thousand other adjectives. Races offer incredible stories but practices like the one pictured above are also inspiring. It's a sport begging for creative folks to promote it. We need more content creators in cross country. You don't have to be a Nerd. Just do your thing.
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First published at www.preprunningnerd.com by Jay Slagle on September 25, 2024. If you find an error, shoot us an e-mail at jayslagle@hotmail.com and we'll get it fixed.
Like this coverage of the Nebraska cross country scene? There's more of this at www.preprunningnerd.com. Check out the Blog tab for our frequent stories and the Results tab for every Nebraska high school meet we can find. If you want to see meet photos or just need to kill a few hours on social media, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @PrepRunningNerd or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/preprunningnerd.
Finally, if you think runners, jumpers and throwers are the best things on earth, you'll enjoy our two most popular articles. In 2018 we published "The Runner with the Broken Heart" about a high school boy who finished last in nearly every race he ran. In 2022 we published, "The Fall and Rise of Emmett Hassenstab," a story about a high school triple jumper who became a quadrapalegic after a swimming accident.