Disclaimer: this entry is the sole opinion of myself, Mike Smith, and a mere observation I’ve made over the past five or so years. This piece is merely that, an observation, and certainly not a vilification or condemnation of any parties involved. Moreover I feel the growth of elite meets has spawned from looking to do good, but possibly has led to some bad, unforeseen outcomes. Like they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
There’s often a conversation around the sport of track and field, and by relationship cross country, waxing and waning as far as participation and interest go. Sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down. After more than twenty-five years in the sport, I have certainly seen this oscillation on the teams I’ve coached. When I started I had three athletes show up to my first practice, and added three more once school started. From that point on my teams got bigger, buoyed by the fact we were climbing the D3 heap and the sport was coming out of the shadows of other, more high profile sports. Don’t get me going on the glorification of the “Sports Illustrated” sports but we would grow until 2012, when I once again had three athletes, two boys and a girl, all very good.
Things picked up in the spring of 2012, when I got a couple of kids that were cut from baseball, and they dragged a couple more friends along with them. These “non-traditional” track kids liked what they saw in the sport, hopped on the cross country bandwagon, and made up the heart of the 2014 xc team which won the D3 boys championship. We rode high for the next seven years, finishing no lower than third. The girls team struggled a bit more with numbers, eventually getting their win in 2023.
After two seasons away from the team, I find myself back coaching at Mascenic, this time in the supporting role of assistant coach, and our numbers are low once again. With four freshmen, and a boys team of 7 and a girls team of 2. The pendulum has swung back for us for sure.
In the preview I offered an observation that over the last five years, we’ve seen a decline in the number of athletes competing at the D3 championships by an average of nine athletes and three teams. All this while we’ve added at least three teams to the division during the same time. That means the drop in participation is being masked by the addition of more teams, the numbers being more drastic if the number of teams stayed the same.
So is it that it takes four paragraphs to get to the concern indicated by the title of this blog post? Probably because in many ways I have a hard time coming to terms with what I am about to write. I think the larger elite meets are hurting the sport of track and field, and cross country in a way, unforeseen by many. So hear me out.
Some people would say there have always been bigger, “elite” meets around, like Loucks or even various “national” events. I mean it used to be on a New Englands year, the Manchester Invitational was about as big as you could get. I remember the years they instituted the Elite races, entering only my top five for fear my #6 and #7 might be finishing a minute or two behind everyone else. But more recently we’ve seen the emergence of other national caliber meets, across the region and across the nation. In the fall we now have the Brooks race formerly known as Footlocker (and before than Kinney), Nike Cross Nationals and Running Lane, each touting themselves as the championship. Incidentally, Running Lane came to prominence during COVID, when Footlocker and NXN took a year away not sure of what to make of the pandemic. There is also USATF Junior Olympic cross country, the premiere youth experience before all of the others and where younger than high school athletes could get that big time experience.
But I’ve really noticed this past spring in track, with the Adidas, Nike, Brooks and New Balance championships, all touting themselves as the true national championships. Along with them, seemingly sprouting out of the ground like toadstools after a rainy spring stretch are all these regional elite meets, in addition to Loucks, like the BSR elite meet. Seems our top level NH athletes are participating in two different schedules, those built around NH high school athletics, as well as the opportunity to race these other high profile events within, and after, the regular season.
So before people start jumping down my throat here, let me clear the air the best I can before everyone lets me know what a knucklehead I am. I do feel our sport needs more exposure, and these high quality meets do take a step forward in that regard. When you look at other sports out there, and the glory and coverage they get, these elite meets go a long way in getting our best kids the recognition they need. They also provide exposure for the athletes, giving our elite kids better opportunities going forward. This is all good.
But I think it comes with a price. When a school’s best athlete is elite enough to travel to separate meets individually, a little something about the “teamness” of the sport goes with them. Obviously the training schedules are going to have to differ a bit, with it being extremely unlikely that the meet days would always land on the same days. Additionally, add in travel and other interruptions, the amount of “team time” certainly will be lessened, taking a bit away from being that cohesive team. Even in the post season, once the regular HS schedule is over, having some athletes continue beyond while others do not does not aid in the development of a team culture.
But I want to be straight in saying I don’t begrudge athletes, their coaches and parents as well, in pursuing the ability to compete in these elite meets. It is certainly a benefit to the individual athlete, but at best a question mark to the state of the sport within the high school structure. I have been talking about this with a number of my coaching friends and while we all have slightly different renditions of this, we are worried about the downward slide of participation in our sport, and are all looking for answers. While lamenting with one particular coach who just sent his son off to a NCAA Division 2 powerhouse in Colorado, I stated the elite meets are good for athletes but bad for the sport (for HS) in general. And while we both feel a bit queasy about it, he did send me an article a couple days later about the NJ state champion in Jack Tindall, formerly of Cherokee HS, forgoing his senior year to pursue elite meets as an individual. Not good for high school sports.
I don’t believe the examples I just shared is the evidence to what we’re seeing happening in Division 3 cross country. I mean the trend started before these elite meets truly took root here in our neck of the woods. There is no finger pointing here. I want to say for the record that a part of what these elite meets are doing is in part to give more exposure to the sport for sure. But make no mistake, they thrive under the concept that athletes thirst for these elite opportunities AND ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT. These are money making ventures for sure.
What I’m afraid of is will the advancement of these elite events, and the pull they have on athletes for more, and bigger and better, dilute the high school interscholastic scene to the point that participation on a school team ends up meaning less than the high school experience? I can’t say for sure but I can say I don’t like the trend. In a sport that can offer something to everyone who comes out for it, seeing participation trending downward, is not a good bellwether for our sport.
I’m hoping to bring the numbers up at Mascenic, boosting the numbers in D3 by doing so. I hope we are just at a low point on the pendulum and we’re picking up speed in the right direction. I did notice at the Jamie Martin Sanborn Invitational a handful of teams with some big numbers and that’s heartening. We seem to be headed in the right direction and I certainly hope so.
I’ll see you out there.
