It's hard not to like the league meet idea. So, why do so many school refrain from embracing it? Colorado Track XC file photo by Alan Versaw.
Despite a suggestion to the contrary from a few league meets that jumped to an earlier date on the calendar, this is league meet week here in Colorado. League titles will be decided (almost) all around the state.
But, what about those meets that moved their dates into last week? What were the Northern, Frontier, Patriot, Pikes Peak, and 3A Metro leagues thinking?
In a nutshell, their intent was to put a week of separation between their member schools' league and regional meets so that the top varsity athletes wouldn't be faced with the prospect of having to go hard three weeks in a row for league, regional, and (asumming they make it) state.
It's an interesting idea, but, clearly, not every member school of these leagues has bought into it.
Frontier Academy would be a primary case in point. Although the Frontier Academy boys did win the Patriot League title, they did it with their top three boys on the shelf, so to speak. Cheyenne Mountain appears to have pulled an even larger segment of their boys varsity team members from participation in the league meet. The same would apply to the Air Academy girls.
Thus, it would appear that moving the league meet a week earlier has not brought all of the schools on board to the idea of contesting the league meet in a fully serious way. You are left to conclude that, with some coaches, it's less a matter of when the league meet is than a matter of the number of competitive races they want to put on the legs of their top runners.
But, back to the idea of running the league meet a work earlier on the calendar... Are there any downsides to that?
It would appear there is at least one downside of consequence to moving your league meet a week earlier. Since the state association does not allow JV participation at regional meets, running the league meet a week earlier means either a) cutting the season a week shorter for your sub-varsity types, or b) finding another, and separate, sub-varsity meet during the traditional league meet week (and, potentially another one still during regional week).
Cutting the season a week shorter seems like a counter-productive idea in a sport where you desperately want just about all the training time you can get with your developing athletes.
Up until this year, the Wiggins Invitational was hosting a lot of the season-ending efforts for sub-varsity runners. And, this meet made some sense in that role. It especially made sense for those schools running the league meets a week early.
Although Wiggins is arguably not even a cross country race, it did provide a nice opportunity for those sub-varsity athletes to close out their seasons with a monster PR. That kind of experience can bode very nicely for future participation.
But, as we all know, Wiggins moved a week earlier this year. If Wiggins stays where it was this year, that popular opportunity to end the season on a high note for sub-varsity types is closed.
And, there aren't a whole lot of alternatives on the schedule, especially east of the Continental Divide. University hosts a "Break Your Pace" race that contests a two-mile event rather than the usual 5K. Honestly, that idea really has more of a varsity than sub-varsity slant to it. Running a two-mile race seems to most of us more like a stay-sharp kind of idea than a season-ending-effort-for-sub-varsity runners idea. Still, it's a fair bet several sub-varsity runners will be ending their seasons at that meet. At least this year, as there aren't a lot of other options.
As far as I can tell, the only other meet east of the Continental Divide this week that is open to general entry and not restricted solely to league members is the Eric Wolff Invitational in Monte Vista.
And, most of you just had the thought, "Is Monte Vista really east of the Continental Divide?!" It is, but Monte Vista is clearly not a big drawing card for very many Front Range programs. Rocky Ford typically heads over La Veta Pass to this meet, but most of the meet's draw is from the San Luis Valley and points west. It should be noted that the Eric Wolff Invitational does double as a league meet for a couple of local leagues.
Things are a bit more hopeful for sub-varsity runners on the Western Slope. League meets have never really taken hold in the Western half of the state. Perhaps that is at least partly because all the same teams see each other again next week at regionals and travel can get a little long west of the Continental Divide?
In any case, Rifle and Montrose both host invitationals this week. Montrose runs a relay format, whereas Rifle runs a conventional invitational. Despite those offerings, a large number of Western Slope schools will undoubtedly take the week off to rest up and heal up, and maybe particularly so for their top varsity runners.
Up and down the Front Range, it will be pretty much all about league meets this week.
A majority of teams will take winning their league meet seriously. A large minority, however, will turn their league meet into a varsity opportunity for some of their sub-varsity runners, preferring to save the legs of their top runners for the regional race and, hopefully, state.
The jury, of course, is still out on whether saving legs of your top runners (assuming they aren't otherwise injured and in need of recovery) actually makes any meaningful difference at state. I expect each coach in the state believes passionately in the way they are currently doing things.
There are no league rules I know of that state league members are obligated to run their top individuals at league meets. And, even if there were, how could you legislate and enforce that those individuals lay down a maximal effort? You can't.
All-league recognition, however, is typically predicated on placement in the league meet. So, that operates as a carrot. Schools that opt to run sub-varsity team members at league meets tend to forfeit opportunities at all-league recognition for those runners. Clearly, however, that is insufficient motivation to get those same schools to run full varsity teams at the league meet. Sometimes you have to give up something you want less for something you want more. Life is full of decisions like that.
If it is a desirable goal to have all teams in the league buying into competing seriously for the league title, the easy way to accomplish that is to make the league meet a qualifier--whether for regionals the next week or by skipping regionals altogether and making league meets qualify to state.
Both of those options, however, present their own set of problems. In a state like Colorado where you have four classifications and less that 200 schools running cross country, how many steps of qualification do you need? We're not California, and two steps of qualification does seem like overkill to most rational folks.
On the other hand, making league meets into qualifiers for state glosses over the fact that there are weaker and stronger leagues in the state. Regionals allows for some mixing and matching of teams from different leagues that helps to address some of the inequity issues that would arise if leagues qualified directly to state.
For those who have read this far and still wish for something akin to the situation they grew up with where cross country teams ran duals each week and invitationals every weekend, followed by a rigorous qualifying series of meets at the end of the season, that scenario just isn't very likely to return.
The consensus of educated opinion is that racing less means racing better, at least for athletes with a good measure of training and race experience under their belts. To see where this is leading, you need only look at how NCAA cross country is working out these days.
My hunch is that the dilemmas surrounding league meets will increase rather than fade as we move forward with cross country in this state.