What does the future hold for NXR-SW?

A summary of what was accomplished and a look forward.

As the door swings shut on the 2013 cross country season, it's time to take a look at the monster that NXR-SW has become and how it fits within the greater system of NXN. The thoughts I write here are the thoughts of an independent party. I have given up my NXR ambassadorship, and I have no financial interest in running the Nike Southwest meet. What follows are simply a few facts I unearthed on my own and a few thoughts about where those facts lead, or at least should lead.

Let's begin with giving a huge shout out to the teams and individuals that represented the Southwest region at Nike Cross Nationals this past weekend. It was a very successful weekend for the Southwest programs:

Girls Championship Race teams: Davis - 3rd, Monarch - 5th, Fort Collins - 6th. Only three teams from all regions combined beat the third SW region team on Saturday. California was the only other region with two teams in the top ten, and those teams placed 8-9. The SW individuals placed 2-6-15-26-70. That point total of 119 was bettered only by the 103 points posted by the Northwest region. If you do a team scoring by all participants from each region, the SW's 2-6-7-15-26 easily tops all other regions.

Boys Championship Race teams: American Fork - 7th; Davis - 17th. While not as spectacular as the girls' finish, it is still only just below the midline for all regions. The Southwest individual boys finished in places 4-20-24-57-62. That total of 167 points was bettered only by the California and Heartland regions.

The Southwest region states are heavily invested in NXR-Southwest, to the extent that--aside from Utah--Foot Locker regionals see very little participation from any of the five states any longer. New Mexico and Colorado sent counts of entries (including open races) in the 30s to their Foot Locker regionals. Utah, however, remains a Foot Locker stalwart, sending over 800 entries to Foot Locker West and claiming six of the 20 slots for Foot Locker finalists (incidentally, two of those slots were claimed by individuals who gave up their NXN berths to run at Foot Locker West). 

How does the Southwest region stack up against the other Nike regionals? It is a giant.

This year, NXR-SW had 2034 high school participants. California, of course, has no separate Nike regional, but among the other regions, the combined New York/New England regional had 1557 participants, Heartland (which has something of an advantage of being at a very early date) had 1250 participants, Midwest had 1173, Northwest (also on an early date) had 1134, South had 1008, and Southeast had 804.

In the past, scores of NXR-SW championships races have been inflated (and gaps between 2-3 teams sometimes inflated) due to the extraordinary numbers of teams running in the SW regional championship races. That disadvantage has more or less disappeared. Below is an accounting of the number of finishers in the championship races (boys first, girls second) of each of the regions:

SW - 265, 230

NW - 209, 158

MW - 339, 248

HL - 257, 271

SO - 244, 200

NE - 271, 252

NY - 179, 136

SE - 273, 179

Honestly, given the numbers for this year, the SW is a mid-packer in terms of championship race size. But please don't interpret that statement as a call to make those races larger, folks.

It's in the number of runners participating who have no part in the championship race that the SW exceeds all other regions. And part of that, no doubt, lies in the fact that Phoenix is a very nice destination in mid to late November. It doesn't always rain 2+ inches on the weekend of NXR-SW.

Air connections to Phoenix from any of the other hubs of the Southwest region are convenient and relatively inexpensive. Taxes on rental cars are a little high in Phoenix (you are, after all, helping to fund the stadium that the Arizona Cardinals play in), but I digress. As trips at this time of year go, Phoenix is a relatively inexpensive destination, though we should be glad that we get in and out before Thanksgiving.

So, whatever the plans looking forward for NXR-SW might be, there needs to be a plan for dealing with the open race masses, and that plan really ought to be one that doesn't push the championship races into the afternoon. Back in the day when I was a Nike Ambassador, I tried to make the case that the championship races should be earlier in the morning, before the day heats up, but the suggestion was summarily rebuffed by those with the power to make the decision. The details of those conversations don't matter much now--just figure that it's a given that the NXR-SW championship races are going to be held under the highest temperatures of any of the races on the day. It is what it is.

We could go on running multiple open races on staggered starts and either combining or not combining those races for scoring and awards. But, it seems to me more in the interest of the sport to look at ways of dividing up the contestants in what are now open races into categories that are more meaningful than one-size-fits-all.

For one thing, it makes sense to divide up teams of runners from the same school and all-star teams. I don't think many of the "school" teams invest a lot of meaning in their standing in those races, but it still seems a little counter to common sense to have all-star teams and "school" teams lumped into the same scoring. Perhaps, as long as you have multiple open races, anyway, you have one for "school" teams that is team scored and another for everyone else that is not team scored. If you've ever run, or even glanced at, the scoring side of a meet like NXR-SW, you already understand that the need for doing something like this has passed the critical stage.

Another opportunity begging to be exploited here is to have a small school championship race. The first decision you have to make here is what constitutes a "small" school. There will be some difference of opinion on that count, and much of that difference of opinion will lie in whose ox is being gored at the cutoff point, but there is a little disparity involved when a team like Zuni is up against the likes of Corona del Sol, Davis, and so forth in a championship race. 

The original NXR-SW meet had a small school race, but that race was abandoned due to lack of interest. In reality, the thought of post-season cross country was completely foreign to the mindset of almost every small school team at the time. Times have changed. Things might be a little different now that the race is drawing over 2000 participants rather than the 572 participants the race hosted in 2007.

Creating a separate small school division would allow the smaller schools to compete more on their own terms. I don't have any delusions of Nike starting a small-school division of NXN while I'm still alive and kicking as a coach. I've knocked on that door with Nike and with a few other entities who occasionally sponsor races. I was greeted with the royal flush of yawning face cards. But, even if a trip to Portland is not at stake, it would still be a great chance for smaller schools from five states to run their own race that one of them actually has a realistic chance of winning. I suspect you might suddenly find a whole lot more small schools with an interest in NXR-SW if there was something meaningful for them to achieve at the event. A small school championship over a five-state region would be meaningful.

The downside of that? Um, it probably moves the championship races later in the day. Or... you could start racing on Friday. But, we might want to check on some of the local impacts before we go down that road. I still have a vivid recollection of how much fun in was to try and find a parking spot on Friday afternoon--and how much fun the people in the elementary school carpool line were having when their peaceful afternoon routine was invaded by a bunch of cross country road warriors.

There are a lot of possibilities. And not all of them are good possibilities.

Freshman-sophomore races, for example, won't work at NXR-SW. Inherent in the idea of FR/SO races is the notion of splitting up teams. Splitting up teams isn't what the masses are coming to Arizona to enjoy. Most are aiming at one more team event together. FR/SO races are the stuff of Foot Locker regionals, a place where the team idea never comes into play. 

Here's what's not up for grabs: qualifying for NXN will continue to become more and more difficult. For an ever-growing number of teams across this nation, qualifying for NXN is the #1 dream they aspire to. Performances are out there and easy to find on the internet. Coaches and athletes look that information up, and no team goes to a Nike regional without a very clear picture of what it will take.

Those teams go back home disappointed one year and then redouble their efforts the next. Eventually, a few of those teams make their way in to the big dance. Pine Creek was just such a team last year. All the qualifying teams this year were old hands at the regional game, but the tables have a way of turning over time. There are teams out there dreaming and working harder than ever before, and a couple of those teams will crack the code. Soon.

I don't know how long this goes on, but we haven't reached the top of it yet. If you thought NXR-SW was big this year, check back in in a couple more years. The event could possibly reach the point where it has to start turning folks away.

And, if you were there at that first event at Kiwanis Park in 2007, this is all beyond what you could have imagined at the time. But a lot of hard work by meet director Jeff Guy and a lot of infectious word-of-mouth enthusiasm has made this meet what it is.

In all of high school sport, it's difficult to imagine an idea, any idea, that has been as successful as quickly as Nike Cross Nationals and the associated regional system. Nike Team Nationals was doomed to flounder without the regional system. The selection system would forever be cynically viewed as arbitrary and slanted toward the regions represented on the committee (a committee that was itself cloaked in secrecy). The regional system, on the other hand, leaves teams that don't make it with nobody to blame but themselves.

In short, the regional system gave teams control over their own destiny. And that made it all a whole lot more fun. 

The regional system made NXN everyone's event. It was a bold move at the time, but it has proven to be the stuff of sheer genius. And, nowhere has the genius of it been more clearly demonstrated than at NXR-SW.