A large school size is absolutely not sufficient for success. Coaching is absolutely important.
Here on Yappi, how many people really argue that Mason or St. X or Centerville are successful only because they are big? Because I have seen quite a few posts arguing that coaching is much more important than school size and then tipping over into "there coaches are obviously just better than all the rest of the coaches" rhetoric. Usually starting with something like "Louisville won a title" and that proves size doesn't matter.
I don't actually believe that coaching or school size are the most important ingredients for success. Nor is public versus private. I think it is economic resources and administrative support.
A good coach at a large school should consistently have solid teams. There will be periods of time when the teams are better than in others. That doesn't mean they will dominate.
This argument typically devolves into subtle and not so subtle jibes trying to over-simplify the points being and implying that other coaches are just jealous of the success and expressing sour grapes or are only successful because they have so many kids on their teams. If you think school size isn't really that important, consider this question: What if the suburban districts around Columbus were all single high school districts. Many of those schools would be much larger than Mason. Would Mason and St. X have won as many titles if they were running against Hilliard HS, Dublin HS, Olentangy HS, Worthington HS and Westerville HS? I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
And for the record, some of us have been working and pushing for another division for track. We really aren't that close to being able to get one for XC. And it won't really change this argument because this isn't an argument about being more fair in a competitive sense. It is about not being insulting.
You got me thinking, Mathking. How would you feel about having Sam Richuitti, Weston Day, and Josh Razor (all Dublin kids) lining up along with Liam and Will this year? The answer... you would've crushed Mason and brought home a title. Here are my estimates of your hypothetical combined schools (Hilliard HS, Dublin HS, etc.) results in boys D1 over the last several years:
2022:
1 - Dublin 62 (Ruchuitti, Shaughnessey, Day, Razor, McGraw)
2 - Masillon 96 (Reed, Zuckett, Hill, Ilg, Ball)
3 - Mason 138
4 - St. X 151
2021:
1 - Mason 144 (adjusted due to individuals now scoring as team, wins tie break with Dublin)
2 - Dublin 144 (Shaughnessey, Frank, McGraw, Richuitti, Clemens)
3 - Massilon 148 (Reed, Zuckett, Woods, Prato, Ilg)
7 - St. X 198
2020:
1 - L. West 76 (adjusted)
2 - St X 78 (adjusted)
3 - Hilliard 138 (Davidson top 4 plus Darby's Sean Carney)
4 - Dublin 198 (Richuitti, Shaughnessey, Razor, McGraw, Frank)
11 - Mason 279
2019:
1 - St X 97 (adjusted)
2 - Mason 104
3 - Worthington 221 (TW top three plus #7 Williams and #40 Cuozzo from Kilbourne) - wins tiebreak
4 - Solon 221
2018:
No real changes... Davidson still 2nd behind Hudson
2017:
1 - Pickerington 71 (Pick North's top three, plus #3 finisher Scrape and #40 Johnson from Pick Central)
2 - Hudson 80
So yeah, looking at things this way is really interesting. We'd be talking a Dublin dynasty in the making, and one of the best ever in the 2022 squad.