N.E.O. District XC Seeding?

[runner12]

This past year, many in the Northeast were extremely frustrated with how districts were divided up ( Div. II )and the late changes that took place, not to mention sending teams to the northwest regional that have been historically at Boardman. Division II created the weakest regional at Boardman ever, now I know if you ran at Boardman you are not complaining one bit, but there has to be a better way to achieve a more balance representation from the northeast. Boardman produced a 9th, 14th, 15th, and 16th place finish at the state meet. The only good thing that came from this was 3 other northeast schools who were sent out to Tiffin qualified as well so really - the northeast had 7 schools representing the 16 that are invited. My question to you is why not seed teams in a district to divide up the top level teams? I have talked to the N.E.O. Board and their response was you need to address this with the coaches association and then present your information to us and we will then look at it. Do we have a Northeast Ohio Cross Country Coaches Association? My thoughts -
1. Form a Northeast Ohio Coaches Association - every other sport has one and they even give out end of the year honors - All Northeast Ohio Runner -etc.
2. Coaches meet and recommend changes to the N.E.O. Board that they feel are beneficial to the sport of distance running.
3. Scenerio - Coaches meet 1 week prior to district meet. Coaches who are present at the meeting are able to be seeded into a district. Malone, Trumbull, Goodyear - either combine them and have 3 seperate sections at 1 site or keep the existing locations. (in a given year we travel to all three places for invitationals so don't tell me geographics and drive time come into play - we had to drive 2+ hours to the regional meet) With those three sites/sections the top seeded team would get to pick which district (remember Goodyear/section is being sent to Tiffin so if you want to go to tiffin- pick Goodyear), then the #2 seeded team pick and so on.

Balance - and your best 12 teams are represented at the regional level.

 

[ENA]

Agreed...but there is more

Runner12 has just touched on the problems in terms of cross country in the NE.
Also, these problems occur almost every year and is not only in DII. DIII this year may have been as bad or worse than DII. All of the DII problems that runner12 indicated are "legit" and the last-minute changes were not called for and was wrong for the schools, coaches and kids... and even the district meet management. Goodyear was not good when only two teams qualified and the "solution" was to bring more teams in to qualify 4/16 when they should have eliminated the Goodyear District and brought those teams to Malone and had an "A" and "B" race and seeded them with one going to Boardman and one to Tiffin. IMO

Here are some thoughts with the main thoughts being twofold: to Have BALANCED regionals, we must have Balanced Districts AND Every district Should have some common items. (As it is now, they can all do what they want as long as they qualify the "right"numbers)

1. With only 8 boys teams and 16 girls teams in NE DIII going to regionals the numbers for one can not be "right"
2, No district should qualify 2 teams like the Trumball DIII boys did (Every District, State wide, should qualify 4 teams and 16 individuals IMO)
3. If "Balance" means geographic balance that's OK, but Districts that Seeds should not seed OR Every District site should seed.
4. If Geographic Balance is what they are going for, then balance the Public schools first, then "fill-in" the districts with the private schools so that the number of teams are similar (This is NOT against the private schools, but because they draw from such a wide area and most of their students do not live within 5 miles of the schoolhouse doors and most public school students do)

As far as District "all-star" recognition, that is tougher in the NE (and NW) due to the number of district sites and teams. An All-Northeast district guy or girls would include from the southwestern tip of Wayne County north to west of Cuyahoga and every school east fo there to PA. They do have "all-stars" in the Eastern Districts and I think is is all individual regional qualifiers. that is only a few DI teams, and two District races in DII and/or DIII. For the NE that would include about 15 different races for boys and 15 for girls... and that would be over 300 kids on the "all-District" teams.
I have looked at this and would like to start an "All-NE" team , but how does a kid make it? Here are some ideas
- Top 7 at each district?
- Top 5% of finishers from each district
-Top 5 placers from each County?
-Each "district" has it's own team ie Malone all-district team, Goodyear, Trumball, etc.
- All-District teams according to the OAT-CCC District set-up
Some things to think about....