Last May I was sitting in my classroom before school preparing for the day. Right after the 1st period bell rang, "We Are the Champions" by Queen started playing over the intercom. My immediate thought was, What is going on? What is the office up to? It turns out that the night before, the baseball team had won the District Championship. My students were, of course, excited to hear the news, as I was I. Now my next thought was quite different, as it went directly to the season I was in, track. I thought, We need this excitement. We need this moment right here at schools across Kentucky for track and cross country.
Several of the sports in Kentucky, including football, basketball, baseball/softball, start out with a district competition. Then onto a regional competition which narrows it down to one team per region for their post-season state competition. (Of course, XC/track are unlike all of these sports because of the need for individual entries to the post-season and for multiple teams so it is not completely comparing apples to apples.) Putting that aside, we can stand to have some of that excitement in the school. The students in your school are already pre-wired to understand the district set-up. They know who the local district foes are and, most of the time, these are your local rivals as well. In XC and track we can take advantage of that as well.
Is this a call for the KHSAA to restructure the post-season, adding districts before regionals? NO. We already have a school classification system in place unlike most sports. Instead, consider this a suggestion, a proposal, for the coaches to come together and create their own district level meets. Take the traditional basketball district teams and have a meet in October for XC or late April for track. Call it the District Championship. Promote it in your school. Announce at school we won districts or we were runner-up. This kid was the XC district champ or this kid is the 100m Dash champion. The students will be pumped. The athletes will be recognized. The administration will pay more attention to your team. The students may wonder what is cross country all about. Maybe even find out track has a ton of different events with loads of variety, not just running.
For anyone thinking this is just an excuse to give another award, emphatically, no it is not. This is legitimate and can be a real goal if executed correctly. For example, in 2007, my 2nd year coaching cross country, I created the River County Championship (Carlisle County, Fulton County, Fulton City, Hickman County, and Ballard Memorial.) A championship meet with these teams was something that the entire school, not just the cross country athletes, could understand and get excited about as these schools were our natural rivals at Carlisle County. Being a small rural school in far western Kentucky, the region is something all the teams in all sports strive for, but more focus is given on the district. The year I created that Championship meet, I knew my brand new program could beat the locals district schools, and we did win every year I coached. This was an opportunity for a small school with a young program to shine and be champions.
Is this going to be a big deal to all schools? Maybe not the established teams that find regional and state success year after year. But most schools can benefit from this. Right now, there are variations of this format out there, and congrats to those coaches for thinking about helping their athletes have success. Success, even on the local level, helps build interest which helps build numbers. More team members = better training groups and more success on the regional, state, and possibly, national level.
RIVER COUNTIES CHAMPIONSHIP- 2007
RIVER COUNTIES CHAMPIONSHIP- 2008
2009 was part of the Advantage Quad Series