A summary of the previous three posts:
Some of the NXN regions are very big, geographically. Adding on additional region, and re-arranging some others, can go a LONG ways to increasing the accessibility of the Nike Cross Nationals series, which could lead to an even bigger boost to the sport than the series has already given us.
Pros: More equitable travel time for teams around the nation, which should lead to greater participation in the regional meets (a big plus in many ways, both immediate and long-term for the sport and possibly Nike as well); more teams and individuals able to compete for a national title in Portland.
Cons: There would be a knee-jerk reaction to at least two of the changes, though if one were to look deeper they would be less important if not non-issues (NY girls in an actual regional, SE getting split up); Nike would have to pay for 10 more individuals and 6 more teams (combined).
Links: Post I - Post II - Post III
My team is from El Paso TX. We have attended Nike South for the past two years. Houston is a 13 hour drive for us, but Mesa Az. Is only a 6 hour drive. Its said that El Paso is so far away from the rest of Tx that we are more apart of NM than TX. Could just El Paso be part of the southwest region?
ReplyDeleteGotta stay with the state you're a part of. But that brings up another good point - if there were to be 11 regions, this might be a way to go about it: Texas as it's own region (it pretty much is already), move Louisiana to the Southeast (Atlanta), and create a new regional in Kansas City for OK/AR/KS/MO/NE/IA, and move the current Heartland to Minneapolis for a more centralized ND/SD/MN/WI region. That would probably not be a benefit to the competitiveness of the national field, though... Heartland isn't a bad region, but it doesn't exactly have the depth needed to combine with the South (a much weaker region, especially sans Texas) for a third region, even throwing Missouri back into the mix. The tenth region, plus re-arranging the regions, wouldn't add many weaker teams to the field (probably 1 on each side per year, 2 in bad years)... splitting off Texas as an 11th would add 2 more weak teams (from the former South sans Texas) virtually every year, at the expense of National At-Large teams - not a good trade, but maybe some day it would be worth it?
Delete