Quick reminder for Washington coaches and athletes: Due to the ruling of the WIAA a couple of years ago, some athletes are finally able to be coached for post-season meets on a limited basis!
Relevant PDF from the WIAA
Summary: If an athlete has qualified to run in the championship division at either NXN-Northwest, Footlocker West (and also NXN Nationals or Footlocker Nationals if applicable), then the coach can apply to continue coaching them for 10 practices after the end of the WIAA season (the state meet). You'll have to apply for a waiver to do so. You will also be allowed to attend and coach the athlete(s) at the meet (you do NOT need to apply for the waiver to do so). Athletes who are relegated to the JV or Open Varsity divisions at either NXN Northwest or Footlocker West can NOT be coached through this waiver.
This was a nice improvement over the previous situation, where athletes couldn't be coached by their school coaches after the conclusion of the state meet. It also gives more teams and athletes a reason to attend these meets, as it means more time that the coach can train the athletes :)
It will take a little bit of time to go through the waiver process, so if possible coaches should probably start the process well before the State meet. With such a short window between the state meet and NXN Regional meet, hopefully the folks in Boise can have a good idea early enough who will be able to qualify for the championship field (although in the future, perhaps the dates of NXR and BorderClash can be switched to give coaches a better chance to make the necessary inquiries? Just an idea, Nike...). I will try to do my part on here to give an unofficial gauge as to how highly rated athletes and teams might be, but the regional fields are determined not only by how fast you are but also who else signs up (and want in the Championship division rather than the Open Varsity races).
Hopefully, lots of coaches around Washington picked up on this and will more strongly consider sending athletes and teams to the regional meets. Last year, only 15% of the athletes at the Washington state meet went on to compete at NXR (and even less if you only looked at the Championship race), compared to 22% for Oregon. It would be nice if more of Washington's best were represented at the regional (and with luck, national) meet.
Just curious if it's 10 days total or 10 days per meet ... do you know Rob? Say the team practiced 5 days with the coach between WA state meet and NXR and then they qualified for NXN, could the coach coach his team team for Nationals 10 days or just 5 days?
ReplyDeleteI would imagine it would be 10 practices total, where the waiver would likely apply to athletes going to either meet. I haven't checked with anyone on that, but that would be my interpretation. I would think that if, for example, an athlete signed up to compete at both FLW and NXN-NW (championship flights for both), then they wouldn't have any problems. Obviously, this wouldn't be applicable for everyone: you have to be able to get into the championship fields to be able to get the waiver. That would include any Top 7 runners on NXN-NW Championship teams, but FLW would be a different situation.
DeleteI suppose I could have been more clear with this post: my interpretation would be that you can get a waiver for 10 practices between the end of the State meet and the NXR/FLW/NXN/FLN meets (whichever of which you qualify for). The easiest (although not always realistic) way to insure that you can take advantage of all 10 practices you would be allowed would be to sign up for both NXR (Championship race) and FLW (Championship race) ahead of time, so that you know you'll have time to get all 10 allowed practices in as most won't qualify for NXN Nationals.
DeleteIf I were a coach with a good enough runner (say, in good enough shape to run sub-10/12 for 3200m or close to 16:00/20:00 for 5k) or team (roughly the same for the team average) and wanted to take advantage of the waiver, what I might do is plan to spread out those 10 practices. You'll have 4 weeks to fit in those practices, so if I was going to NXR I would probably only have 2 practice days (where the coach and athlete meet) prior to NXR, and then 3 practices each week thereafter until the week of FLW/NXN (when you'd only have 2 practice days left).
When is the date for BorderClash this year and where can I find info on the web?
ReplyDeleteUnless they've changed the schedule compared to the last few years, it would be on the 20th (15 days after the Washington State meet)
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