2008 Results


   
Sep 14     Sep 21     Sep 28
Oct 5     Oct 12     Oct 26
   
   

   
   
Coaches,

I am sure that you all have noticed that the size of our program has grown by leaps and bounds.  This year we will top 1500 registered runners.  We may top 500 subnovices.  We have topped 1000 runners at the starting line for our first two meets.  Pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, this is a program that I cannot run alone.  I am fine doing the organizational work, setup work and taking care of the details after the fact.  There is no way that I can run the meet by myself.  You may notice that the results from Sunday are not posted yet.  The reason is that we had multiple failures in our system of running the meet.  These need to be addressed and corrected if this program is to survive.  Each coach must assume some responsibility for this to work.

On Sunday (in no particular order) we had the following problems:
           -adults pacing the runners
           -adults not abiding by the rules of the course and ignoring officials
          -adults interfering with the races by walking across the course
          -adults knocking over runners when cutting across the course
          -marshals not showing up for assignments
          -marshals not knowing what to do (sorry but this has to be a coaches' responsibility)
          -chute workers not showing up
          -marshals in the wrong spot
          -timers using the big clock as the "official" time instead of a stop watch started at the start of the race
          -recorders missing groups of runners
          -failure of a backup system
 
I have spent the better part of two days trying to reconstruct the results.  I should not have to do this.  No job is terribly difficult but the coaches must assume responsibility for this program.  I, like you, am a volunteer.  I do not want to see this program collapse but it surely will if we all do not do our part to run the meet.
 
There were so many problems on Sunday that I cannot do much about them now.  From this point on, if a parish misses an assignment, you team will be disqualified for the day.  I know that this is hurting the children but I have very little recourse.  It is one thing to make a mistake; it is something else not to even try.  Coaches must assume the responsibility of finding competent workers for the jobs.  This will mean that you must know what your job is and where you are supposed to be.  You must realize that if you do not do your job, you are the one who is hurting the children.