2008 Results
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.