Saturday, August 22, 2009

Athlete of the Week - Sami Harris

The AotW for August 10th-16th is Sami Harris of Charleston Catholic High School. Sami is an incoming freshman who capped off her extensive summer racing by being the top woman at the Run for the Health of It 5K in Hurricane, with a time of 19:56. Ms. Harris is an incoming freshman at Charleston Catholic and will almost certainly make a huge impact in AA-A at states. Some of the results that come up when googling her are (deep breath) Dirty Dog 15K trail run 2nd female 1:23.59, Run for the Health of It 5K road top female 19:56, WV Road 5K Championship 4th female 19:42, Thomas Memorial Hospital 5K road 2nd female 18:50, WV Troops to Teachers 5K 1st female 21:16, Firecracker road 2 miler 2nd female 11:58, Richmond Xduro 21K Trail Run 7th female 1:50:42, Independence Day 5K road 3rd female 18:50, Homecoming Scotland Run road 10K (in Central Park!) 2nd 12-19 43:17, and I'm stopping there. That's alot of racing. Best of luck to Sami as she starts her high school career. (Tip of the cap to the Concord men for their nice cross race over the weekend.)

Athlete of the Week - Alex Dent

The AotW for August 3rd-9th is Alex Dent of Hurricane High School. Alex wins her AotW by virtue of her 18:39 victory at the 2009 Thomas Memorial Hospital Road Cruise 5K. In 2008 she ran 19:16 at the same race, so her training must be going very, very well at the moment. She's the daughter of previous AotW winner Bubby Dent. Alex is about to go into her senior year at Hurricane and will no doubt be aiming for individual and team championships. Best of luck to her as she kicks off her final high school cross country campaign.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

God save me from my friends; from my enemies I can defend myself.

Take a hard look at the girl in the picture. Blayke Hall was 9th in AA-A cross back in 2007 as a freshman. She currently has no coach, no program and probably won't get to compete this year. (http://www.times-news.com/localsports/local_story_217233243.html) Now, the Moorefield Athletic Boosters passes the buck because they don't have the money. The Hardy County BOE passes the buck because they're 700 large in debt. The WVSSAC passes the buck because the rules are the rules and she can't run for another school, even though her lack of a program is in no way her fault. If you doubt the sincerity of the lack of funds, you should note that the principal at Moorefield even uses a quote from Spock to describe the situation, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few [or the one]." Now, normally I don't care, not my problem. Today, for whatever reason, I went wild and tilted at windmills on my way there.

I don't know who's in charge at the WVSSAC, but those people do more to hurt kids in this state than help them. How in the blazes of hell and damnation can there possibly be justification to bar this girl from running at Frankfort or some other program? Frankfort lost their 2, 3 and 4 runners from last year. THEY DID NOT HAVE FIVE GIRLS TO RUN IN 2007! Are you kidding me? You're going to deny a girl who has no track program and was 15th in her cross region last year from joining a program that did not have five girls finish their regional meet two years ago? What possible impact could occur that anyone would deem unfair? All this and the girl in question has done absolutely nothing! An exception could be crafted in the rules for "students of financially unviable districts" in about three and a half minutes. Instead the moles at WVSSAC burrow into the dirt and hide amongst their rules.

The main justification for the Moorefield Athletic Boosters is that they can't pay for a coach. This brings about the idea that maybe some non-teacher would volunteer their time to coach for free. Do you know how much it costs to volunteer coach with the WVSSAC? It costs you a full weekend in a classroom at the cost of $250, a trip to the police station for a fingerprint card at an unknown cost, a trip to the BOE office for approval and $49 to apply. And after all that, if you have a great time coaching and are successful, any yahoo with a teaching certificate has the right to apply for your position next year and they will get it, by statute. If the WVSSAC wanted to make sure that the coaching application process excluded any non-teacher with sense, they succeeded.

At any rate, bravo to all those involved for letting this kid down. Hopefully either the incompetent jackals at WVSSAC bail this girl out with some common sense, the Boosters get their books in order or some money appears from nowhere to save the day.

(photo courtesy tristaterunnur.com)

Monday, August 3, 2009

Athlete of the Week - Megan Metcalfe

The AotW for July 27th - August 2nd is Megan Metcalfe. Megan raced at the Debbie Green Memorial 5K on Saturday night and was the second overall female in a time of 16:08. Megan appears to be back on track to have a good late-summer track season. She is supposed to race in Gateshead (3,000m) on the 31st and in Brussells (5,000m) on September 4th. After a slew of health issues, hopefully Megan can still turn out a solid 2009. Good job to all the road runners out there this weekend, it was full of action.

*****Editorial*****
Today is August 3rd. High school cross country practice starts today and all the kids are busy handing in physicals, getting lectured about the evils of hazing and plotting the hazing that they're going to do anyways. One thing that may happen, depending on the athlete and the coach, is the formulation of goals for this season. Let me beg and plead with the fairer sex of this state, their parents and coaches: please include Foot Locker South in your plans. The last West Virginian girl to run the seeded race was in 2006. This is the most intense, fastest and highly competitive high school race that any WV kid can enter. You will be a better runner for experiencing it. Please make at least an attempt to run this race.