2004 Boys Cross Country
Letter Policy
In the past years our team has had a policy that we only letter the top
7 runners. This policy was put in place using the logic that a varsity
team consists of 7 runners. A team can only enter 7 runners in regional
and only 7 runners can represent the team in most meets where they have a
separate varsity race. When we had 8 to 12 runners on the team this
policy was very appropriate. As our team improves, it becomes increasingly
harder to be in the top 7 runners. A runner on a good team may not
actually be in the top 7 of our team when in past years they could have been.
Along those same limes, if our team is especially strong, our runners who
are not in the top 7 would actually be in the top 7 of another school's team
and have been a varsity letter winner at that school. To account for
these factors, we have tried to use a letter system that seems to be the
most fair system I have seen. We borrowed this concept from St. Joseph-Ogden's
cross country team that has one of the longest winning streaks in IHSA history.
SJO found that some years they lettered around 7 runners. In their
more competive years, they tended to letter more runners.
Mahomet-Seymour Boys XC Letter Policy
Our runner will earn a letter if they earn a total of 20 or more varsity
points in one season.
A runner earns 1 point for each number 5 runner they beat from another
teams. They can only earn a maximum of 1 point for each opposing
team.
If the competitor's team has fewer than 5 runners, our runner earns
1 point if they beat their slowest runner.
If we run our runners in a fresh/soph race, we will compare their time
to the varsity race on that same day.
The logic behind this system is that our runners would be not only varsity
for another school on that day, but also would be in their top 5 runners
and also be a point earner for their team.
