Good Morning! 

As a reminder we are having a pre-meet at Jesmond Dene today, not at school! Since there is drive time we will practice from 3:45-4:30. 

I would like to go over a few things as we transition into our league meets. These meets are how we score as a school. The format is 25%, 25%, and 50% scoring for the meets in order. With that said, we can be docked points for not following CIF rules. This can come from both parents and athletes alike. It's good to practice now as there is zero tolerance at CIF. 

A Few Things to Remember:

-Spectators, like athletes, should be aware of runners on the course. I know this seems obvious but a good example from last week was that a parent was leaning into a curve looking for their athlete.  Consequently they had their foot in the course which tripped Francis Parker's #2 girl to the ground. Also, no one should ever cross the course when runners are coming unless there is a very large gap. It's the worst in a race when you have to slow down because someone is running in front of you.  

-If you are timing an athlete and call out their time to them, technically you must then call out times for everyone else in the race. You'll often hear us coaches, rather than yelling a time, say something like "you're 10 seconds off, speed up here". This releases us from that rule because we didn't yell out an official time. 

-All spectators and athletes should never say anything to a runner from any school, including our own, except for words of encouragement. Never put someone down to build us up. That's not how we roll. It's also hard for a runner to hear direction in a race so leave the coaching to the team's coaches. We have a plan and the athletes know what they need to do, it makes it easier to adjust on the fly if they don't have ten people telling them to do different things. 

-At CIF there can be no digital watches with GPS. Get used to not having that comfort now so you don't rely on it later. It's not worth getting disqualified for even if you only use the watch as a stopwatch. 

-Once Varsity is declared uniforms must be identical. Socks need to match if they aren't low cuts. If compression shorts can be seen by one runner, everyone must have the same. If a girl puts a bow in her hair, the other six must as well. They are getting more strict on this so please pay attention. This is another thing not worth a DQ over, so please keep that in mind as we near CIF! 
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We could use some parent volunteers still for the race tomorrow! If you can help, find me before the first race when we have our meeting to go over everyones course placement. If you have any questions just reach out and I am happy to help :) 

Thank You,

PJ Musselman

760.717.9461