XC Parent Meeting
Coaching Staff
Many of our Coaches are Wilcox XC Alumni!
Please keep in mind that none of us are teachers at the school, & we all have full-time jobs outside of coaching.
What is Cross Country?
Cross Country is both a team and individual sport.
Where athletes run in race between 1.5 to 3.1 miles on mixed terrain.
How do they compete?
Athletes compete against their own personal best performances.
Athletes run in teams of at least 7 athletes by division to represent our school.
Teams score by adding the places of their top 5 runners. The team with the lowest score wins.
What is it about?
It is a journey of self-improvement and learning about oneself and what one is capable of.
To many, it may seem crazy to want to run multiple miles for pleasure.
My parents never understood it, and I think that is the case for most unless they are runners themselves. However, I found a book that allows non-runners to understand the appeal!
If you would like to understand why your athlete enjoys the sport, I recommend The Race.
It is a very quick read at ~80 pages
Gear
Necessary Gear
All necessary gear for a student to participate is made available to students for free by the school.
Uniform tank top is loaned out for the season. If not returned, the athlete will be fined.
There is also the option to purchase a uniform tank top if one would like.
Black shorts must be used during races. These can be the black Wilcox PE shorts.
Team-provided black shorts can also be loaned out, if needed.
Optional Gear
Some optional gear that is not required for participation, but many of our athletes consider is listed below.
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Running shoes (recommended to replace every 300 miles)
We have a team gear-up night @ Road Runner Sports each season. -
Running Watch (Easy way to track mileage and effort)
We get a 25% discount through a team order here. -
Sunglasses (UV eye protection)
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Open-Ear Headphones (If athlete wants to listen to audio)
Schedule
I have heard parents in the past be surprised by invitationals or other events.
Since some athletes do not make their parents aware.
We post our meet schedule here.
Please note, we also posted the Off-Campus Training dates!
To maximize the use of our funds for more hill training, we are having
parents pick up from the off-campus locations.
SCVAL Meet Jobs
At each SCVAL Meet in the season, every school has a job to help run the meet.
We need the help of parent volunteers to perform these jobs in some cases.
Team Events
To stay up to date on other events, such as team pictures, awards night, and the annual pasta dinner,
we recommend adding our Google calendar. We put all those dates as well as all the meets and invitationals there too.
Injuries
We understand many parents & athletes are often new to running and how to deal with injuries.
Parents understandably get concerned and may make decisions that may cause additional delays.
For this reason, we want to set clear expectations on how our team handles this process.
How injuries should be handled/communicated
1. When the athlete first feels any indication or first becomes aware of the injury, they should notify the head coach.
2. If the injury occurs during a meet and does not require medical attention, it is okay only to inform an assistant coach.
But they must inform the head coach at the next practice!
3. Athletes should not miss practice due to injury (This does not mean we will have them run).
The head coach will have to tell them what course of action will be taken.
This could be sending them to get assessed by our athletic trainer,
or it could be one of our coaches performing an assessment themselves.
Based on the assessment, next steps will be provided to the athlete in person.
Written exercises or next steps will be emailed to the parent/s and athlete.
If the injury is severe enough or beyond the expertise of our staff,
we will recommend that the athlete seek professional help.
Team Rules
If you have not already, please read the team rules here.
If you have any questions about the rules, please feel free to email or call me.
The rules are very long and detailed because they are to serve as a reference document
for if/when you come upon any of the situations laid out in the rules.
Only a few rules need to be kept in mind in day-to-day activities.
Some notable items:
XCStats
We use this service to send email communications to the team. It also holds all our official race results.
If you would like to receive these emails, you can also sign up as a parent.
Instructions can be found in the XCStats section here.
Individual Athlete Communication
Outside of practice, to be done via email. For time-sensitive matters, a phone call is okay.
Athletes should never be in communication with a coach over text message or similar services.
We expect communication to come from athletes unless there are extenuating circumstances or coach-to-parent specific matters.
Team Points
Attendance is expected at all school-day practice sessions. Other days are optional but strongly encouraged. Participation in all school-day meets, which have transportation provided, is expected. Especially League Finals, for which refusal to compete will result in removal from the team. Attendance and Meets play a role in the player points an athlete receives (towards lettermen's block letter & sports patches) and the division level designation in their athletic certificate.
For a more detailed explanation of player points, click here.
Saturday Long Runs
Running 6 days a week makes a huge difference for athletes. Many programs require Saturday practices. We strongly encourage you and your athlete/s to attend these practice sessions. They are shown in our Google calendar. We typically meet at Campbell Park, and you are welcome to join us on the trail for a walk or run at your own pace.
Weather Conditions & Practice
We take the safety of your athlete seriously and, as such, follow all existing weather-related guidelines and set our own where there aren't any. A live dynamic dashboard with the weather data for the Wilcox area and Rancho San Antonio Space Preserve was made by Coach Garza and is available on our website. These dashboards show whether practice is going to be held or canceled based on weather conditions.
You are welcome to check these as well at Is There Practice?
For days when the AQI is >100 but <151, practice is considered optional if a parent/guardian excuses the athlete because they do not want their athlete to practice in such conditions.
Running Safety
Because we care about your athletes' safety, we want to instill in them good running safety habits.
We encourage them to wear sunscreen to protect their skin. Require them to use open-ear headphones if they would like to listen to audio during their runs. A list of running safety rules is listed in our team rules, but also included in the NFHS Tips For Safer Running Along The Roadside
Student Drivers
No student may drive another student. Students can drive themselves with parental permission.
Please email me that you grant your student permission if they are going to drive themselves.
Leaving from a meet
Athletes must make sure to return timing chips before vacating the meet premises.
Athletes are only to leave with their parents/guardians unless the parent/guardian informs the head coach ahead of time who will be picking up their athlete/s.
Athletes can only leave a meet before it is over if the parent/guardian checks them out with one of the coaches.
3-Strike System
We instituted a 3-strike policy in our team rules because we ran into some behavioural and negative influence issues in the past. The 3 strikes are similar to how, in the workforce, an employee would get 3 warnings and opportunities to correct before termination at a particular company. As such, these 3 strikes are over their entire Wilcox High School career, within this sport. This is done to make sure they do not abuse them, thinking they get 2 times to mess around each season.
Once an athlete has 3 strikes, they are removed from the team & not allowed to join in future seasons.
For our main fundraiser, we are using Omella, coupled with an automated email campaign.
We were previously using SnapRaise, but that kept ~30% of donations, so I made my own solution.
With SnapRaise, our athletes had to input parents, friends, and family contacts, but many did not enter anyone but one parent.
As such, I am changing this to be done directly with you. I ask that every family fill out the form linked via the button below.
You only need to do this one time, unless you need to update contacts. I will only use the information submitted for our fundraisers if your athlete is on the team that season.
Please provide friends and family contacts, as the more people we can reach out to and who donate even a small amount can make a big difference in how much we end up raising as a team.
Our Omella Fundraiser is already open for direct donations.
I will start the email campaign next week. So please submit contacts by end of day Sunday. Thank you!
Parent Volunteers
We are always looking for parents to help us make our team events a success!
Specifically, we need 1-2 parents to organize the team pasta dinner and awards night.
No experience needed—just enthusiasm!
There’s plenty of support, and the time commitment is small, but the impact is big.
We look to all other parents to contribute as much as possible with bringing food &
helping with set-up and tear-down of these events.