Monday, April 24, 2017

2017 Stanford Cross Country Invitational cancelled

Just received this email from Jess Riden, Director of Operations...
===============================================
Unfortunately – due to a scheduling conflict with Stanford football on Saturday, September 30, 2017 – we will be unable to host the meet this fall.

As we certainly enjoy having you all on campus, and are proud to host such a great competition - we plan to pick back up and running as normal in 2018.

We apologize for any issues this causes, and hope you will be back for 2018!

Thanks!  And please let me know if you have any questions!

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the what???? They moved the weekend last year, just move it back.

Anonymous said...

Nine NCAA national championships and they still take a backseat to football. See kids, it happens at every level of the sport.

Albert Caruana said...

I don't understand the timing as well. The meet has been held the week before and they could move the meet to another day if they wanted to make sure the event takes place again in the fall. When I competed at Stanford in high school, it was held on a Monday.

CoachTri said...

Stanford....grrrrr.

Anonymous said...

It was too close to sub sections and sections anyways. Move it to an earlier time, the week before Mt. SAC...

Anonymous said...

@7:07 AM:

The unfortunate reality is that the revenue generated by Stanford's football team helps to underwrite the cost of sports such as cross-country and track.

See kids, it's all about the money.

pmccrystle said...

So disappointing by Stanford. Here is my guess: the college race has been less and less competitive each year, and Miltenberg doesn't want to spend the time and energy to put on a High School meet...and this is the first step in dropping the meet. Really too bad, as it was the only XC meet in the Bay Area that drew top-flight teams from out of the area, and out of the state, giving local programs a chance to run against the big boys without having to travel to Clovis or down South. Occasionally, teams have traveled to Serra Invite (Canyon, Central Catholic) and Earlybird (Madera South), but even those are generally Norcal affairs. Sigh...most HS coaches didn't really like the way Stanford was run, but I loved the competition; it was a meet that always went out way too hard, so it was great training for the State Meet...

Albert Caruana said...

Patrick, my first thought was this has to be more than a football conflict and you may have hit it on the head with your comment. I am not sure why the Stanford Invite has diminished in stature as a college meet. Even the host school didn't really roll out their big guns for their own meet. I am not sure if that is a scheduling issue and the date they have now just doesn't fit for most college teams. The Oregon meet seems to have taken a lot of teams from the meet.

For schools our size, this was one of the very few meets that offered Division V competition so this is a big loss for us.

They say they will be back in 2018 but we will see about that.

Anonymous said...

I have attended the Standford Invitational in the 1990's on the SAME DAY as the Stanford vs Notre Dame football game.

Albert Caruana said...

It would take some digging but I am curious how many times the xc invitational was held on the same day as a football game in the past 20 years. Not that this will change anything, but it would be interesting to find out.

Anonymous said...

Bay Area teams....come out to Sac and do the Capitol Cross. Albert, when is the Crystal Springs Invite?

Albert Caruana said...

The Serra Invitational is scheduled for Saturday, October 14th.

Rob Collins said...

Well looks like HMB Invite will get back to its glory days!

Anonymous said...

what is HMB? Is it a good substitute for the Stanford weekend?

Albert Caruana said...

The Westmoor Ram and Half Moon Bay Artichoke Invitationals have been around for a long time. One of them typically runs up against Stanford depending on the date of Stanford. The Ram takes place on the last Saturday of September while the Artichoke is on the first Saturday of October. They are both good meets and well attended. The courses are 2.3/2.4 and challenging and hilly. Very different than the Stanford golf course.

Unknown said...

I wonder if this will lead any other meets to be scheduled the 23rd; having Stanford and Clovis on back to back weekends last year didn't make a ton of sense, so I imagine scheduling your meet 2 weeks before Clovis without conflicting with Stanford in any way could be a decent strategy for getting more teams to come.

Anonymous said...

So.... Crystal Springs invite moved back a week?

Coach Ibarra said...

Come to Earlybird Sept 16th for a chance to race the best CCS has to offer with some nice looking teams from out of the area... We normally run a week earlier but are trying a week later with some top teams always asking to push the meet a week later... It should be a great line up of squads at Toro Park... Bellarmine and Madera South have already committed once again on the boys side and other top teams adding daily... http://nmcxc.tripod.com/id22.html

Anonymous said...

Why not back to back? Looks like Clovis and Crystal Springs are back to back now. League, section, state. That's three weeks in a row.

SS has Mt. Sac and prelims too for 5 weeks. Not racing makes you soft and why the southern section crushes us up north.

Albert Caruana said...

Earlybird is an example of a meet that went away for a year and is returning so maybe there is hope for the Stanford Invite.

Also, the south has many larger schools which typically defeat smaller schools at the state meet. We will see how things go as we head toward more equitable competition.

The southern teams have also moved away from using Mt. SAC for their southern section meets to avoid racing there too many times in a row before the state meet. There is a value to racing smartly throughout the season.

Anonymous said...

FB plays UCLA at home on the 23rd as well.

Anonymous said...

Quite often, but not since 2009. As someone mentioned, it's even been on the Notre Dame game day in the past.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't the host school Palo Alto high? Where did all the money go? Stanford didn't keep it all, did they?

Albert Caruana said...

Palo Alto HS has to be listed as one of the host schools since there is high school competition. I am fairly certain that most of the money made by the invitational goes to Stanford University.

CoachTri said...

I wondered Palo Alto was named in the meet. No money from the meet.....if that is correct...booo Stanford.

Albert Caruana said...

I am sure Palo Alto gets a cut of the profits. No way they would be associated with the meet for free.

Anonymous said...

"I am sure Palo Alto gets a cut of the profits. No way they would be associated with the meet for free."

In the past, it was just free entries.

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