PA Sorting Hat: What House Should The State Meet Be In?

By Jarrett Felix

I've always associated the state championships with Hershey. I still remember when Upper Dublin made states for the first time and our AD got the team Chocolate Bars to celebrate. I was never on the varsity squad that raced out in Hershey, but I did run the current version of the course at Foundation back in 2008 (in the JV race).

Personally, I'm a fan of the course. Yes, it has plenty of obvious flaws, but overall I think it is a true XC course. It's grueling with some difficult hills, but you also have to get out hard enough so that you are not fighting through crowds on tight stretches. Even at the very end of the course, you have to save a little something for the dramatic, painful poop out hill. Hershey's course adds a few more variables to the meet, making it that much more interesting and it reinforces the notion that, in XC, it's not about times and speed, it's about racing and heart. Only the strong will survive the course.

I've also really enjoyed the fact that the state meet has been on this same exact course since 2008 (when I first ran it) up through the 2014 season. Although there are countless other factors to consider, it gives the course record some real meaning. Real prestige. As far as I can tell from scanning some old state championship results, the state meet hasn't spent this much consecutive time in the same spot since the 70s (Penn State) and even then it looks like the course was changing each year (and expanding in distance). This is a period of unprecedented consistency.

Of course it appears that is all about to change, maybe as soon as this year, depending on what the additional construction means. I literally know zero details on this, but from the sounds of things, at the very least we are due for a new set up and more likely this will be the opportunity many have been waiting for to change the site of our state championships.

The flaws with the current set up are numerous. Some could argue the course is too difficult, although I laugh at this as possible justification for a course change. Now the sharp down hill near the finish on the road, that seems like an unnecessary hazard. I'm not pro that dangerous piece of landscape. The course lay out isn't incredibly spectator friendly, likely below average in that category. But at any course it's going to be difficult to catch a lot of the action without making a heavily looped course or other repeating pieces. I'm all for giving parents and fans a chance to enjoy our great sport, but ultimately I'd prefer to give the athletes a fair, challenging course even if it means sacrificing a little visibility. The way to really solve this problem would likely come more from a videoing standpoint than a course change standpoint.

However, what I have found most compelling recently, an idea that I never thought about, is the travel distance schools face consistently to Hershey. The D3 teams are closest (hence why their district meet was there) and so I'd imagine many teams can sleep in their own beds the night before the meet if they would like. According to Google, it would take about 1:40 in a car to get from Upper Dublin High School in District One to Hershey Park. Using the same search method, Google tells me that trip is roughly 4 hours for Mount Lebanon and then I'd imagine it's even more for the D10 squads. Sometimes I underestimate how big our state really is.

So what if we rotated the site of the meet? It would easy the travel occasionally on our brothern out west, while reducing the "home field advantage" for district 3 teams (although that advantage was likely destroyed by the back to backs on Hershey). Plus it gives a chance for the D3 teams to have some road trip team bonding moments of their own, staying over in hotels and doing some of the things that made my state experiences so fun. 

I would definitely lament giving up on the consistency of the Hershey course, but as long as we find, appropriate, challenging and historic courses around the state to rotate through we could still have a magical state experience from a times and record stand point. And we would have even more variables to consider. Even fewer runners would have experience with each course as you wouldn't necessarily be back at the same place you had been the previous state meet. Maybe you could hold each meet in one place for a 2 year or 3 year cycle to give runners a chance to adjust if you see this inexperience as more harm than good (I kind of do). 

It's an interesting idea and I'm slowly coming around to it. I certainly like it better than the idea of splitting from 2 classes to 3. Thank goodness that never happened.

If the PIAA doesn't adopt it, maybe I will for the Meet of Champions that I will inevitably obsess about during the season (sorry kids, it was bound to happen). We had Big Spring last year so maybe we rotate out west or out east this year?

My one rule with all this: no Lehigh. It's a great course (I've run it probably 15 times or so in my career between high school and college and tempos and training runs and I'll be running unattached there this year). It's a beautiful course. I encourage everyone to go to Paul Short and race. But it's not a course I associate with crowing a true Cross Country State Champion (although it has in the past).  

Unless we muddy the thing up NXN style and add some hay bales and such. Then I'd be down.