Changes From MSHSAA and What They Mean For Our Team

A State of Change:   

Last month MSHSAA published forthcoming changes for cross country from its advisory committee meeting held in November.  You can find the entire document here, but I wanted to break down the individual changes and the likely impact they will have on next season (and in many cases beyond).

As with my summary of the Championship Factor, my intention here isn't to get political.  I have my opinions on each of these changes, but here I simply want to outline their effects.  Readers can decide whether those are good or not.

#1:  Games Committee Duties

This is the most benign of the changes that probably merits the least discussion.  Put simply, the district meets generally have a games committee that helps establish and enforce the procedures of the meet.  However, in the past there wasn't a ton of clarity on who should be a part of the committee and their duties.  This information will be added to the state cross country manual going forward.

Short of the possibility of one of our coaches serving on the games committee, this really doesn't have a large impact on our team.

#2:  New District Course Guidelines

While Arcadia Valley always seems to get generally positive reviews from coaches and athletes, apparently there were some concerns over a few of the other district sites.  To help rectify those situations going forward, the state formed a subcommittee to draft guidelines for district courses.  You can find the final draft here.  

Most of these guidelines align with the course recommendations from the NFHS.  They don't really have a ton of impact on our team at the surface level.  One point of note is that we've worked hard to make our home course a quality one.  Our course checks pretty much all of the boxes, which is a great confirmation that we are doing great work.  

Some of the 2024 district sites featured narrow paths and other unfavorable characteristics. Complaints about this largely led to the new guidelines.

#3:  New Release Date for District Sites

Familiarity with the district course can be an advantage on race day.  For this reason, many teams like to race on the district course during the regular season.  The problem is that by the time district sites are announced, many schools have already finalized their races schedules.  Going forward, the state will release the sites for districts on the Friday of Week 7.  For 2025, that is August 22, roughly a week earlier than last year.  

While the additional time might give some schools the opportunity to add a race to their schedule, given numerous factors at our school--like our other sports teams and bus availability--our schedule will be finalized well before that point.  However, it does provide more time to scout and plan for the particular challenges of the course.

At one point district sites weren't released until after Labor Day, so late August provides a bit more time to plan and prepare.

#4:  Changes to the State Schedule

Prior to 2024 the state ran the boys and girls races for each class back to back.  Concern was expressed that the short window between races didn't allow coaches adequate preparation time with the second gender prior to their race, especially given the added protocols at state.  It also prohibited schools with both boys and girls teams at state from watching each other, as the second gender to race was typically warming up while the first was racing, and the first was recovering while the second was racing.

So last year the state altered the schedule so that races alternated between classes and created more space between the two races for a class.  The unintended consequences of this were incredibly long days for teams and excessive congestion in the parking areas and on the course, especially on Saturday when three different classes raced.  The advisory committee decided these drawbacks outweighed the benefits, and so the plan in 2025 is to go back to the original structure with boys and girls in a given class racing consecutively.  

With our two teams racing in the same class in 2025, our girls would race just 45 minutes after our boys.  Unfortunately that means they wouldn't get to see the boys race.  They will also likely have to do much of the warming up on their own as our coaches will be out on the course.

The bigger change is with the number of classes racing on each day.  The publication shared with coaches mentioned issues with hotels, emergency responders, and volunteers on Saturday but didn't provide any additional details.  My best speculation here is that Mizzou sports might be to blame.  Last year Mizzou football hosted Oklahoma the Saturday of the state meet.  There was also a home basketball game.  Both of these pull a lot of fans from out of town, making hotel rooms a hot commodity.  They also demand an added police presence around stadiums and arenas.  With races for three classes on Saturday, the meet runs well into the afternoon, making for a long day for officers.

The advisory committee made the decision to flip the days, having three classes run Friday and only two on Saturday.  This will ease the hotel demand and allow police to finish at Gans Creek earlier.  For 2025, this won't have any significant impact on our team, as Classes 1 and 2 will still be racing on Saturday.  But with the rotating structure, it does mean we will be racing more often on Friday in the future.  It also means that as early as 2026 our teams could be back to racing on separate days if one were to move up via the Championship Factor without the other.  

Going forward, Friday is going to be the much crazier day at Gans Creek.

#5:  More District Sites

Since 2021, the state has divided each of the five classes for cross country into four districts, making a total of 40 district races.  Through 2024, the state held these races at eight different sites, with the District 1 races for Classes 1-3 held at one site, the District 1 races for Classes 4-5 held at a separate site, and the same structure used for Districts 2-4.  

As we've experienced firsthand, six races at one site makes for a long and exhausting day for Classes 1-3.  To fit everything in, races have to start early in the morning, which poses a logistics challenge for teams several hours away who aren't staying in a hotel the night before like at state.

To ease the strain, the advisory committee decided to expand to 12 district sites by holding the Class 1 races at separate sites from Classes 2 and 3.  This stands to have the largest impact on our team, especially as long as we race in Class 1.  Even if Arcadia Valley offers and is chosen to host districts, it would be the Class 2-3 meet.  The same is true for Notre Dame.  As the prospective host would be a Class 1 school, it seems almost certain that our district meet in 2025 will be somewhere new.  Where is a matter of speculation at this point.  To my knowledge Van Buren, Oak Ridge, and Bismarck were the only other Class 1 District 1 schools to host a home meet in 2024, and the courses for the first two leave some of the new course guidelines unmet.  It is possible a Class 1 school could host the meet at a larger school's course, but that raises its own set of challenges given that those schools will be racing the same day.  Only time will tell here.

Site Divisions

Class 1 (Single Site)

Classes 2-3 (Double Site)

Classes 4-5 (Double Site)

#6:  Managers Don't Have to Pay to
​ Be on the State Course

Through 2024, the state issued each team a manager wristband.  This gave the manager access to the starting line along with competing athletes and their coaches, but it did not get them onto the rest of the course.  For this privilege, managers had to purchase a general admission ticket. 

In its correspondence with coaches, the state acknowledged its naivety in thinking that managers simply collect jackets and sweatpants at the starting line.  Many of them function more like an assistant coach, recording splits and giving places to athletes.  For this reason, going forward the manager wristband will give them access to the entire course.  

I'm not sure if we'll have a team manager in 2025, but if we do, the state will get a few less dollars.

Our team would be the first to vouch for the invaluable contributions of a manager on race day. We're grateful for all that Olivia has done for our team the last two years.