I wrote this after thinking about why you care so much about Conferences as an athlete, and why it's such a fun event to watch or follow.Taken at the base level, the conference championships shouldn't mean a whole lot. Simplistic as it might be, on the Division 1 college level, athletes and teams are almost exclusively assessed by their performances at Nationals. To most stakeholders in Cross-Country programs, the happenings of September through Mid-November mainly act as a prologue or setup for the climax of the season.
The important question for every ambitious team seems to be: What can we do to make Nationals? For the talent-rich teams, that question is followed with: What can we do to run better at Nationals? For most squads, the regular season seems to be important only insofar as it fits into the answers to those two questions. That's why it's not surprising to see teams running incomplete lineups throughout the season and having top athletes eschew running all out- opting for packing up and running tempo efforts to assist their teammates. The best teams try to achieve a perfect peak on the day the National Championships arrive, even as they might have lackluster regular season as a result. The fact that Nationals and Regionals are run on 10K courses while nearly all of the meets prior are 8Ks only increases the attractiveness of a "train-through" attitude. There is diminishing regard for the shorter races run during the regular season, the better a team is. It's logical because the best teams don't always see the need to pick up regular-season victories to boost their chances of receiving invitational berths. Again, the prevailing theme is that Nationals is all that matters.
From this vantage point, to athletes and to coaches, the Conference meet should take a major back-seat. At conferences, placing high as an individual will not yield you an All-American certificate or a berth at Nationals, nor will placing high as a team advance your team to Nationals. Yes, if you win as team or individually, you will get a trophy or a nice medal. Still, all of the regular-season invitationals promise the same things and have just as nice award ceremonies.
Yet, Conferences is so much more than a regular invitational. The reasons for this to me are perhaps a little corny, but very real nonetheless.
The first is school pride. The teams in your conference don't even have to butt heads with you a whole lot during Cross Country to make this critical. Your conference-mates still act as your measuring stick due to their closeness in location, character and size. Your opponents are athletes that you compete against more than once, and through this familiarity you grow to alternately like, dislike, and maybe even love or hate them. The Conference meet is the most intimate and exclusive meet of the year for most teams, and depending on the specific conference, only 8-16 teams participate. The racing that follows is deeply personal and as close to head-to-head as college cross country gets. If you are a Stanford runner and an Oregon runner passes you at Pac-10s, it does not get lost in the shuffle like it might in the massive field at Nationals or at a major invitational. With only 100-150 athletes on the course and even fewer at each general level of ability, the race becomes more about winning those personal head-to-head battles rather than running with a certain group or in a certain zone. Spots in the conference hierarchy are at stake, and for any proud member of a team each place higher up has considerable intangible value. Without dual meets, the conference meet is the closest thing to a bitterly-fought match race in collegiate cross country.
The next reason that Conferences matters so much is that it is the ultimate team meet. Unlike much of the year, the entire team travels together and races at conferences. With no split-squads or A meets and B meets, the amount of camaraderie and team spirit reaches its highest point. It also is the last meet where more than seven runners will toe the line in a varsity race to represent each school. Most conferences allow twelve in the varsity race, and run JV races for the rest. Having greater than seven out there creates some huge packs and increases the intensity with numerous potentially non-scoring athletes going for broke in a long-shot effort to help their teams and make their top sevens. For most of the team, the meet is their last hurrah, and you can see it in their collective intensity and boldness. When you add in the full support from injured runners, alumni and JV athletes, the Conference meet at its best takes on a sort of manic feel that is not diluted by too many teams, storylines and athletes.
While athletes and teams ultimately will not be judged on this weekend's performance, the major conferences all have fascinating battles and matchups. Can Oregon pull off the upset and regain the Pac 10 title? Will Colorado really surrender top dog status in the Big 12 to not only Oklahoma State, but Oklahoma? Can Indiana shake up the Big 10 by taking down long-time leader of the pack, Wisconsin? Conference weekend will begin to answer these questions while also providing the closest thing to a dogfight with team pride and spirit in abundance throughout.
Have a great weekend, and I hope to write a recap on how the conference meets shake out.
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