The kid in question has been one of the more frustrating I've coached, but not necessarily in a bad way. He's just a bit too smart for my usual sell for 800/mile and it's made me have to search around, unsuccessfully, for different angles.

The odd thing is that the general issue - black kids in a predominantly white sport - has changed dramatically in the year since I posted this. There's now a pretty solid representation of black American kids in the 800/1600/3200m/XC around the DC metro area. In our tiny, stupid conference the returning XC champion (a sophomore last year) also won the 3200m in track and is just as skinny and nerdy as his competitors, except that he's black. Ditto for his teammate, a freshman who went 1:57/4:34 last year. And we're almost certainly still whiter than the public school leagues.

It's good. More kids running distance events is fun.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad