Text from coach - what would you think

[Anonymous]

You are overthinking this. My son ran cross country last year in middle school and he once got the wrong bib. The parent volunteer coach passed them out and somehow my son and his friend ended up with each others bib. Either the coach handed them the wrong bib or when they were helping each other pin on the bibs they somehow switched them.

It is hard to know if their times are off when you get the results because different cross country courses can be flat fast courses vs. hilly. The friends parents told me they had recorded the finish line and told me my son actually beat their son and if they wanted me to send the video to the coach. I didn't care but my son actually did so the coach contacted some race official and their times got switched.

So maybe they just want to confirm your daughter ran with the correct bib since she usually was behind the other runner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has got to be a troll. A coach worried about a 6th grader running an 11 minute 1.5 race and texting a parent to confirm whether or not she came in 30th place?

No serious XC coach would waste his/her time with this.

It’s a Mommy Coach—so, right, not a serious running coach.

Literally illustrating why parents should never coach school sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are overthinking this. My son ran cross country last year in middle school and he once got the wrong bib. The parent volunteer coach passed them out and somehow my son and his friend ended up with each others bib. Either the coach handed them the wrong bib or when they were helping each other pin on the bibs they somehow switched them.

It is hard to know if their times are off when you get the results because different cross country courses can be flat fast courses vs. hilly. The friends parents told me they had recorded the finish line and told me my son actually beat their son and if they wanted me to send the video to the coach. I didn't care but my son actually did so the coach contacted some race official and their times got switched.

So maybe they just want to confirm your daughter ran with the correct bib since she usually was behind the other runner.

I’m not even familiar with xc, but I was also going to suggest that a mixup of bibs may have happened and the coach is trying to figure out what happened. Or a chip could have malfunctioned.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would just text back - "Yes, DD crossed a few seconds before her. It's been so great to see her improvement this year - all her hard work is paying off!" And then don't think any more about it.

OP here - That is pretty much what I wrote though my takeaway was that there was an implication that my kid cheated. We are friendly with the other kid's parents so I guess I didn't think they would make a big deal out of it but who knows. I will be giving them the side eye from here on out

Thanks for the feedback!

NO. That is what you must not do. You don't know why this parent asked. You only got a message from the coach. Don't be nasty.

OP here - point taken, though it is somewhat upsetting to know that someone begrudges my kid her one moment of victory. Though she had a faster race the next race, but got smoked by the girl she beat in the latest race.

You're clearly new to the sport. Have you thought about why this bothers you so much? Was it a few seconds difference? I'm guessing it was closer than that because otherwise it wouldn't have been a question. DD has sometimes beaten kids by fractions of a second and in this situation if the times were so close I would not be confused or taken aback if someone who hadn't seen the race asked me the question.

Not new to this sport. I ran in high school though was not good but still love running. It was two seconds, and my kid has lost or won (against a runner, not overall) by fractions of a second. Neither of these girls was winning this race so it didn't matter for a medal or anything like that. I just looked it up and my daughter ran 11:04 and the other girl was 11:06, both placed in the high 30s.

I know why it bothers me. My kid had a really good, clean race and the response from the coach was to text asking if she really won. I didn't appreciate that but reading these is helping me see maybe I framed it the wrong way, but regardless coach didn't need to text.

OP, I meant to ask -- is your daughter in 8th grade? And was this a 1.5 mile race?

Hopefully, your daughter has a LONG way to go in this sport ... I hope all the parents chill out, and if you get a text like that from the coach again, just ignore it.

Thanks! 6th grade, 1.5 miles. I hope she sticks with it but already said she might be out next year because it's "too intense." And she doesn't know about the text.

It’s too intense for her because you are a nut and I’m sure she’s picking up on ot. It’s a 6th grade race. Who gives a sh*t.