Crossed Off: High school runners can’t compete in outside races

High school athletics are beyond stressful and cross-country is no exception. Practice for two hours after school, workout in the mornings, long runs on weekends. With all of the running that cross- country runners do, competing in a charity 5K or 10K for fun can’t hurt anything, right?

Wrong.

Cross-country runners, and every other high school athlete aren’t allowed to compete in outside athletic events during the season.

This rules makes sense for sense for sports like basketball or soccer, where outside leagues and coaches are common — but for cross-country this isn’t the case.

Rule 22 in KSHSAA states that members of a high school cross-country team in Kansas can’t compete in any kind of outside race during the season. 

It makes sense why KSHSAA wouldn’t want soccer players competing in outside leagues during the high school season, but it’s not as relevant for runners who compete in something small like a charity 5K for fun.

“We really want to prevent overtraining,” KSHSAA Assistant Executive Director Kyle Doperalski said “Which can damage the player and the team as well.”

This explains the rule for competitive running away from the team, but not so much for running for fun.

Sophomore Jacob Lien believes that risks are not substantial enough to require a ban for the sport.

“I think you should be allowed to run if you want,” Lien said, “But it would be really dumb to run a competitive half marathon outside of practice,”

While overtraining is a serious concern for teams and athletes, not all athletes see it that way.

“I think the rule is kinda stupid,” Sophomore cross-country runner Guy King said “For me, there’s no reason why student athletes shouldn’t be able to run.”

The rule is also fairly strict on what counts as competing. KSHSAA’s website states that running alongside, or even walking an outside race still counts as a race, since a race is defined as a common start and a common finish by KSHSAA.

On the other hand, KSHSAA’s way of enforcing the rule is less organized. There isn’t really a set consequence for running in an outside competition, although it does depend on whether the athlete knows they’re breaking a rule or not.

“It can really be hard to say, but for an offender who know’s they’re breaking a rule, they might miss an event.” Doperalski said.

Most of the time KSHSAA only finds out about athletes breaking the rule through athletes telling their coach about an outside run. Then the coach must tell the schools Athletic Director and then the A.D. might finally tell KSHSAA.

This ban can take something thats supposed to be fun, and completely over complicated, sucking the fun away.