AEtheridge

I see that someone brought up the 33 state titles ORHS owns--the most of any public high school in the state. I'm not going to participate in this discussion regarding football, but, as my son is sick today, I have the time to post this summary of the state titles we have won here at ORHS just for clarity's sake. Here are the numbers:

7 Boys cross country

7 Football

7 Boys track

3 Girls basketball

3 Girls cross country

2 Boys basketball

2 Tennis

1 Boys soccer

1 Girls track

There's also at least one in swimming, which is not a TSSAA sport.

The Oak Ridge Boys Cross Country team won the State Championship for 2006, this ties them with Clarksville for the most State Titles in Tennessee history, both programs now have seven titles.

 

The Oak Ridge girls placed second behind Morristown West.

Clarksville won those titles when Coach Mac was still in diapers, too!

Both our boys and our girls ran tough, and our jv kids absolutely owned Percy Warner Park on Saturday--it wasn't even close. Best support ever.

MORRISTOWN WON AGAIN IN DOMINATING FASHION!

FOUR ALL STATE GIRLS. THE SENIORS WILL BE MISSED.

Yes, but as the coach of the girls team who were beaten "in dominating fashion," I have to say that I won't miss them at all!

Seriously, they ran exactly the race we told our girls they would run: they got on the front and dared anyone else to go with them. We tried, but we couldn't do it. They were the most impressive girls team I've seen at State snce Houston's dominant team of 2001.

i know this is a little biased, but it seems as though david clabo is the man to beat in a/aa.

 

he ran a 16:22 at cherokee blvd today. although cherokee is a fast course, i don't think anyone else is even close to what he is doing.

 

oak ridge is THE team to beat in aaa. other than clabo, it seemed like the 10 were all oak ridge runners. mad props to coach etheridge.

I'll take mad props when I can get them!

Clabo was really tough and ran a super-intelligent race, letting first Chris and then Maclean do the work, then moving in that last mile when it was time to go. I don't know of another A-AA runner in the state of his caliber.

I watched that race yesterday, as some of my kids ran. Clabo's run out there was really impressive!

That course could use a little shade...

No doubt! That was brutal. The fact that KK and SK ran so fast on that course in those conditions--wow.

the vanderbilt invitational is the same morning at vaughns incase anybody was wanting to know that

More importantly, that's the same day as Great American. Bridges used to be a great meet, many years ago.

maybe so ...but guess what he's doing this weekend?? sharp springs invite or something like that??? as far as im concerned, it should be called the "Sharp springs im afraid to race sean keveren invitational"

 

they need to got at it... but i guess a keveren, adams, chandler battle will suffice

There will be a battle with Keveren, I think, and I would say Adams will be there, and Chandler may be there, but you are missing more than a few who will also play: Cole (9:45 3200 last Saturday in a tt), O'Donnell (9:49), Sonnenfeldt, Young, Fassino, Sharber, DuPlessis. That's a stacked Gold Boys race.

where'd they add it to stealth?

http://www.alltraxtiming.homestead.com/SteepleCourseMap.html

basically the east is known for their poweful (par'ful) individuals and a couple of powerhouse teams (i.e.McCallie and Oak Ridge) where as middle tends to have more balanced teams lacking superstars, but still having 5+ fast guys who can compete as a team and win.

can we agree?

I'm not sure how you arrived at that. OR won AAA State last year with a #1 in 29th place. Not too powerhouse. Very well-balanced team--but no superstar at all, not last year.

I would argue that you've left off a few powerhouse schools from over the years: Knox Webb, Farragut, Kingsport D-B, Baylor, GPS, Knox West, Morristown West.

Maybe someone should add up all of the state championships for each grand division of the state and see who comes out on top. Woops, I just did it. For the boys, East has 34, Middle has 24, and West has 14. I guess some of that depends on how you group schools geographically, but even if I messed up a couple, it's pretty clear that history has been kind to the East.

http://www.tssaa.org/schdir/records/GetTheRecord.cfm

By the way, for the girls, the East's power is even more pronounced...

According to milesplit's preseason rankings... this should be a good guess for the all-state for AAA:

 

1. Chris Berry Blackman

2. Stuart Chandler West High

3. Matt Baltimore Bradley Central

4. Steve Fassino Red Bank

5. Sean Keveren Brentwood

6. Josh Vasquez Dobbyns Bennett

7. Joe Coneo Clarksville Northwest

8. Chris Turbeville Beech

9. Matthew Sonnenfeldt West High

10. Bryan Johnson Riverdale

11. Maclean Odonnell Oak Ridge

12. Justin Cacaro Cordova

13. Chris Cole Oak Ridge

14. Nate Edelman White Station

15. Spenser Tipton Maryville High

Yeah, that's probably not the most accurate way to rank them, although I don't know how you'd do it better. I'll tell you right now that O'Donnell and Cole are flying, and they've got plenty of company every day during their workouts. I know that Stuart and Matt are doing well, too. Both schools (OR and West) are doing a version of Daniels' cross country plan, mixed with a few things from the 5k-15k plan--mixed with some of our own stuff.

Did Berry ever run better than the 9:36 he ran at State in track? If not, it appears to me that Keveren, with his 4:15/9:23 as a soph, is pretty formidable.

Watch out for some other runners to mature a little this year:

Matt Sonnenfeldt (4:30 as a freshman)

Chris Cole (15:28 as a freshman, nothing since)

I don't think either of those guys will win state--Keveren is definitely the favorite--but they are definitely on the cusp of moving up.

Yes, the track coach is a very good young man. They are fortunate to have him. He is also a good teacher, as is his wife.

Not sure whether Siegel track and cross country are coached by the same guy, but in Siegel's first year as a school as couple of years ago, they were State AAA Runners-up in cross country. That's not easy to do any time, much less your first year. Pretty tough.

Where are you coaching?

Scot can't run any longer--his knees have packed it in. Now he walks around quietly, looking like a Renaissance version of Jesus. Now and again he volunteers at middle school track meets. Really nice guy.

In the "small world category": Scot is the librarian at Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge.

I ran 15:53 in '82 and 15:05 in '83. Bobby beat me by a few seconds that year when he took 3rd. I still have a picture somewhere of us all lined up in the chute.

Then you probably remember Dale Carico, Bobby Parsely, and Scot Smith. Perhaps Walter Deneen, too.

Then I may have competed against you, too. (Allen Etheridge, Oak Ridge, 1981-1983) We were state champs in 1983 against TN High.

Everybody can use a little Oak Ridge Boost.

Seriously, Matt is a good guy.

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Are you guys going to have Matt Gooch with you next year?

Dave's a pretty smart guy, but what's he going to do when I throw a flying tackle at him coming down the hill at McAlpine?

Mike O'Neil, from D-B in the early 1980s?

I loved running at the Steeplechase when I was a kid in the early 80s and we ran between the hedges: it was fast and pretty flat. I've never liked the course as it has been laid out since about 1987--it's much, much harder than it looks. In fact, if it were lined with trees like VAP or McAlpine, I think we would think it was a fairly hilly course. But since it's totally bare, it looks like it's flat, which it's not. There are also a few places where you have to slow down to make a turn, something you don't think about a lot. Bumbi's 14:14 there just makes me sick every time I think of it!

I had MLK in Chattanooga, when it's actually in Nashville.

The numbers still favor East.

I agree that Boone's course is the hardest I've run or coached a team on. Unlike at VAP, there's no place to recover at Boone--it's just relentless. At least at Melton Hill Dam you have a long downhill to get your legs back, and at VAP you have the long downhill the beginning of both laps.

The hardest course EVER is the old 3 mile course at Melton Hill Park, home of the Big Nasty. Notice the KIL boys don't run it the old way anymore.

Team-wise, it looks like this:

In AAA Girls: 6 of the top 10 teams from East

In AAA Boys: 5 of the top 10 teams from the East

In A-AA Girls: 8 of the top 10 teams from the East

In A-AA Boys: 6 of the top 10 teams from the East (and the next 2 as well.

In DII Girls and Boys it's a little harder to compare because there are so few teams there, but 1st and 3rd in the boys and 2nd and 4th in the girls is pretty good.

That's one way to measure it based solely on last year.

If you look at the Big Dog individuals, well, they come from the Memphis area and the Nashville area. The Memphis mojo is fairly recent , except for those good CBHS and Frayser teams of long ago, but Nashville has long been good.

On balance, I'd go for East. A good team always stays home out of Region II AAA, for example. Last year it was West who stayed home, even though they ended up with a 9:43 3200 runner, a 4:31 miler, and an 8:16 4x8 in track. Two years ago OR girls stayed home even though we'd been ranked in the top 10 all year.