7/16 update

Braves,

There is a lot to cover in the email this week so please read it carefully.

Practices

We are excited about the hard work that many of you have been putting in day after day. With only one month until our first race (see the schedule here) now is not the time to lose motivation. The work that you put in now cannot be replaced later. If we take days off all we are doing is limiting what we can do as a team later in the season. It is easy to lose motivation, especially during a long summer when we don’t have official races, so talk to your teammates and encourage them to get to practice and to run with you on “off” days. We have to work together if we are to be successful. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we have an awesome group of people. Not just talent-wise but also in terms of who you are. Get to know each other and encourage each other, because we are one team. We either succeed together or fail together. We have talked about success before, and it is not measured by how much faster you are than everyone else or by championships, but by your work ethic, your determination, your attitude, and the kind of teammate you are. I don’t preach about this because we feel like you aren’t doing these things, in fact we know that most of you are doing those things daily. But we have a lot of room to improve if we are going to be successful and reach our team goals. Let’s make this final month of summer training a successful one.

Cross Country Camp

Our camp will be 8/9-8/11, going up the morning of the 9^th and returning the afternoon of the 11^th. We will be staying at the Tidwell’s place in Huntsville for those days. The days will be spent with 1-2 runs per day – one of which will be on the trails at Snowbasin, games, time at the lake, and other activities. Our goal is to get better as a team, and to have fun for a few days before school starts.

There are large spaces indoors and outdoors for sleeping so we will need a few people to bring tents for the boys to sleep outside. There will be a cost associated with the camp which will be around $70 per athlete. That number will decrease with the more athletes who come up, so I will give the official cost as soon as I can. In the event the cost is the only thing keeping you from attending, let me know and we can work with you.

Please let me know if you are planning to attend the camp. Even if your plans may change between now and then, I just need an updated ballpark number of how many of you can go.

Clothing order

I have attached the new form for clothing orders. If you didn’t order anything before, but would like to do so, please print out the order form (page 2) and put it in my box with the receipt attached to it, or you can give it directly to me. This form is due on Wednesday (7/19). The prices have mostly stayed the same, except the Nike pants are more expensive than were the Adidas version.

I know some of you are out of town and unable to pay in the office or bring me a form, so I ask you to simply email me what you would like to order and pay when you get back, I will enter it as a fine in August if you haven’t paid by then (please pay before I have to enter fines, which is a headache). Please don’t email me if you are in town and can bring the order form in; it is much simpler and more organized if you just bring me the form.

Those of you who paid for items in June have the option to order the alternate item (it was Adidas, now is Nike), request a complete refund, or have your payment be applied to a different item. Please let me know what you would like to happen. If you ordered the t shirt or hat, those remain the same as they were and will be ordered as previously requested. Even if you ordered something before, you can make adjustments to that order at this time.

Register my athlete

Lastly, everyone who does high school sports must create an account at https://registermyathlete.com/schools/ Choose your state/school, and login, or create an account. Once that is done you must choose the sport that you are going to compete in and then fill out the information that it asks for. If you already have an account, it is very easy all you need to do is select the sport.

EVERYONE doing high school sports must get a physical. Physicals are valid for 1 year, so if you got one in March, you won’t need another one until March. There is a form on the register my athlete site that you can print and take to the doctor’s office. If you know you are in need of a physical, you should get that scheduled ASAP. Often, athletes tell me that they recently got a physical for scout camp or something. The only issue with that is that the form from the website must be filled out by the doctor, so I have had some kids go back in with this form and have the doctor fill it out again. I know it is kind of a pain, but that is the state of high school athletics at the moment.

Please go on and get this process started as soon as you can. It will save you and me a world of trouble if you do it now rather than later, because you cannot race or travel without it being completed. I can see a list of how far along everyone is, so it is quite simple for me.

Let me know if you have any questions about anything discussed herein.

Coach Jacobson

7/17 clarification

Parents,

If any of you would be willing to drive to or from the xc camp on 8/9 (morning) or 8/11 (afternoon) please let me know. The camp will be in Huntsville. If there are any of you who are interested in staying 1 night, or both nights, as a chaperone, we could use your help. Let me know if you are interested. We promise to feed you well and not make you run with the kids.

Parents and Athletes,

In the email this week I asked you to do a few things. 1) get me the clothing order if you are interested, and let me know if you still want the same items that you ordered before, or if there should be any adjustment made. 2) Let me know if you are planning on attending camp. We need to know ASAP. 3) Please go to https://registermyathlete.com/schools/ and register for xc, the sooner you can get this done, the better.

Athletes,

Today at practice I mentioned the possibility of not being able to take 2 buses to the xc meets. I may have miscommunicated that, and I want to make it clear that we will be able to take everyone to every meet, up until state, who is eligible based on grades, registermyathlete, attendance at practice, and other general conduct. Every meet, except state, is open to all varsity and jv runners. In short, if you are doing what you what you are supposed to, eligible, and coming to practice every day, you’ll be able to race at every meet, no matter if you are the first or last runner. We hope to have each of you who are involved with summer xc stay with us in the fall, and we hope to add some more faces as well. We would love to have enough of you eligible to compete at every race that we fill two buses full, and show the rest of the region and state that we are ready to work.

Let me know if you have any questions.