There is no doubt that Hereford has an advantage at the state cross country meet; but it’s not because of the course itself. It would probably be nearly impossible to create a true statistical analysis to determine whether or not Hereford has an advantage at the state meet because of the course. Yet, I think these topics are worth the discussion because maybe there is a way to figure it out.  In order to run a true test, we need to find an independent variable to test, and that is difficult to isolate. Â
If you read the Hereford article and you are reading this, keep in mind:
- I am not a mathematican.
- I am not a statistician.
- This is not being published in a scientific journal.
- I am not a member of the intelligentsia. Â
- I concede that this may be rambling without a beginning or end
To counter my data set, here is something to consider: “If you look at the HISTORY of Hereford and the state meet, you can see that the boys and girls of Hereford have finished top 2 at states, 40 + times. And no Eastern School team has ever finished in the top 2 in the history of the course.
I did a lot of this research a long time ago. Its been a while since I looked at it, but I do feel there is an advantage when you look at a larger sample size (not just a 10 year period).â€
Strong points to consider. I do feel (not that feelings overtake stats), that there are many more considerations/reasons when looking at the question of whether or not Hereford has an advantage at the state meet due to venue. Â
I also think there are several factors that can never be accounted for:  what is fairness-is there truly a neutral course;  Hereford is a higher socio-economic area which accounts for success in ways we can not account for (ability to buy shoes and spikes, greater access to PT, greater access to youth sports);  if you move the state meet to North County or Kenwood, North County and Kenwood do not gain an advantage whatsoever.
These are my reasons Hereford has an advantage at the state cross country meet, whether it is held at Bull Run or Salisbury’s course, and these are possibly some independent variables that could be considered:Â
1. Size of cross country team-If anyone were to run a graph based on this, s/he would have to account for population of the 4 classifications first. A team that is larger is seemingly more likely to have a better outcome at the state meet. Anecdotally speaking, every team that is regularly successful has large teams each year. Â
2. Number of years head coach has been there. Teams that have success at the state meet seemingly have coaches who have been with the program a greater amount of time.
3. Greater area of land-Generally speaking, the more land a school has to train on the more successful they will be is the hypothesis. Hereford hands down has the best area in the state to train-at least the most accessible out their back door.Â
4. Socioeconomic/Real Estate-Probably not a PC topic, but I think this would be a strong variable in determining success at the state xc meet. Â
5. Running log. A very easy hypothesis to test, though data collection would be difficult. Hard work/more mileage yields better results.
Here are 2 independent variables to test whether or not Hereford has an advantage based solely on venue.
1. Range of times. We could take the mean, median, mode, range and compare Hereford’s number one, two, three , etc… to every other team’s one, two, three, etc…
2. (This is not attributed to myself). “points/runner at the state meet. So for every year that you have full results, you would calculate how many points/runner Hereford had VS every other school, then you average all those individual points use a t-test to say with 95% confidence whether or not Hereford scores more points than other schoolsâ€
Other considerations
I’ve never heard anyone say Severna Park has an advantage at the state xc meet, yet they seem to do consistently well. Along with Hereford, they would do very well on the first five criteria listed. Also for 1A, 4A and either 2A or 3A (depending on which classification Hereford is not in), Bull Run is a neutral course. I would think that we would see a lot of inconsistency in champions if Hereford/Bull Run is providing the Hereford XC team an advantage.
4A
In the past decade, Severna Park won the 4A boys 6 of 10 times, finished second three times, and third once. The girls won one championship and never finished lower than ninth. Â
The Walter Johnson girls won 2013-2017.
On a neutral course in 4A, we have teams winning 50% of the time.
3A-Sans Hereford/2A-Sans Hereford
I am not including 2A, since Hereford was 2A for six of the ten years. With that being said Liberty did very well. In 3A from 2013-2018, on the girls side, Northern Calvert won 3 consecutive years, and on the boys side, River Hill won three times and Centennial won twice. Not as statistically significant with six years, but the results fit the general trend.
Here we have two schools winning 50% of the time.Â
1A
In the past decade, on the boy’s side, Boonsboro won three titles, and Bo Manor also won three titles.
On the girl’s side, Boonsboro won five titles. In 2013, Cambridge South/Dorchester, which is east of the bay bridge, won the girls’ title. Of course, that year the championship meet was held at McDaniel. Even so, McDaniel is a very challenging course and it would be just as unwelcoming to a flatlander; unfortunately we may lose the data point for comparison. Â
Here we have two teams accounting for 60% of title wins, and one team accounting for 50% of wins.
MIAA/IAAM
Note-the private schools do not race at the state meet.
In the MIAA, Loyola won 7 of 10 championships in the past decade, and all of these races took place at a neutral venue. As a side note, Loyola has won about 50% of all championships in the MIAA’s history.
In this case, on a non-Hereford, neutral course, we have one team winning 70% of the time. Â
In the IAAM this past decade, Spalding and Maryvale each won three championships, and each race was at neutral course.Â
Conclusion
My non-scientific conclusion-The better team wins…or the team that scores better on the first 5 criteria are the teams you will be seeing performing well year in and year out no matter the course. Â
Please send corrections, updates, your own analysis and numbers, or thoughts to louisfoudos@gmail.com