Present at meeting: Dave Hennessey (Penfield), Joe Howlett (Odyssey), Jeff Winden (Arcadia), Mike DeMay (RH), Dale Ladd (RH), Jim Erwin (Sutherland), Kathy Brown (Fairport), Jim Brunswick (Thomas), Steve Pulos (Brighton), Ray Manuszak (Irondequoit), Jeff Merkel (Hilton), Erin Abbata (Gates), Mike Van Auker (Athena), Lisa Book (Spencerport), Nate Huckle (Brighton), Nick Burk (Batavia), Sean Van Laeken (Fairport), Jason DeJoy (Mendon), John Prouty (Churchville), Gary Boyce (Churchville), Matt Tytler (Irondequoit), Mike Szczepanik (Hilton)

Schools not represented by a coach: Brockport, East Irondequoit, East Rochester, Olympia, and Schroeder

At 7:00, the Chairmen began passing out All-County awards to coaches. Meeting was called to order at 7:20 pm. Coaches were reminded to sign in and make any updates to the coaches’ roster. Ray Manuszak made a motion which was seconded by Jim Erwin to accept the Pre-Season minutes.

Congratulations were given to Divisional Winners, Sectional Winners and Sportsmanship winners, as shown below:

The schedule was discussed. Coaches were reminded that this was the final year in the current divisional alignment and some changes in divisions may take place next year. Rosh Hashanah will fall on Tuesday, October 4^th next year. This holiday, unlike Yom Kippur, is a two day event. A lively discussion took place concerning possible adjustments in the schedule to accommodate this holiday and keep the Tuesday before counties open for any make-ups in the league schedule. Four main alternatives were discussed. One was having only five larger league meets. This choice was deemed undesirable as not all teams would be able to race on the County Championship course prior to the County Championship. The second alternative was to move the meet from October 4^th to Thursday, October 6^th. However, this could interfere with weekend invitationals especially during the middle of the season. The third alternative was to have the bye week take place on October 4^th and have a league meet take place the Tuesday before the County Championship. Most coaches were against this idea. The fourth alternative was motioned by Jim Erwin and seconded by Dale Ladd. The motion was to move the schedule up. The starting date would be Thursday September 8^th with a bye week taking place on Tuesday October 4^th and a possible make-up date Tuesday October 25^th. Fifteen schools (Batavia, Brighton, Churchville, Fairport, Gates, Athena, Odyssey, Hilton, Penfield, Mendon, Sutherland, RH, Spencerport, Thomas, and West Irondequoit) were for the motion and one school (Arcadia) was against the motion.

The courses were discussed next. Problems with the Parma park course have been addressed and it will be in the schedule for next year. There were several concerns with various courses this year. Although many of the problems were related to the rainy summer months, it was agreed that some careful redesigning could alleviate those problems.

Webster Park was discussed. There is a concern with the creek trail. It is quite narrow and at several spots the roots make it dangerous. Dave Hennessey motioned to redesign Webster Park and was seconded by Mike Van Auker. The vote was unanimous among all 16 schools present at the meeting. Dave Hennessey will lead a group of coaches including Mike Van Auker, Ray Manuszak and Jim Brunswick to redesign the course at Webster for next year.

Nate Huckle expressed a desire to re-establish a course at North Hampton Park. Nate agreed to look into a course on the opposite side of the park from where the old North Hampton course was located. This course will be presented to the league during the 2005 season with its possible insertion into the league schedule for the 2006 season. Josh Reynolds, Mike Van Auker, Jeff Winden and Nick Burk agreed to help Nate Huckle in this endeavor.

There were some concerns with English Road course. The downhill – uphill section in the woods just after Vintage was extremely eroded from the summer rains. Jeff Winden agreed to contact the town of Greece to fix that issue. Also, Kathy Brown noted that the start and finish line of the course are not clearly marked on the map. The map also doesn’t seem to line up with the course description. Mike Van Auker agreed to adjust the map to clearly indicate where the course starts and finishes. Mike pointed out that the soccer fields are not a good way to mark the course as those lines change from year to year.

Mendon East has been and is still is a concern. Gary Boyce expressed concern about its design. The problem is the rollers. Gary felt that going down that steep section causes too much pounding on the athletes’ legs. Other coaches also discussed concerns with crossing the road as many times as the course does. Mike Van Auker made a motion to redesign the Mendon East course to fix those problems. The motion was seconded by Jeff Winden. All teams except for Penfield and the West Irondequoit Girls voted for the motion. Gary Boyce will head up a group of coaches including Dave Hennessey, Jim Erwin, Nate Huckle, Kathy Brown, Sean Van Laekan and Mike DeMay to redesign that course.

Mike DeMay expressed some concerns about how we, as coaches, have been setting up the courses. Technically, the all turns on a course must be marked with the correctly colored flags. Cones and other markers are not good substitutes. Coaches need to check their schools flag inventory to be sure they have enough to mark all courses. If there is a shortage coaches need to communicate this with their Athletic Directors and the school should purchase the needed flags. Also, if a coach realizes that there is a shortage, they should call other coaches at the meet they are hosting to make arrangements to borrow needed flags. All coaches agreed to try and help each other out when needed. The bottom line is that host schools need to do a better job marking courses with extra care taken to flag every turn with the proper flag.

Correctly marked courses should help each team to do a better job setting up a course while they host the meet. The following people agreed to redo the course map and send them to Matt Tytler to be posted on the webpage.

Included on the maps should be: Flag markings left (red), right (yellow), straight (blue), Mile Marks, Clear Start and Finish Marks. The map does NOT have to be computer generated, but if it is hand-drawn then it should be very legible.

There were no major concerns with the officiating this year. It was agreed that the officials did a nice job at our meets.

Reporting results was the next item on the agenda. Schools were reminded of their duties as host school to report individual times and team scores to the website, the good scout and the paper. A big "Thank You" followed by a round of applause was given to Matt Tytler and Dave Hennessey for their work on the website and the good scout.

Dave Hennessey shared his frustration with reporting to the good scout this year and then questioned whether it was needed with the website. Matt shared some frustration with a minority of people who didn’t report results. There was a tremendous improvement in the website this past year, but 100% participation is needed in the future.

Erin Abbata, with apologies to Dave Hennessey, made a motion to do away with the good scout and insert Penfield into the rotation of host schools for the coming season. The motion was seconded by Jim Erwin. There was a discussion about the pros and cons to the good scout and a vote was taken. A vote was taken with one vote per sex, per school allowed. Batavia abstained from the vote. Brighton boys and girls, Churchville girls, Fairport boys and girls, Gates Chili girls, Arcadia boys, Odyssey boys and girls, Mendon boys and girls, Sutherland boys and girls, Spencerport boys and girls, Thomas boys and girls and West Irondequoit boys all voted for the motion to remove the good scout. Churchville boys, Athena girls, Hilton boys and girls, Penfield boys and girls, RH boys and girls and West Irondequoit girls voted against the motion and for keeping the good scout. The vote was 18 for and 9 against. Therefore, the good scout will no longer exist and Penfield will have hosting duties in the future. Most yes votes were with apologies to Dave Hennessey as all agreed that he has done an outstanding job as the good scout in the past years. Thank You, Dave.

The Monroe County Championship was the next discussion topic. Mike Szczepanik and Matt Tytler explained that they would be looking into adjusting the school responsibilities for the meet as many changes over the past few years have caused some inequities in responsibilities. This was a concern prior to the meeting by several coaches. The changes will be in place for next year. Also added to the list of duties could be one team in charge of bringing flags to the meet and a team to be in charge of clean-up of the finishing area.

Dave Hennessey pointed out that next year or in future years the ACT may reduce the number of dates to take the exam. This will put more pressure on the kids to take the exam on the Monroe County Championship morning. To help with that Dave made a motion to move the starting time of the meet back one half hour. The motion was seconded by Nick Burk and the vote was unanimous. There were some other minor concerns including getting Stewart Lodge, having a better location for awards and the chaos caused by the intense rainstorm prior to the Varsity B races.

All agreed that Marcus Whitman High School did an outstanding job with the Sectional meet especially considering the weather during the week prior to the meet. There were a few concerns with the order of races. What was questioned was why the small school races are always earlier in the meet. Dale Ladd, section five boys coordinator, explained that this is not set in stone and the games committee voted on it. The games committee tried to mimic the order of the state meet and also work to create several awards ceremonies, so schools do not have to be at Marcus Whitman all day. Overall, the sectionals were a great success.

There were no announcements or old business.

During new business, Dale Ladd shared some history behind the modified program used by the Monroe County League in Cross Country. He explained the difference between modified A (grades 7-9) and modified B (grades 7 and 8 only). The county currently uses a modified B program which not only limits the participants to grades 7 and 8, but also has a later starting date. With a modified A program coaches have the option of moving kids in 9^th grade up to JV and Varsity without a selection classification and kids in grades 7 and 8 with a selection classification. However, once a kid moves up, they cannot move back down to modified. Dale connected this with the low numbers of 9^th graders in our current JV and Varsity programs in the County. There are 161 total 9^th graders (103 boys and 58 girls) in our league based on the athletes on rosters at the County Championship. This number comes out to 5 boys and 3 girls per school. Dale feels we are doing our programs a disservice by not allowing some 9^th graders to run 1.5 to 2.0 miles in modified. He feels that there would be more 9^th graders in our programs if they had the option of running modified. Nate Huckle pointed out some programs that allow this are quite successful, including HFL, McQuaid and Mercy. Dale made a motion to have permission to look into and perhaps pursue the possibility of having a modified A program in our league for Cross Country. The motion was seconded by Jeff Winden. The there were no votes against and two abstains from Fairport and Spencerport with all other schools present voting in favor of the motion.

The final new business of the meeting was nominating new Chairmen to serve as "under-studies" to Matt Tytler and Mike Szczepanik for next year before taking over in the 2006 season. Mike DeMay, agreed with some reservations, to serve as the boys’ chairman and Nate Huckle agreed to serve as the girls’ chairman.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Mike Szczepanik, Girls’ Monroe County Cross Country Chairman, on 11/10/2004 at 11:00 am.