Attention! XC Parents - intro
Welcome new cross country parents to the Rockford Cross Country (XC) community! This short introduction is intended for parents of new runners at Rockford High School or those parents of experienced runners who may not wholly understand what happens when they pop into a meet or two. We hope this short note and collateral helps.
Meets: The first thing you should read is what actually happens at a XC meet. Check out the short one-page "what is cross country? race day" introduction which includes a short glossary of acronyms.
Parent responsibilities: Opportunities to connect with your student and other parents abound. For those that have a penchant for serving others or simply hanging out, here is where you can help out the parent director respectively leading each the boys and the girls teams. In most respects, Rockford is separated from other schools in that our teams share a single kickoff camp and share responsibilities in food, social events, and 'Team Rockford' setup on race days. You will hear more from parent reps as the date for camp is fast approaching! Here are some areas where the teams always need help or donations of time and effort:
Student performance: this isn't to beat them up or pressure, but to simply understand and track what they are - how fast they are compared to themselves (prior years) and others. This is done at athletic.net Rockford XC page. Every meet Rockford attends requires the meet host to use this website to post and manage results.
Camp: lots of hands make light work. To keep costs low, parents provide and prepare the food for camp.
Shopping for food
Onsite cooks and cleaners (some parents may stay if logistics can work)
Donating food and snacks
Pasta Dinners: generally, there are separate boys and girls locations the evening before a race and most often hosted by a senior parent. However, parents of those attending help fulfill the requested items. You are not feeding an entire team, but may be one of 7 or 8 providing that night.
Race day - food : watch for signup genius or emails requesting items to be brought before or after racing. Items normally include chocolate milk, bagels, pretzels, fresh fruit (grapes, bananas, etc), granola bars, etc...
Race day - tents: there is an ever dwindling group of parents who get up early to arrive and setup the Rockford tents/camp for the event. There is a page to signup and see what is needed.
Others - as needed:
Boosters: Concessions! The boosters have NEVER said no to contributing to RHSXC when asked. We have about $10,000 in equipment that is directly attributed to the sports boosters organization. The majority of this comes from home concessions and we are asked to volunteer throughout the year (it is actually quite fun to do and get to know others, really...)
Family needs: sometimes things happen in our community, and in our smaller XC community we may jump into action in a time of need in our own RHSXC group.
Fundraising: on occasion, coaches may be presented opportunities to earn
