Martin grew up in Clay Center where she was a three-sport standout, later playing basketball and running track and field at Hutchinson Community College. She completed her basketball career at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
MileSplit KS: It's an exciting time for the state's cross country runners, but I imagine very busy for you. Can you talk a little about the work that goes on behind the scenes at KSHSAA to support cross country and prepare for the post-season?
Fran Martin: The determination of regional sites and assignment of schools is a very time consuming task. First we have to confirm that schools who indicated they planned to participate really are paying entry fees and want a regional assignment.
Next is finding host sites. This is not an easy task as there are many schools who do not have a cross country course and have never hosted a meet, so it seems many of the same people host year after year. Having enough parking, being able to secure workers, someone being able to run the scoring system and having capable timers are all important part of hosting a regional cross country meet.
I am very appreciative of the schools who choose to host cross country as most of the time the courses are not at the school and have to be secured from other entities.
Once we find host sites, the Executive Board and member schools indicate groupings based on geography, so we spend time checking the mileage between host sites and schools. The number of schools in a classification determines the number of schools at each regional. If there are 32 schools, each of the four host sites will have 8 schools. If there are 60 schools, each of the four sites will have 15 schools, etc.
Class 1A will have three regionals this year - each regional will have 20 schools - but there are a lot of schools that only have one or two runners.
Rankings by media or coaches do not play a part in the determination of groupings in any sport. It is all done based on geography.
The new classifications came out last week. Do you see any big shifts this year that affect the traditional division powers?
There didn't seem to be a lot of movement. De Soto moving to 5A was a little surprising. Maize South dropping to 4A may change the dynamics in that area. Since the boys and girls teams at a school may not be the same caliber, the movement in one gender may make things look different and it may not change things in the other gender.
One of the big storylines in cross country this fall is Girard's Cailie Logue going for four state titles. Can you talk about how exciting that is, but maybe also share other things that get you excited about this time of year?
I have had the good fortune of watching her run several times. She is amazing and it is exciting for the state to have a potential four time winner.
One of the things I enjoy the most is being able to go to meets and watch kids compete and watch how other kids from the team rally around each other. Cross country teams have much more of a family feel with the support of parents and kids; everyone cheers for each other.
Sportsmanship is always an emphasis for KSHSAA and certainly high school athletics nationwide. Please talk about KSHSAA's perspective on sportsmanship for high school athletics, and how prevalent do you think good sportsmanship is in cross country and/or other sports?
Sportsmanship is important. It indicates you respect your opponent and the people who are working hard to conduct the event.
Again, I think cross country is unique as many of these kids compete against each other during the fall and again in the spring during track, so there is a respect factor. Even though they may want to "win," the kids respect the efforts of others. We don't have many issues with sportsmanship in cross country - I hope it stays that way!