Track Over Cross Country Everyone knows that track is simply a group of athletes running around a circular track, right? This statement is completely false; however, the sport that is described as a group of people running quickly in circles is cross country. The thing that most people don’t realize about track and field is the field part. Track and field includes individual events on the track and on the field that are actually entire separate sports within the sport of track and field. Running events include sprints, middle-distance, long-distance, hurdling, and relays; jumping events include long jump, high jump, triple jump, and pole vault; and throwing events include javelin, discus, and shot put for high school. Therefore, track and field is a much better choice than cross country for high school athletes because track and field encourages more than speed and endurance alone, is much more competitive, and depends upon team effort for success.
First, track and field encourages much more than speed and endurance alone. While track and field has eighteen different events, cross country has only one. So, in order to run a three-mile race, the only necessities are speed, endurance, and maybe a little perseverance. If one does not have these abilities, there is not a significant amount of work he can do about it. However, because of all eighteen events in track and field, it makes sense that not every event calls for speed and endurance. For example, the jumping events do not depend upon a substantial amount of speed and stamina. Timing and vertical and horizontal jumping ability are much more suited to the jumping events. Also, the throwing events require speed and

endurance even less than the jumping events. Rather, upper body strength is the key attribute that the throwing events call for as opposed to speed and endurance. Therefore, track and field is a much better high school sport for athletes because it offers a wider selection of events that do not always require speed and stamina alone.
In addition, track and field is much more competitive than cross country. The scoring system for both sports is quite different. For cross country the place that someone finishes in a race is also the score he gets for his team. The points are then added up for the first five finishers of each team. The lower the score, the better the team will place. But for track and field, the better somebody finishes in an event, the more points he scores for his team; and the higher the total point score for the team, the better the team will place as a whole. Because of this difference in scoring, the competitiveness for each sport is affected. For cross country only the first five finishers will contribute to the team. There is competitiveness to be in those top five spots and to get personal best times, but only the best runners can do anything for the team. In contrast, track and field’s scoring system makes it so that the multitude of athletes in different events each can partake of the team’s total score. Therefore, an athlete can contribute to the team in track and field in many different ways, which augments the athlete’s competitiveness.
Finally, track and field requires more team effort for success than cross country. Once again, in cross country if one is not good enough then there’s not a whole lot he can do for the team’s success. However, in track and field team effort is incredibly important, especially for events like relays. A relay consists of a four-man team, and each man runs the same distance while carrying a baton. As each man completes his leg or section of the relay, he hands off the baton to the next man in the relay. The race is not finished until the last man of