There are two great cross country websites in the Moore League -- and both belong to the same school. Long Beach Poly's boys and girls teams have separate websites, both stuffed with team updates, race results, historical tidbits and helpful information.
The rest of the league, unfortunately, doesn't come close to matching the quality of Poly's cross country websites. Some of the other schools make little or no effort to produce a site with even basic information.
This is unfortunate, because a team's website is the face it presents to the world. A good site can engage and inspire fans, who may then buy tickets or otherwise financially support the program. It can also win over the parents of students, drawing talented new athletes to your team.
To be clear, a school doesn't have to go to the lengths Poly does to produce a good website. There are only a few things that are essential for a good team site: a current schedule, competition results (or links to pages that have the results), and the names and contact information for the coaches. Other things like a roster, photos and team records are just a bonus.
Unfortunately, many Moore League schools' site don't even achieve the minimum.
A couple notes: First, this is a review of official team pages, not commercial sites like MaxPreps. Also, websites change, so this review can only capture a "snapshot" at this time. Tomorrow, any one of these websites may be better or worse, or even disappear altogether.
Long Beach Poly: A
Both Poly websites, one for boys and one for girls, are excellent. Beyond the essentials, both offer bonus material like training information and race results from past years.
The boys site scores with a clearly stated mission statement, team requirements and team motto. This sort of thing is exactly what parents want to see when they consider whether their child should join a team.
The girls site doesn't have a mission statement, but otherwise it is more complete and better
While they are not on the Poly school site, they are the official pages for the teams, and people who go first to the school website will find a clear link to them.
Wilson: B-
Wilson's site has the current schedule, plus the names and contact info for the boys and girls coaches. That's good.
On the negative side, it weirdly has multiple links to results from last season, but none from this year. The main element on the page is outdated information about summer camp.
The Bruins site has some historical listings of past athletes and teams, but it's a motley collection. There is, for instance, pictures of the 2016 varsity teams, but no other years.
Cabrillo: C
Cabrillo's cross country site has the current schedule and about a dozen pictures available for download. And that's it. There are no results and no coaches' names or contact information. At least it has the schedule.
Millikan: C-
Millikan's cross country team actually has a halfway decent website, but it's so well-hidden that it's virtually invisible to the public.
A Google search for Millikan cross country will lead to a baffling page on the school's website. The main feature, in the center of the page, is the team's schedule -- from two years ago. On the right is a link the "Millikan Athletics Website." That leads to a page saying "Error 404: The page you are looking for either doesn't exist or can't be found."
It would be easy for a user to give up there. But here's the deal: You're in the wrong place. Remember the first page you went to? If you scroll down -- which few people will do -- you'll see a link to another site, called Running Rams. This Booster Club-run site is actually the official site for the team, and includes a schedule, some results and a roster. But it has neither the names nor contact info for the coaches (or anyone).
That site is not bad, but who knows it's there?
Jordan: D
The Jordan website promises much but delivers little. The main page features a calendar that would be a great place to put the team's schedule -- but, alas, it's just a blank calendar.
There are five other pages devoted to the history of Jordan's cross country program, three of which have a little bit of history. The 1960s page, for instance, says, "A great decade for the Panther Harriers led by runners like Pat Egan who was Jordans fastest two mile Cross Country runner."
The textual history is nice, but each page also makes reference to an accompanying collection of pictures ("The slide show below has over 50 pictures," says the "Cross Country in the 1970s" page). Unfortunately, there are no pictures on any of the pages.
There is no schedule, no results, no name of coaches or athletes.
Lakewood: F
Lakewood's has separate pages for boys and girls cross country, but both are equally useless.
The boys page has nothing but three unlabeled pictures, all of which, bizarrely, are cropped to cut off the heads of Lakewood runners.
The girls page features a four-month-old, now-obsolete announcement about summer training. It has two unlabeled pictures which, thankfully, include the heads of the runners. It also has a three-sentence report on a meet from over two years ago. Has Lakewood had no meets since then?
There is no schedule, no results, no name of coaches or athletes.
Compton: F
Compton has no cross country website, nor even a page. Going by the school website, there is no evidence that Compton even has a cross country team. But it does. Sigh.
