Is it the norm at most D1 schools for the coach to mostly ignore walk ons?

PSZoo wrote:

I was a walk-on freshman at Penn State and Harry Groves didn't know my name until my sophomore year. He literally did not know my name for an entire year. So yes, to me, this seems perfectly normal.

I didn't run in college (played other sports) and until now, I'd never heard of Harry Groves. Tomorrow I will have forgotten him. It's all relative.

genetic_dysfunction wrote:

if they do not think you have a chance to score points at the NCAA national meet or to develop to the point where you will, DI coaches will likely not care much what you do at all. There are excpetions that provide lip service....but mostly they want to score poitns at nationals and if you are not going to do that you are of little use to them.

Well, the "little use" part may or may not be true.

Realistically speaking, running is a sport. It's does for entertainment. It produces no tangible goods or services. I think most coaches realize this, and treating athletes as a "business investment" isn't a great analogy. Treating them as people that are trying to improve their speed and life skills (motivation, teamwork, etc.) is a better way to put it.

*it's done

Remember the Man wrote:

Another great 'Walk on' example was Mike Donnelly at Providence making it to the US Olympic Trials in 2004 finishing a mere 4th in the 10k missing the Olympic Team by 0.12secs. Just work hard and commit yourself to your training and goals.

Mike D. was 11 seconds off third and about 15 off the A-standard that year. He's the man, and is more than you Bowerman ball-suckers deserve.

Another D1 Parent wrote:

many D1 coaches know how to bu11shit HSers

It's funny because it's true. But it's also funny that for some reason "bull" had ones in place of the Ls while the actual expletive "shit" was left as is. That seems odd.

Seen it all before wrote:

My coach was Vin Lananna and I was not on scholarship. I considered myself just lucky to be on the team and train on the Stanford campus. I shut my mouth and worked my butt off. I got some huge PR's and had some amazing workouts. I remember having a great workout and he asked me to stop by his office the next day to talk about my goals. Just got to run hard and improve. Have a great work ethic and just do your thing and don't be needy. Maybe he'll come around...

Good for him.

A coach at a college should be a mentor to students. Clearly he was.

The op is stuck with an a$$hole who does not understand the purpose of working in a college program.

However, I am not a believer in allowing everyone to walk on. There is a finite amount of time and resource available to any coach or teacher, but once under that cap, every athlete deserves consideration and guidance.

Sounds like he became a mentor just when the kid was showing some potential... correlation or causation?

I think that its important to remember that there is a limit to how many guys a coach can give truly individual specialized attention to. Its probably somewhere in the 15-20 range. I think that coaches are completely justified in giving more attention to their better athletes- the marginal benefit of an extra 10 seconds for a guy that runs 14:00 is higher than for a guy that runs 14:40. Of course coaches need not be a dickhead to walk-ons. There is a happy medium between the everyone is equal and nobody is special crowd and the arse holes who treat walk-ons like mud.

I find it hard to believe that a walk on who is easily running stride for stride with his scholarship athletes in workouts, on a consistent basis, has a coach that refuses to give him time. I'm not buying it and you shouldn't be selling it. That's like not starting Antonie Holmes in the super bowl. I'm guessing there was an attitude problem and maybe you had one good workout.

Also, a coach has an obligation to his school. They are providing him/her with thousands, if not millions of dollars to get a program on the map. Their obligation will first be to those folks on scholarship, as they have already proven themselves to deserve a D1 scholarship over the course of 3-4 years of HS racing. You can't have a couple good workouts and expect the same time, or money.

As someone stated earlier, buckle down and work your ass off for a year or two (with consistent schoarship type performances), with a good, positive attitude, and I promise that coach will come around.

don't run here wrote:

I find it hard to believe that a walk on who is easily running stride for stride with his scholarship athletes in workouts, on a consistent basis, has a coach that refuses to give him time. I'm not buying it and you shouldn't be selling it. That's like not starting Antonie Holmes in the super bowl. I'm guessing there was an attitude problem and maybe you had one good workout.

That was me. And no - it was not an attitude problem. My situation echoed something a previous poster stated: he didn't like the fact that HIS INVESTMENT was going stride-for-stride with me, a "good" high school runner from a podunk town. And yes, coach was not happy with him - but he did catch the breaks that I wasn't ever going to catch.

Did I get pummeled in practice? You bet.

Did I have one good workout? No. I had many of them.

Did the coach believe in me? No.

It was simple as that.

just wondering... wrote:

For those of you at ~top 40 D1 schools, is it the norm for the coach to mostly ignore walk ons? I'm a walk on myself and have had a small injury over the last week. When I went to tell my coach a few days ago, he basically told me that it doesn't matter what I do because even if I'm 15 seconds slower, it doesn't make a difference anyway. Yesterday after my run I went to tell him that I felt better and could start doing workouts soon but before I could he said that he was busy and if I want to talk to him come later (he wasn't doing much).

I coached (DI and DIII) for a couple decades, but think you've gotten some sound responses, and don't see much I can add--except for a minor point:

An athlete is typically not in a great position to know whether a coach is "doing much" or not. For instance, he may have been expecting a call or a meeting in two minutes--you don't know, and should have just come back later. What, making *two* trips to his office is too much?

Also, I can second an earlier poster who said that three-season male runners, in the current Title IX climate, can present difficulties. Sucks, but there it is.

Well, I don't know what the "norm" is, but my experience was similar. I had a good summer of running after freshman yr and decided to walk on at a D1 school. First CC meet at home finished 8th man, which I was pretty happy with. Next meet was an away dual meet, with 10 guys on the traveling squad. But I was not in that top 10 to travel - they took a couple of scholarship guys behind me. I couldn't understand it - I had beaten those guys (and isn't that the beauty of the sport?). But I also didn't understand that as a non-scorer, it didn't matter - no way would they leave a scholarship guy at home for a walk-on in that position. Took me a long time to figure that out and get over the disappointment. Looking back on it, I understand. As a walk-on, you can't just be marginal - you have to be solidly better than the scholarship guys (and in CC, probably in the top 5 or with strong potential to be top 5).

Yes, I think it's common to be ignored as a walk-on. I think about every reason has been listed on this thread so far.

In my case, I had every right to be ignored - introverted, terribly slow freshman walk-on year. I wish I could say I stuck with it because I loved it, but really was just stubborn and had low self esteem. Worked up to top 5 in XC and travelling squad for track second year. By this point I was at least on the distance coaches radar. Third year in track I broke a school record and the head coach learned my name.

My advice: don't dwell on it. I do think you should stick with the team, especially if you love it. Just put in the work, be happy with what good comes of it, try to learn from the bad. If anything, use the frustration positively. Running is a great thing to have well after college, it would suck for you to be turned off of it because of one a-hole coach.

~top 40 D1 walk-on wrote:

In my case, I had every right to be ignored - introverted, terribly slow freshman

In my opinion, that's not a good reason to ignore someone.

Maybe not. But I was ridiculously slow. And awkward. Kind of a mess all-around. Not saying I should have been ignored, but I understand it.

PSZoo wrote:

I was a walk-on freshman at Penn State and Harry Groves didn't know my name until my sophomore year. He literally did not know my name for an entire year. So yes, to me, this seems perfectly normal.

rhat wrote:I didn't run in college (played other sports) and until now, I'd never heard of Harry Groves. Tomorrow I will have forgotten him. It's all relative.

I should mention, though, that Harry Groves had a very big heart and I found it extremely generous that he allowed me (and other walk-ons) to stay on the team at all. My freshman year, I certainly didn't deserve to be on the team, and I didn't always have a perfect work ethic. Groves loved his athletes and was always on their side, even when they behaved stupidly.

maybe you are a whiny baby and it has nothing to do with the fact that you are a walk on?

Another D1 Parent wrote:

Another DI Coach wrote:

... High schoolers need to do a better job researching potential coaches/teams before choosing to walk-on to high profile schools. Good undeveloped talent gets lost at major programs that keep big rosters all the time.

...

We as parents, former athletes, coaches, and those in the know can really do a service by responsibly pointing out and naming any coach that plays BS game, whether they attended the school or just went on recruiting visit. That would be another piece of research that prospective athletes and can investigate.

This might become a longer thread if people were to start outing bad coaches. Other than the few examples that have been posted so far, can anyone provide specific coaches that have a strong track record of being GOOD with walk ons? That would be important information for HSrs who are currently looking at colleges.

I was a walk on at a D1 school some years ago. Did not make the XC team, but make the track team right away. Never a star, I placed and scored, won a couple races and had a great time.

Did not run senior year, had to focus on graduating and honestly was happy to make an opening for the underclassmen. I thank Coach Ken O'Brien at UMass Amherst for giving me the opportunity to run in NCAA competition. I loved every stride.

O.B. won the '77 IC4A XC title with walk-ons on the squad, so there you go. After the race, Jumbo Elliot of Villanova said to O.B., "I knew I was in trouble this year because I had some walk-ons on my team"!

HS Parent wrote:

Other than the few examples that have been posted so far, can anyone provide specific coaches that have a strong track record of being GOOD with walk ons? That would be important information for HSrs who are currently looking at colleges.

Not to be a suck-up, but from what I've seen one R. Johnson (at Cornell) seems to have had a fair amount of success with walk-on types. Obviously that could only happen if his head coach and AD are also supportive...

NB: "What I've seen" has been purely from the outside, so I don't know what the culture is like, *within* the program, for a walk-on. Can't speak to that. I've just noticed that he's had a lot of guys (who weren't touted recruits) end up with good performances.