Top-tier DIII runners, do you wish you were a lot better so you could have went DI?

I'm just running in college for the babes man. Everyone knows that fast girls tend to be less attractive, which explains why all the finest chicks are on DIII XC squads. Stay thirsty in DI.

top tier d3 runners can run d1. top tier d3 runners are faster than plenty of d1 runners, so they don't have to wish, they already made their choice. I ran d3, and while i wasn't top tier, by my junior year i was good enough to beat decent d1 runners, so top tier guys could obviously beat a lot more d1 runners than i could.

If you hadn't forgotten academics, you could have gone D3.

what makes you feel like you're at the right place has nothing to do with what "division" it is.

it comes down to stuff like having fun, getting good coaching advice, improving, being challenged, enjoying the work of being an athlete, being part of a close-knit team, etc.

you can get that or not get it at any level.

i ran on a middling d1 team with guys who would literally hide in the weeds on mile repeats so they didn't have to hurt. tell me how i wouldn't have done as well or better at one of the successful d3 (or d2) programs where the coach was tuned into what was going on and the athletes all cared.

so few athletes run out of competition in d3 that it's pointless to bring up what they "would have" done at another level. plus, every really good d3 runner gets to race in big d1 invites anyway.

i don't really know what you're looking for here by starting this thread...other than to soothe your inferiority complex by picking on people you think aren't as "good" as you. you're probably a little sick in the head.

I was a pretty good D3 runner and got to run at Penn Relays, compete in National Championships, and race against plenty of D1 runners at major track and cross country invites. And I had a lot of fun and ran fast (beat at least one Olympian), so no I don't wish I had gone D1, and anyway your premise is wrong since many of us were already fast enough to score for NCAA-bound D1 teams.

I was a top tier D-III runner -- 12th and 11th at NCAA, 24:08 8k, 1:51 800m. I was plenty good enough to run D1. In XC practice the coach had to have a fresh runner wait at the half-mile mark during mile intervals so I would have someone to push me. On tempo runs I just kinda lallygagged with the guys because at the time I figured tempo just meant quicker than a long run or morning run, and nobody had HR monitors then. So if I'd been on a DI team with a bunch of guys better than me, I would have probably done better, but still felt like I belonged.

But did I care? Not really. I wouldn't have minded the much larger weekend stipends that the D1 guys got though. Whenever I would talk to guys I ran in HS with who ran on shitty D1 teams--and who I was way faster than--I would be jealous of their huge meal stipends. We were getting $15 a day and they were getting $50.

I ran D3 for 2 years on a pretty decent team that went to D3 CC nationals. I got an academic scholarship to go there. Then I transferred to a D1 school to get an Engineering Degree that was not available at very many D3 schools. The D1 team had placed top 10 in the NCAA CC championship my senior year of HS so it was a pretty solid program too.

I was by no means a top tier guy at either level. I made the top 7 at the D3 school. We had a couple of guys who could run sub 25 8k and sub 15 5k on the track. At the D1 school, I ran around 12th man in CC. I got about 1min faster for 8k because the training was better and I consistently trained with faster people. That D3 guy we thought was a stud running 14:40 / 24:low would have been 4th-5th man on the D1 team, but still a significant contributor. I traveled enough at D1 to get the team experience. Both schools were at the same races several times a year, so I saw my old buddies often.

I absolutely loved running at both places. I was comfortable with either given my modest running ability.

I loved my experience running DIII. I wasn't even a decent runner in HS (10:10 3200m, 4:45 mile, 2:03 800m) so I had no expectations of running D1. I just wanted to make our XC team 7 deep as a Frosh. Later as a Jr/Sr I was running in 14:2x, 4:10, 49. etc and still had no regerets of not running D1. Glad I never transferred.

Judging by your "could have went" you wouldn't have had a chance of getting into a strongly academic DIII school.

dixout -4- harambe wrote:

Forget about academics or school location or scholarship money or anything like that.

I'm talking to top-tier DIII runners (always made your conference XC roster, always won/scored at conference track, etc.), do you wish you had had enough ability to have gone DI?

Instead of being a big fish in a little pond, you'd have been a negligible fish in a big pond. Knowing how your career played out, do you wish you had gone to a DI school, where you would have possibly been competing with a jersey, participating in races, and not much more?

No

dixout -4- harambe wrote:

Forget about academics or school location or scholarship money or anything like that.

I'm talking to top-tier DIII runners (always made your conference XC roster, always won/scored at conference track, etc.), do you wish you had had enough ability to have gone DI?

Instead of being a big fish in a little pond, you'd have been a negligible fish in a big pond. Knowing how your career played out, do you wish you had gone to a DI school, where you would have possibly been competing with a jersey, participating in races, and not much more?

No chance.

jjjjjj wrote:

If you hadn't forgotten academics, you could have gone D3.

As in...

Stanford

Cal

UCLA

USC

Harvard

Yale

Dartmouth

Princeton???

Yeah, I bet they all wish they gave up their scholarships for lesser education

coach d wrote:

jjjjjj wrote:

If you hadn't forgotten academics, you could have gone D3.

As in...

Harvard

Yale

Dartmouth

Princeton???

Yeah, I bet they all wish they gave up their scholarships for lesser education

How many of those runners have athletic scholarships, chief?

This parody thread is getting good mileage

dixout -4- harambe wrote:

Forget about academics or school location or scholarship money or anything like that.

I'm talking to top-tier DIII runners (always made your conference XC roster, always won/scored at conference track, etc.), do you wish you had had enough ability to have gone DI?

Instead of being a big fish in a little pond, you'd have been a negligible fish in a big pond. Knowing how your career played out, do you wish you had gone to a DI school, where you would have possibly been competing with a jersey, participating in races, and not much more?

I agree with an above poster, your premise is wrong, regardless of "forgetting about academics." I was a D3 All-American late in my career, and would have been in all but maybe 4-5 D1 teams' scoring 7s that year (8:15 3k, 4:05 mile). Here's the thing though, would I have reached the level that I got to as a senior if I would have gone D1? Probably not. D1 coaches tend to be less forgiving, and although I was a solid recruit in HS, I would have been just another frosh on most solid D1 squads. I probably would have dropped the sport after a few seasons of being on the practice squad and not racing. I knew so many talented runners that did this at my state's flagship university.

A couple points that I don't think have been addressed: after you graduate, no one really cares what you did in college, or where you ran at. For instance, the average Joe might be impressed that you ran for a Clemson, Auburn, or Alabama, because those are well-known athletic schools, but in running they suck. If I would have been a varsity runner at Northern Arizona or Portland, most people in the "real world" wouldn't really know what that means. To them, college running is college running, it's not football. So in a sense, its not different from D3. Secondly, it took me a year into my college career to realize that I would have hated the D1 lifestyle. I hated traveling far away for meets, and missing school for meets always stressed me out. I can't imagine having to do that on a more consistent basis.

The only time I really wished I would have gone D1 was my first year. I had a rough XC season, but my indoor and outdoor seasons were great. I remember beating up on a bunch of D1 athletes from schools I "wasn't good enough to run for."

Last point- EVERY single D1 school that I considered experienced a coaching change in the four years I attended college. My D3 school did not. I would say that's more common in D1.

Nah I wish I was 8 inches taller, didn't have small hands and could commit a post move to memory so I could play D1 basketball. Until that happens D3 is fine I guess.