Why do coaches redshirt?

Obvi so guys can spend a year just layin pipe

hell ya dude pipe it up

Totally works. Laid pipe for a year and came back and set a college record the next year. Also my name is not German Fernandez I swear

Dunno about Red Shirt but ask your mom about Red Wings... tastey!

Loloruns wrote:

What are reasons why a college distance coach would red shirt an athlete? Im still a bit confused about the whole topic

So they can be a 10th year senior like me.

Loloruns:

There are many reasons why a college coach, especially a distance coach, would redshirt an athlete.

The first being that the athlete is not ready for the demands of college running (physically OR mentally).

The other is to spare the distance athlete's body.

Think about it, distance guys/gals run ALL summer, then there is XC, then Indoors - (Conference, Regionals, NCAA), then Outdoors - (Conference, Regionals, NCAA), National Trials, Regional Games or Major Games, a couple of weeks off then back at it.

This year alone if you are an 18 year old Freshman from Canada you in theory

are eligible to run in addition to the NCAAs.

Provincial Championships

National Trials

North American Indigenous Games

Canada Games

Francophone Games

IAAF Youth Games

Commonwealth Youth Games

World University Games

World Championships

That is a lot of running!!!!!

If you pick up a sprained ankle (XC), knee tendonitis (indoor season), or IT Band issues (Outdoor season). When are you supposed to heal?

Better question - try writing a training program that does NOT have significant rest periods in it and have your athlete qualify AND be a factor in each of the above mentioned competitions.

I hope this helps answer your question.

Runfastrunfar

Thanks so much! This helped a lot

If a distance runner and they cannot make it into the top 7 in XC then why waste the season when they may be able to contribute in years 2 thru 5 of college. The D1 school my child runs for appears to offer the faster runners to not red shirt their freshmen year of XC if they prove at early season races they earned a spot in the top 7 but those same runners red shirt indoor and outdoor seasons their freshmen year. I think the reason is they are not fast enough to score points at the only meets that matter-conference and national championships.

A good reason not to redshirt is if the runner plans to graduate in 4 years. Is it always assumed that no one graduates in 4 years anymore?

At my school, redshirting helped a lot of marginal guys get a chance to walk on and try to develop. My school has a decent track program and a really solid mid-d squad, but they'd basically let anyone who could break 10 minutes in a 2-mile time trial onto the XC squad (at least back in my day...I think this has changed). They'd end up with a ton of walkons as a result, and they'd redshirt most of them.

A lot of the marginal kids would just run one XC season, realize that they weren't going to bloom into top 7 guys, and give up on it. But there were a few guys who really responded to collegiate training and eventually developed into varsity (or even all-conference) runners.

Without redshirting, the team wouldn't have been able to take a chance on the guys who showed up and ran 9:45 at the tryout. The fact that they could say "come on and train with the team for a season and we'll see if you develop into anything" gave a whole lot of kids a chance to at least give it a shot and see if they could make it.