People have mentioned UWM and Marquette as places where crappy kids take a free tuition waiver and then suck for 4 years. I’m here to say two things.
1. That use to be true. Look at some of the sludge that has been on both rosters.
2. A dramatic change is occurring, where that isn’t the case any more.
Higher education is too expensive. The days of just being a walk on at wisco or saying I want to paid full tuition to college so I can be a 8xD3 All-American aren’t as plausible from a checkbook standpoint anymore. Kids and their parents don’t want to take on that kind of debt.
Watch and see these well funded programs start getting talent. It’s already happening, and with that talent, comes more talent.
If I was a quality high school senior right now, I would be looking at Marquette, Marquette, and even Parkside. Here’s why.
Wisco walk on
-debt
-coaches don’t care about you
-probably get hurt
-run unattached at d3 meets
WIAC
-debt
-never get to go to any good meets
-4 more years of high school
-crappy competition
MU/UW-M/UW-P
-scholarship
-travel to big meets
-compete for conference titles
-compete against the best
-opportunity to make an immediate impact and create a legacy
When you look at it like that, how have people not already figured this out by now.
Prime example, people have mentioned Noah T. The kid looks like a genius right now. He’s definitely getting school paid for. He is going to rewrite the UWM record books, he will get to go to big meets and will probably end up being at nationals some day.
Tell me where the drawbacks are is in that scenario. And more kids will follow. More will take the money, but this time the kids will actually be good runners to begin with and will help build there. Watch MU and Parkside do the same thing.
Change is hard and change is swift. The days of D3 glory or being the little walk on that could are going bye bye.