Cal XC/TF UNBEATEABLE

Good class, nowhere close to the best.

There are schools that wouldn’t offer a single one of those guys a scholarship.

Good Class, they've had better in the past 15 years and still have cratered. It's not the athletes, or the coaches, it's the culture of the east bay. It's just not a place to build a team or a program. IT HAS been a decent place for individuals, so expect 1-2 of those to go on to some national acclaim, as usual for the bears. This goes back to the Jay Marden, Richie Boulet, Bolota Asmerom, David Torrence, Yosef Ghebray, Michael Coe days. Cal can produce individuals, just not consistent teams that are a factor on the national level.

And if they are Californians. 50% chance they don’t develop. Cal would be better off going the USF route and get good reliable international students. It’s hard enough fighting off Stanford, UCLA, and other public schools in the state.

Pay to play wrote:

And if they are Californians. 50% chance they don’t develop. Cal would be better off going the USF route and get good reliable international students. It’s hard enough fighting off Stanford, UCLA, and other public schools in the state.

This is an expert level troll with multiple layers. Kudos.

running commenter wrote:

Pay to play wrote:

And if they are Californians. 50% chance they don’t develop. Cal would be better off going the USF route and get good reliable international students. It’s hard enough fighting off Stanford, UCLA, and other public schools in the state.

This is an expert level troll with multiple layers. Kudos.

“The best trolls have to believe that they aren’t trolling”

Which schools did you have in mind that wouldn’t offer ANY of these runners a scholarship?

Stanford. The 8:59 is the closest thing to a scholarship-worthy performance for them. Oregon probably wouldn't either, Colorado they'd have a tough time.

Yeah that's not nearly the best class...depth is good but none of those guys are going to be players as freshmen, and even as juniors and seniors they won't be All American level. For an actual top-notch recruiting class, you need some of the true stars (NAU with Hasty, Furman with Cameron Ponder, Stanford with Clayton Mendez, etc.).

A sprint focused school wouldn't waste scholarship on fast distance guys even if they are really good. I would bet my school would give only the 8:59 guy a scholarship and it would only be like 1k a year. Considering the fact that my team has 3:42, 14:05, 29:30 guys on the team not on scholarship I don't think some west coast kid is going to get a scholarship.

those guys are gonna be real good at swimming

Crusty the Bear wrote:

It's not the athletes, or the coaches, it's the culture of the east bay. It's just not a place to build a team or a program.

Uh, no, it obviously is the coaching.

Wtf does the culture of the east bay have to do with anything, anyway? A college team should have it's own culture. There are certainly plenty of great trails near campus. The berkeley hills is loaded with trails that can be started from the track, redwood park has 50 miles of trails and is a 5 minute drive from campus, if you're willing to suffer some asphalt, the berkeley shoreline gives a deadflat 20 mile round trip out and back with a bay breeze, etc.

The track is also set up to be nice and shaded much of the day because of how steep the stands are and it has fog every morning to keep it cool for distance workouts.

Assuming that the local culture does impact the team, what cultural issues are you talking about? Multiple track clubs use their stadium for workouts. Plus the east bay has definitely created their share of very good high school kids over the years. In fact, you mentioned two of them in your own post: Jay Marden (from fremont) and Yousef Goubrey (Union city).

Multiple runners you mentioned also stuck around to train in the east bay after graduation, despite the terrible culture you claim exists.

Are you referring to the culture overall, not the running culture? I think the reputation of Berkeley and Oakland for having great food, music, arts culture speaks for itself. The only possible cultural drawback I can think of is that Cal isnt much of a party school, but you dont want your runners falling into that anyway.

The culture on campus is crazy. If you are not ultra liberal, you will not enjoy it. It is hard for an average 18 year old from the Midwest to fit in.

Update: new transfer Jaden Rosenthal 4:09 and 2nd at CA state meet

Good, it's a uc, should be for Californians

And...they did nothing as frosh in XC

And nothing indoors .same old CAL

Top class for sure now

Other schools must be thrilled bc they can basically write this kids off after their frosh year....That program has been in the doldrums for a good while...

Yeah but this is the kinda class that puts teams back on the map. Adding a spring transfer like Jaden Rosenthal (4:09) is huge. Thought he might follow Liam to Stanford. That would have been sick. The academics were there.