Bama Track/XC coach: "It’s hard to get American kids on the phone and be a good dad"

I ran under Coach Waters for two years at Texas A&M. While there are those that can criticize his XC coaching ability, his character and approach are good, honest, and fair. I'm grateful how he treated myself and others during my time on the team.

You have to stop with the state sponsored school nonsense. You imply that because these are publicly funded universities that public funds are used for athletic scholarships, which is NOT the case. If it were then again, the natural progression of this argument is even out of state SAs shouldn't be given scholarships, after all why should an Alabama taxpayer be paying for a football QB from Hawaii to hone his skill when there's a perfectly good QB that Saban could maybe develop into a star? See where this entire path leads?

Let's go even further: why allow any state sponsored school to admit any foreign students? Why should we educated doctors, engineers, lawyers just for them to take their talents elsewhere?

This entire argument also ignores the obvious: we are extremely lucky to have the collegiate system we have in this country. The amount of support and resources we have here aren't available to foreign students in their home countries. We are a beacon in that respect. Be proud of that. We have the elite collegiate athletic system in the world, of course others want to be a part of it. Those that do make EVERY athlete in the system better. If you don't think so then I'd ask you to compare times from 20 years ago to now. Sure progression is natural and over time they improve, but to ignore the positive impact foreign SAs have had here is ignorant. Your complaint is that fringe scholarship kids aren't being offered scholarships. The elite HS athletes here receive scholarships they deserve. Scholarships aren't meant to be earned over time. Scholarships are given for what an athlete has achieved thus far (and yes there are many times exceptions where someone would get some scholarship money based on potential, but most coaches shy away from that - it's too tenuous).

Simply put: if you want a full scholarship at Alabama then run faster. If Liam Anderson, Drew Bosley or Ares Reading want to run at Alabama, I guarantee Waters finds the money for them.

Who cares. This is only an “issue” because Americans are so fucking slow and bad. If you don’t want to get beat by better runners, train harder. Don’t try and ban good runners just so you can get another participation award from mommy and daddy.

The quote of the day is usually typical American hyperbole this bs takes the biscuit.

Look More Closelerly wrote:

C’s get degrees wrote:

Why in the hell should our Universities fund athletics? What do sports have to do with LEARNING?????????

This is actually a question I ask myself sometimes... Why do we have college athletics?

Is it for the athletes? Is it for marketing? Is it for the alumni? Is it for the jobs?

What was the historical reason for it? Why did it start?

Its a form of affirmative action. If you catch my drift. wink

Another way to increase the diversity of university opportunity, and allow schools to dig deeper into the purse.

They need to do away with sports. And beer drinking. And a year of classes. Other countries can graduate quality in 3 years.

Here we stuff the university with kids who shouldn't be there and spoon feed them until they can't get anymore loans

Colleges were for bettering oneself. It was thought that physical and philosophical pursuits went hand in hand. Colleges had nothing to do with technical training as they do today. Colleges decided to start competing against other colleges rather than focusing only on intramurals.

Pendejo 1 wrote:

USA2018 wrote:

Where are all these Kenyans coming from?

Kenya.

the 3 from last year came from junior colleges, not directly from Kenya and then to his program. he got them all to come and people have issues with that, yet Rono and the others at Washington State and UTEP were applauded.

Regarding taxes , both state and federal and college costs.

Even if scholarships come from non tax based sources they don’t cover the full cost of college. Doing some reading for some schools tuition covers about 1/2the cost with state and federal taxes covering the other half.

So yes US tax payers are footing a decent chunk of costs for foreign students on athletic scholarships.

The whole out of state issue for US athletes brought up as a counter argument is not really A real issue as 1) few track athletes are on full rides. 2) they would be paying out of state tuition for the part they do have to pay 3) it would be balanced with other athletes going out of state

If you're on a full scholarship it's paying tuition and fees, room and board, books, and (this isn't always the case as it's new) cost of attendance. I'm not sure where you're getting they don't cover the full cost of college. If you're on a full you're covered.

I do agree that full scholarships for track and field athletes are rarer since it's an equivalency sport and trying to spread 12.6 and (to a much lesser extent) 18 over an entire track team takes some doing. That really has little bearing on the in-state vs out of state argument brought up earlier. That's not really about money, but opportunity. I get what you're trying to say: Alabama brings in a QB from Hawaii, but say a kid from Alabama goes to play at Hawaii: it's a wash. But if what you say were true (again taxes are not used to fund athletic scholarships) it's still the exact same situation as Waters giving a Kenyan a full vs a kid from Alabama: either way tax payers would be paying for a non-resident of the state to go to college.

In any case it doesn't really matter since taxpayers aren't covering the bill anyway.

Anyone still upset after this weekends meet? A 30 year guy with a beard from wisco won the race. NAU obliterated the comp. Where did Alabama place?

I’m saying that the total cost for college excluding room an board etc is not covered by tuition. The actual cost is higher and the revenue from taxes covers this .

e.g. the real cost at a university that has a 15k tuition, 10k room and board or 25k . Really costs 35-40k and the difference is covered with revenue from taxes

Just gonna leave this right here:

http://www.crimsontidefoundation.org/ways-to-support/CrimsonTideScholarshipFund.aspx

Reading comprehension is really a lost art in this country.

The poster “what I mean” is technically correct. State schools are essentially 1/2 subsidized by taxpayers. The facilities and amenities don’t disappear when an out of state football player shows up. Athletic departments don’t take money away from the university but they don’t directly fund either.

50% seems high in terms of university support to an athletic department, where are you getting that? In any case, using general university funds or fees collected from students to fund capital expenditures is not the same as claiming that taxes are being used to cover the cost of scholarships. Of course an out of state student attending doesn't take any of that away, but that wasn't what was set off people here: it was a state sponsored school giving a Kenyan a scholarship was unfair vs giving an American kid a scholarship, i.e., taking away an opportunity Giving an out of state SA (whose parents are obviously not contributing their tax $ to the pot) takes away the same opportunity from an in-state kid. The situations are analogous. That's where it becomes clear that it's not actually about a lost opportunity or denying a future Olympian a scholarship but rather just a form of xenophobia.

Lirunnerr wrote:

This topic comes up every year. I think the best solution is that you can only have 3 foreigners score in the big meets. Then the team (if they want to be good) must develop domestic talent.

The unfairness is mostly with the potential age difference. We know the American freshmen are 18-19. But we don't know what age the Kenyans are. Furthermore, I WOULD have an issue if there were 5 Aussies/Europeans on the team too, age notwithstanding.

THREE foreigners max to score for a XC team. Plain and simple.

If your issue is with the ages, then schools should also only be allowed 3 athletes who are mormon, were in the peace corps, or served in the military prior to returning to school and athletics.

Quit talking about in-state vs. out-of-state. We are talking about American or not-American. Any athletic money given to a Kenyan is money not given to a American athlete. Our system should not be set up to reward or improve foreign athletes. Let Kenya take care of their own athletes and we will take of ours.