Why doesn’t every College recruit Kenyans?

Untrue. The vast majority do not qualify which is why many start in JUCOs or NAIA. Your experience is obviously very limited. What school?

Most Div.1 coaches prefer not recruiting them unless they have already made their way into the US prep system somehow. It's not move that is looked upon as correct. And some coaches only care about kids they want to work with. They aren't in the biz to be chasing foreigners that if it were not for distance training, would never be at the school and perhaps never be in the US.

How does a coach feel at the conference meet when his fellow HC's (who he's likely on good terms with) never win a Con Champ. because one program-his- heavily recruits Kenyans? I could name some successful coaches who have never signed a student that had come directly from Africa. There program(s) wern't as successful but it was the way they wanted to move forward.

If you only give scholarships to distance this would work. However the other track events screw this concept up. Also, if this were mens basketball or football then it would more prevalent. However, no one outside of distance running cares about distance running.

We see this at the Pro level as well.
International athletes make the team.
Salazar was mediocre before Mo Farah.

So you've picked on Tulsa a couple of times on the about Tulsa's recruitment of international students. While they do recruit internationally, it's worth pointing out though that they have zero Kenyans on their roster at all; nearly all of their international runners are European (and mostly entirely UK/Ireland) with a few Canadians as well.

Not entirely relevant to the spirit of this threat, and definitely not in the same category as say UTEP.

And Tulsa has won their conference the last 8 seasons and finished 5th, 6th, and 6th the last three XC nationals so while they are "less desirable" compared to say Arkansas/NAU/Oregon etc., I would argue they're definitely competitive.

a couple of times on **the message board** about Tulsa's recruitment

Tulsa is a better school than Oregon.

Well there you go. Even better.

Unless you have the budget to go to Kenya their times are almost impossible to verify

You're basically rolling the dice

I'd say that Coach likely feels pretty good... especially since any administration that allows enough scholarships to recruit Kenyans is also likely to care about results and base bonuses/contract extensions off of conference championships.

There aren't academic stats I know of about Kenyan runners in the U.S., but in general African students at American universities are a great bet, as the best educated subset of Americans. The hard work ethic that leads to success in African primary and secondary schools (where tiny fractions of the population are able to qualify for the few university spots there) will lead to success anywhere.

"Africans have the highest educational attainment rates of any immigrant group in the United States with higher levels of completion than the stereotyped Asian American model minority. It is not only the first generation that does well, as estimates indicate that a highly disproportionate percentage of black students at elite universities are African or the children of African immigrants.
In an anysis of Census Bureau data by the Journal of Blacks in higher education, African immigrants to the United States were found more likely to be college educated than any other immigrant group. African immigrants to the U.S. are also more highly educated than any other native-born ethnic group including white Americans. Some 48.9 percent of all African immigrants hold a college diploma. This is slightly more than the percentage of Asian immigrants to the U.S., nearly double the rate of native-born white Americans, and nearly four times the rate of native-born African Americans.
In 1997, 19.4 percent of all adult African immigrants in the United States held a graduate degree, compared to 8.1 percent of adult whites and 3.8 percent of adult blacks in the United States, respectively. This information suggests that America has an equally large achievement gap between whites and African/Asian immigrants as it does between white and black Americans.
Of the African-born population in the United States age 25 and older, 86.4% reported having a high school degree or higher, compared with 78. 9% of Asian born immigrants and 76.5% of European born immigrants, respectively. These figures contrast with 61.8% percent of the total foreign-born population."

ambaciusa.org

African immigrants have the highest academic achievement in the US

@ambasiusa.org

Africans have the highest educational attainment rates of any immigrant group in the United States with higher levels of completion than the stereotyped Asian American model minority. It is not only the first generation that...

Open link

Because here in the US, we don’t have the infrastructure (corrupted officials and doctors) to provide the technology needs for high performance.

Its undesirable as far as for recruiting blue chip American HS distance runners. If they didn’t recruit foreigners they aren’t going to be bringing in 9:00 HS kids instead. How many California kids do you think are going to want to attend a small school in Oklahoma?

Whether it’s Kenyans or Europeans, for some schools, recruiting them is the only way they can be competitive.

Who pays for your vision?

That’s right…

Who established and paid for US Colleges?

That’s right…

Who established and paid for the NCAA?

That’s right…

Who continues to pay for these great institutions?

That's right!

Why don’t you sponsor the athletes that you feel will help “the coaches”? Simply… you pay for all of these Kenyans you so desire to come to the US collegiate system.

Buck up or shut up.

From a former College HC perspective:

1. They all want a full scholarship (which could mean 20% of your $ allocated to distance)

2. They still need to come up with about 6K of their own money to pay for their 2 airline fix, tax on their meal plan and housing, my school charges internationals 1K health insurance and academic supplies / the average Kenyan lives on less than 400.00 a month so coming up with 6K is a challenge - usually need to find a sponsor.
3. academic records are sometimes hard to Verify making the student eligible through the clearinghouse and admittance to the university a challenge

4. Adjusting to the USA - this is a challenge learning virtually a new language and adapting to US culture which is vastly different from Kenya. Essentially the coach becomes a full time parent to these athletes helping with everything (opening a bank account, shopping etc) coaching is plenty, do you want to take on a parental role

these are some of the challenges a coach faces brining on an athlete from Kenya / + verifying some of the performances can be tough as well as most are written on paper / lastly, the person showing up - is that the person who ran those times?

Let's just say a toothpaste brand name isn't a bad guess.

Also a college HC.... these are all spot on. We have had Kenyan/African athletes in our program at points, so I speak from a bit of experience.

Another reason that has been mentioned but not connected to the main point is that it's not like 100% of the Kenyans in the NCAA system pan out and become NCAA qualifiers. Posts have mentioned athletes lying (true), or coming in out of shape, performances are hard to verify, and sometimes the training they are doing to achieve a solid mark is unsustainable (training camps are hit or miss in Kenya).

So if I have 4 full scholarships at my D1 program (and I do), I might need to spend all 4 on four Kenyans and maybe 1 of them wins our conference and maybe goes beyond, and maybe one other is good and contributes at the conference level too, but it's very possible that at any time the other two may not be good enough to help us win, for any number of these reasons mentioned.

So how does that help me win? I get ~2 high level Kenyans on 4 FTEs or I get 10-15 domestic kids from a variety of levels and backgrounds on 4 FTEs.

Now if you're talking about fully funded programs, I think the jist is exactly what 49er said, you have to be these athletes parents. It's very rewarding to see them grow, but exhausting and takes a toll on you beyond what a job should require. So these coaches have to have a great recruiting network, go to Africa, watch time trials, talk to people, vet athletes heavily, then get them money to fly out and pay taxes, and hope they are eligible and clear the EC when it's all said and done. That's a huge investment on top of a full ride for no guarantee they will ever pay out.

This is true. There have been horror stories about Kenyans with supposed times that were taken on faith. Did not end well.

You know the specific instance I am referring to.

Alabama XC is always 4 or 5 Kenyans and they are really hit or miss at nationals. OP trolling like it’s a guarantee.