Rachel McCardell From Northwestern WON'T BE ALLOWED TO RACE AT NCAAs

That seems to be the plan. One would hope that Pitt could buy some land for an outdoor track .. plenty of vacant lots around the city (Unlike Evanston). But don't hold your breath. With strong academics and Pittsburgh being a great place to train, they could have a strong distance program, but it's clearly not a priority for Pitt athletics.

I have trouble believing this is actually an issue that affects recruits.

If you research a program at all, it's pretty obvious to learn they don't have an NCAA track program, and I don't think this is anything a coach could hide or would try to hide. Coaches may highlight perceived benefits of only sponsoring xc (more flexibility throughout the year, still can run track races, etc) rather than talking about the drawbacks of not having an official xc program, but it's a stretch to call that misleading a recruit. If someone somehow commits to a program without realizing they don't compete in their conference or NCAA for track, it means they haven't actually taken steps to learn about that program at all, and that isn't the coach's fault.

Harvard, MIT, Duke, Stanford, etc., all have a track team and provide a good education...there is truely such a thing as student athlete.

Well there is a thread with tons of posts from a “dad” of a student who is confused about whether or not they have a track team and he seems to believe they do, so not a stretch that at least his kid is also confused… and statistically if we know one person is confused there are probably more…

The "dad" in the other thread doesn't mistakenly believe that Northwestern athletes can run at regionals and Big 10s. From my viewpoint, the "dad" is essentially arguing the semantics over what "sponsored" means, but I don't think there's any actual disagreement or misconception about the experience of distance runners at Northwestern.

I don't deny that maybe someone somewhere has probably committed to a program without realizing that their track team doesn't compete at conference or regionals meets, but I don't think that makes this a real issue. I also imagine that someone somewhere has probably committed to Cornell College in Iowa thinking that they were going to an Ivy League, but that isn't a real issue either. In both cases, a very minimal amount of due diligence would assuage the misconception.

What this person said

B1G $quad with ZERO track & field is crazy.

Top 10 distance school, chuckles. The women finished 30 of 31 at '22 NCAA nationals. Men did not qualify to be among top 31 schools.

A 'distance school' like CU, NAU, NC ST, Georgetown, Wake Forest, Furman, Syracuse, Portland does have a formal track team filled in with walk-ons in sprints, throws and jumps.

A good 'distance school' wants their runners to compete at nationals and to become good enough to have the opportunity to compete as a professional.

A good 'distance school' offers their runners scholarships and allows them to travel on the school's dime. Many of these schools offer a quality education comparable to Northwestern.

There is an "and" in between the statement about attending nationals and being a "top 10" distance school. The "and" insinuates that it is a top 10 school as in an elite institution that focuses on distance. We know that they weren't close to finishing top 10 in running.

The schools that you listed are not close to Northwestern academically and Northwestern pays for everything during track season just like the other schools. Somebody said they competed in 12 meets. They also send runners to USA championships in uniform as well as USA XC and U20s.

Then why don't they send Rachael to NCAA's?

I just reread that sentence and it reads exactly as I thought, 'and it is a top 10 distance school.' No, it's not.

It's nothing unusual for a school to pay for everything, so that's not a selling point.

It's also great that they can go to usatf meet. The problem is if they wanted to run at big10 meet and NCAA meet, they could have gone to Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, or Purdue. Out of Big10, if you can get in to Northwestern, then why not Duke, Notre Dame, Rice, Cal or UCLA that aren't 'distance schools', but have balanced track teams? The Ivies and Stanford also all have NCAA track teams.

I love me some North Shore, the El to Wrigley and Second City, but it's not like the choice for a runner comes down to good academics with club team at Northwestern vs. poor academics with a varsity NCAA track team anywhere else.

If you won't call them sponsored, you certainly can't call them a club team. The athletic department spends hundreds of thousands of dollars for them to compete in track. Their charter does not permit them to compete in the NCAA national meet but does allow them to compete in any other meet including the B10. The B10 does not permit them to compete because they require teams to be balanced. Northwestern gets 6 scholarships for the XC/track team while fully funded teams get 18 for all event groups. A school like Wisconsin could load up nearly all of their scholarships in distance which makes it impressive that Northwestern qualified for nationals.

Can you show us where the big 10 language is written that require it to be as you called “balanced” as that make zero sense. That’s like saying “your basketball team needs at least two centers to play”

also and more importantly- what is “their charter” that makes no sense either! That insinuates they are forcing them not to sponsor the sport goob.

All this comes down to is simple- let RACHAEL RUN!! She deserves it and this poster keeps drowning out the OP of the fact that she isn’t racing this week!!! Why? Not a charter- not a big10 rule- no it’s because as their own website states “there is no track at NW”

This is exactly what a 'distance school' is. All the school's I mentioned put all 12/18 scholarships into distance, but field a varsity track team. There are only 2 types of teams: varsity and club. No matter how you dress it Northwestern track is still club. With the giant endowment and big10 money, it's not hard to see NU simply upgrading program to varsity. It's really just a title IX, balancing of scholarships due football issue.

Also they don’t spend hundreds of thousand of dollars for them to compete in track. It doesn’t cost that much to travel 15 people to compete a team total of 43 times (that’s all on tffrs) so as this clown “nicer than is”saying they sponsor track- they only travelled 15 people and of those 15 there were only 43 races they competed in outdoors. That means a fraction of their roster raced, on average, less than 3 times. It’s all on tffrs to enjoy that farcical of it.

https://www.tfrrs.org/all_performances/IL_college_f_Northwestern_IL.html?list_hnd=4153&season_hnd=608

Million dollar locker rooms. Coaches salaries. Scholarships. Team doctors. Team trainers. Team psychologists. Free food in the athlete only dining facility. Gear. Travel. Yes. More than hundreds of thousands. They pay 3 coaches year round to coach. If only cross country, they wouldn't pay a head coach $200K for a year round job.

No track? Where did her official Northwestern time come from in TFRRS? Minnesota men don't have indoor track. They have to travel on their own and run unattached.

Looking at Rachel's Instagram, she seems pretty happy traveling through Europe at the moment.