A different take on this.
For many of the girls that have success have not yet developed. Physical development affects girls more than guys.
For many of the guys, college life includes booze and poon. Suddenly running may not be at the forefront anymore.
When I was 14yo running local races finishing minutes and dozens of places behind the winners, I worshipped those guys as gods and would have given my firstborn to be that good. Just 2-3 years later I was running those times and beating those same runners. Early maturity is the elephant in the room at that age, and every year all the many LR phenom-obsessives end up tearing up their extrapolation graphs....it's funny to watch actually.
A tale as old as time! Kid gets state titles, NXN podium spot, NB Indoors podium spot, wins Brooks PR, gets a Nike Elite high school NIL deal, etc. Local hero status at school, IG followers galore, and gets a whole ten-minute segment on "Good Day Rochester". Signs with the biggest marquee program that he can with a head full of Olympic and pro dreams. Moves across the country with the notion that he is going to be a huge collegiate star...
Then reality hits.
Coach says that he's going to redshirt you during your first year because he already has a logjam of talent on his XC crew. To make things worse, a foreign kid with amazing upside just got plucked off of the portal and a couple of COVID fifth year grad students with NCAA finals experience just arrived. Our young hero doesn't get to travel and mainly paces workouts for the older guys. No big thing! He's going to enjoy a little campus life while the upperclassmen get to see Madison and Lehigh Valley...
But, the party scene kind of sucks. Monied frat boys and third string football players attract all of the hot girls. A few even throw out some barbs about the skinny runner boy in their midst. Just like high school but, now it hurts a bit more. Back home you were still state champ and that brought a little respect from the other jocks. 2000 miles away from home, no one cares because no one knows who you are. You throw back some drinks at multiple house parties, hook up with an equally plowed chubby girl, and then sneak out of her room early Sunday afternoon. Back at the dorm, you try to sleep off your first hangover.
Monday practice and coach wants to know why you are running like s***? You sheepishly tell him about drinking hard on Saturday night. While the other boys grin and laugh about your story, Coach looks furious and wants to speak with you in his office right after the workout. In the office, he very sternly tells you that you are stupid for underaged drinking (a violation of university rules!) undisciplined and not representing the program in a positive light. He also reminds you that any further dumb behavior could jeopardize your roster spot and your athletic aid package. All you have ever known was praise and this dressing down is a complete shock to the system. Now, you feel that Coach hates your guts and wants you out. You miss Mom, Dad, your high school coach, and your old teammates. You alternate between apologetic and angry. In defiant moments, you hit the party circuit and hook up frequently while the team is on the road. Pretty soon, running is no longer fun and spending weekends getting drunken sex temporarily eases the pain, pressure, and disappointment.
Two years pass and our local Olympic hopeful is now an ex-runner pursuing his undergraduate degree as a commuter at a nearby state college while working weekends at Best Buy.
Success at one level is no guarantee of success at the next level in any sport.
The brightest stars in college football -- first round NFL draft picks -- are out of the NFL in about 4 years on average.
Zlane wrote:
This is why Nico Young's and to a slightly lesser extent Sahlman's almost immediate success is so impressive.
Brosnan never ran his athletes into the ground though, he never had them doing more than 60 miles a week, which is fine for a high schooler. So it shouldn't be too surprising that with training more they would improve.
Damn that’s a sad tale
That's more than 99% of high school runners do. The thread talks about many high school runners dropping off in college. Your stats make the opposite point that higher mileage has a greater chance of college success. That may be true. Many low mileage guys bump up and either get tired or injured or lose interest.
You touched on a valid point. There are so many threads started by kids trying hard to get on a team where they will be the slowest runner. Worse is that most posters support the effort. A kid will come here running 4:15 as a junior and list a dozen top teams that haven't responded to them. People immediately give them a summer training plan and tell them how to go about getting to one of the coaches.
coach of it wrote:
You touched on a valid point. There are so many threads started by kids trying hard to get on a team where they will be the slowest runner. Worse is that most posters support the effort. A kid will come here running 4:15 as a junior and list a dozen top teams that haven't responded to them. People immediately give them a summer training plan and tell them how to go about getting to one of the coaches.
There was a thread a month or so ago about the class of 2020 with final rankings. Other than Graham Blanks and Nico Young it’s been a struggle.
Perhaps they are honorable and not willing to do what it takes to be a pro today. I believe most HS’ers are clean and realize at a certain age that most top pros (and now top collegians) are not.
i don't mean the "fit" issue to excuse the runners, if anything the opposite. my era there was no internet to check out the teams. little news on who the other recruits were. now they post their meet results and often who is going where. you should know exactly what you are getting into.
this is going to sound contradictory, from someone who does care about team, but in recruiting you need to be able to separate out team vs. self in terms of value. it can't just be, this is a great distance school and will compete on team points, it needs to be, i think i can be successful here. and not vaguely because the school churns out runners aplenty, but because your odds of success look good for you specifically. i think there's a failure to see it globally, here is the rest of my recruiting class/team, or a hubristic assumption that in any situation, i will be The Guy. at that level every kid works hard and is fast and talented, several kids brought in same team same dream. basic math that can't work for everyone.
so, to me, less dream, more cold blooded objectivity. they are offering me scholarship and not walk on. they are offering me roster lock walkon and not tryout walkon. TFRRS says i would be the second or third fastest miler on the team, already. the coach has told me about a specific contemplated role and not just i will be on the team and show up for training. then, you are in business.
Just like baseball where young phenoms are all into throwing 102 mph in HS and throwing year round - they get hurt, get Tommy John surgery and are never the same - see Steven Strasburg as an example.
In HS track, of all the great runners last year, Birnbaum, Burns, Hansen, Young, Sahlmans, etc all ran what seemed to be 4 or 5 big races a week for a month. They just blew their wad then and probably went right to high mileage getting ready for college cc and just ran themselves out.
Is it smart for quincy wilson to run all these 45 second 400s and 1:50 800s as a sophomore? Is it the best thing for Wilson or is it to add to the ego of his coach?
Gordon Freeman wrote:
I feel like nobody talks about this. Every single year we see all these amazing HS phenoms and everybody hypes up their collegiate careers, only for pretty much the exact opposite to happen
95% of them peak in HS and then just become an average Joe in college, if they even compete at all
Maybe people just need to lower their expectations. They are still 18-19 after all. They have other things to worry about
Would rather direct my attention to a mediocre HS runner who became elite throughout his college training where it truly matters.
Same goes to all these freshman/sophomores who are running absurd times (under the assumption they're not on drugs) as they too don't get any better after a year or two
Everybody keeps peaking at the wrong time. Stop it.
Jed Clampett has posted and started threads about this many, many times. Sometimes under my registered name and other times under an alternate name. I do not want my identity discovered, but most of the time, I have told all the reasons why for this situation. Mostly it is because people want success yesterday, and often, it is coaches who screw it up at middle school all the way up to the professional level and for all events. Of course, the parents, kids, and society in general are also to blame.
Gordon Freeman wrote:
I feel like nobody talks about this. Every single year we see all these amazing HS phenoms and everybody hypes up their collegiate careers, only for pretty much the exact opposite to happen
95% of them peak in HS and then just become an average Joe in college, if they even compete at all
Maybe people just need to lower their expectations. They are still 18-19 after all. They have other things to worry about
Would rather direct my attention to a mediocre HS runner who became elite throughout his college training where it truly matters.
Same goes to all these freshman/sophomores who are running absurd times (under the assumption they're not on drugs) as they too don't get any better after a year or two
Everybody keeps peaking at the wrong time. Stop it.
Lydiard was right.
Gordon Freeman wrote:
I feel like nobody talks about this. Every single year we see all these amazing HS phenoms and everybody hypes up their collegiate careers, only for pretty much the exact opposite to happen
95% of them peak in HS and then just become an average Joe in college, if they even compete at all
Maybe people just need to lower their expectations. They are still 18-19 after all. They have other things to worry about
Would rather direct my attention to a mediocre HS runner who became elite throughout his college training where it truly matters.
Same goes to all these freshman/sophomores who are running absurd times (under the assumption they're not on drugs) as they too don't get any better after a year or two
Everybody keeps peaking at the wrong time. Stop it.
I was under the impression that the top programs basically just run everyone into the ground and see who can handle it. Maybe they are on the list of runners who can't handle it? It'll be interesting to see if more hang around longer now that the transfer portal is a thing. Meaning they can find a coach that matches up with the training style that works best for them.
Which must be why Aaron and the twins are tearing it up in their freshman years.
I don't know.. I have a high school superstar underclassman and I wonder how to keep this kid going (right now just raw talent, running 25-30 miles/week) and then I watch a video of Nikki Hiltz running 8 miles of repeats and I think, geez, we are not even working in the scheme of things. Heck, I don't think I ran 8 miles of repeats when I qualified for the Marathon Champs. I think the most important decision in this path is that college program. Too many college programs don't know the science, only their program. Find a coach willing to invest in your kid.
Gordon Freeman wrote:
I feel like nobody talks about this. Every single year we see all these amazing HS phenoms and everybody hypes up their collegiate careers, only for pretty much the exact opposite to happen
95% of them peak in HS and then just become an average Joe in college, if they even compete at all
Maybe people just need to lower their expectations. They are still 18-19 after all. They have other things to worry about
Would rather direct my attention to a mediocre HS runner who became elite throughout his college training where it truly matters.
Same goes to all these freshman/sophomores who are running absurd times (under the assumption they're not on drugs) as they too don't get any better after a year or two
Everybody keeps peaking at the wrong time. Stop it.
Regression to the mean is tough to conquer
Gordon Freeman wrote:
I feel like nobody talks about this. Every single year we see all these amazing HS phenoms and everybody hypes up their collegiate careers, only for pretty much the exact opposite to happen
95% of them peak in HS and then just become an average Joe in college, if they even compete at all
Maybe people just need to lower their expectations. They are still 18-19 after all. They have other things to worry about
Would rather direct my attention to a mediocre HS runner who became elite throughout his college training where it truly matters.
Same goes to all these freshman/sophomores who are running absurd times (under the assumption they're not on drugs) as they too don't get any better after a year or two
Everybody keeps peaking at the wrong time. Stop it.
Cause they go to Oregon.
the internet has made us a "hype" society. If I had a nickel for every 15 year old baller on Youtube doing trick shots and windmill dunks who who can't even make a Division 3 team I'd die a rich man.
remember Baby Gronk? wait'll he gets to high school and all the kids he's been dominating are suddenly as big and strong as he is. and that's if he makes it that far. allegedly he's already had two concussions.