Big 12 X-cross champs: 2nd - 28 year-old freshman Kipchoge edges out Clinger who was first All-American in 2017

There is no favoritism. Anyone can take time off for religious service, military service, or the Peace Corps. If you were broke, you could have joined the Army for 2 years, saved up money, worked out every day, and had 2 years of college paid for.

I think this is exactly it. There a ton of older athletes competing for various schools. Ayyildiz form Oregon for example is 25. Elmore is a 5th year who has more eligibility and will most likely still run next year for a 6th etc etc. But no ones complaining about them. The gripe people have w Clinger is as you said. He’s been at it since 2017.
There should absolutely be an age cap. 25 and up your done. Time to move on to the pros.

I didn't know this was a big deal. Way back, I competed against Lucien Rosa who was 9 years older than me. I was just a decent JUCO freshman and he was a 1972 Olympian running for Wisconsin Parkside. So he was 27 at the time. Is this something different?

The difference was that Parkside was NAIA. Both NAIA and JUCO have always had older foreigners competing. In 1987 I ran JUCO XC Nationals against 25 + year old Brits and Kenyans. In 90 I went to Parkside and they hosted Nationals. The first team (Lubock Christian) was all older Kenyans. I don't think they had/have age rules.

I guess my point was younger runners have been going up against older runners for decades. Why the outrage now?

I was on that Parkside roster and it was great having a squared away foreigner on a team of recent high school grads. Nobody ever talked about his age. Kim Piper won Boston and we had an elite program of Kenosha born and raised walkers, so he wasn't the only star.

I do have a problem with programs that recruit numerous foreigners.

I didn't know who he was. He beat me and afterwards I said to a teammate 'that guy had no shoes'. And he said 'don't you know who he is?' I didn't feel bad that he beat me, I thought it was cool running against an Olympian.

I have many close friends serving missions at the moment. A few have told me thru sporadic emails that combining long, highly structured days of religious work, a ban from most social media, and limited internet access depending on the place, both running and communication with the rest of the world are difficult if not impossible.

I think the difference between 26-year old LDS athletes and 28-year-old Kenyan freshmen is that unlike the Kenyans, the LDS crew doesn’t spend those off-years in an arduous school-sponsored training program. I wonder if some even have time/places to run at all. The #1 priority is spreading the word of God and everything else takes a backseat. So unless an elder ran college-level training all two years (and good luck landing a companion who is willing to join them), I couldn’t picture it posing so much of a clear advantage. I think if there is a U23 requirement there should be exceptions for individuals serving religious missions or similar - the goal should mostly be to avoid 28-year old Kenyan freshmen.

Casey Clinger was a special case with his COVID year, it’s unlikely we will see many 26+ Americans after him

Anway have an idea of what percent of LDS guys just never regain form and quit running after their mission? I would be curious; I wonder if there are dozens of guys that were really good in High School that serve Missons and just quit running after.

Religious missions, military service, and Peace Corp service are more important than ncaa xc.

i'll be interested what they do under the upcoming roster limits. right now BYU's fudge is somehow working around title IX where they have a ton of walkons. which to me is how they juggle this grey area of mission kids in waiting plus a long roster.

you limit that roster they cannot stock a ton of walkons, or have redshirt kids working back from missions.

i would say that is one of the few schools i could see having a big club team in waiting, because of the mormon affinity and cultural difference. most schools, if i can't make florida now, i just go someplace else. and there isn't gonna be a very effective club team of hardworking kids. to me the mormon thing might be your difference.

Ncaa needs an age limit

i generally agree with this. the purpose to college sports is students representing colleges and higher education. the intent is not to create an age group minor league. in soccer terms, U23 teams, so to speak.

i also think the folks harping on BYU don't seem to grasp everyone on the roster is probably old -- the good kids and the bad ones too.

even if i wanted to be conciliatory, bringing in a 26 year old kenyan is different than a 20 year old mormon. BYU aren't "seeking out" older runners from semi-pro running team settings abroad. they are recruiting normal HS kids age 18 who then do the equivalent of a "double gap year," and are 2 years older when they show up. and anyone who's read about it in practice knows the whole song and dance where they don't get to pick their mission partner, aren't allowed to be out of sight/on their own much, struggle to train, cannot expect their partner to keep up. BYU deals with the inherent problem of runners gone to seed by having a ton of kids on the team. people on LR then complain about the good ones.

yeah, i ran an 800 in an early season D1's meet (for a D3) where the winner set his school's record and destroyed us all. it was demoralizing on the day. since it was an unusual event for me i had little grasp what was a good or bad time. i get to conference and figure out my time was barely off what scored points -- this was before TFRRS and internet performance lists. then i see the guy at the olympics that summer. everything's about perspective.

a lot of this feels like the pouting over trans athletes, to me. which is tourist stuff. real athletes live for the contest. i live for like you shut down some minor league player who led the country in goals that year, or shut down a future hermann award winner, or stop some dude who's on the all time conference team or all-american. or, in track, as a D3, you beat some D1 guys, or you win a meet, or you get points at conference.

the more interesting question when a fast 26 year old shows up is are they still really amateur. it's not trying to turn college sports into age group ball.

side point on what i see as tourist complaints, you're kind of pretending like we never run against some 25 year old alumni runner, or unattached, or even pro, at our regular season college meets.

The answer is a very large percentage of runners never come back. Look back at American Fork's team in 2016. Casey was just one of many standout BYU commits. They were on the roster but never got fully back after their missions and were never heard from again. I'd say a good 60% of recruits never become BYU all-stars after a mission.

I dont think LRC (or most people, for that matter) truly understand how rigorous a mission experience is in the LDS faith. They can only communicate with family once a week for a limited time. They have no free time other than 30 mins of exercise per day. They are tied to the hip to a rotating "companion" that they are assigned to randomly. Most missions now make their kids completely rewrite their social media presence and make it about their church. They can't play video games, have no relationships, follow EXTREMELY strict curfew and accountability rules. They work from 6:30am all the way to the end of the day as a missionary. It's not like its a break for 2 years. From what I hear its the most difficult, stressful years of their young lives.

Missions are a lot of work. I went to Taiwan from 1981 to 1982. We were busy from 6:30 am tell 9:30 pm and in bed by 10:30 pm (language study, scripture sudy in the mornings, tracting, teaching, church nember visits, traveling rest of the day with a 1hr lunch and dinner break). Mondays were preparation days from 6:30 am tell about 5:00 pm, then we worked that evening tell 9:30 pm. On preparation days, you shopped, did laundry, wrote letters and maybe went out hiking or site seeing for a few hours. I got up at 5:30 am to do calisthenics by myself. I never went on runs but did walk a lot and rode a bike for a few miles each day. Was a lot of work but very enjoyable. Was a highlight of anything I've ever done.

Looks like out of the top 26 only two are not foreign athletes or Mormons. One Iowa state kid came in mid semester and was allowed to run. Not sure the regular American kid is at a disadvantage in their own country.

The goal shouldn’t be to target Kenyans or Mormons or anyone. If age provides an advantage, then the goal should be to limit age, not limit it for some and have exceptions for others.