Top agent: The NCAA coaches swarmed the lobby of Kenya's World XC hotel, desperate to get the next NCAA star

The State Department has per country visa limitations for a reason. The Scholarbook program circumvented those rules and should be shut down.

Why is this "crazy"? Don't U.S. colleges swarm over hotshot football/basketball prospects? How is this any different?

This is not accurate. Name the ncaa coaches that were In Tallahassee. Gibby. Hayes. Who else was there? I know Gibby wasn’t at a hotel begging Kenyans to go to Harvard.

Name names

Isn't it a non-profit?

I saw Greg Metcalf and the Arizona coaches at the course. No idea who, if anyone, was staking out the hotel.

Pathetic.

US kids can do numerous things to get to college slower:

- stay back a year in hs

- do a post hs yr at a prep school

- take a gap year

- enlist in military

- do a religious mission (not only Mormons)

- red shirt in college

Quite frankly, being the right age for running just isn't very important to US runners and family. Therefore few Americans do any of this.

There is way more desire and pressure to finish education quickly to move on to grad school, or career.

More value places on being youngest MD, or youngest Managing Director than fastest 27 year old.

NCAA rules require that Americans enroll in college within a year of Hs graduation or their competition clock starts counting. Yes - they can do crazy stuff like spend two years on a religious mission - but only a very small subset can realistically do this.

The international recruits circumvent these rules in ways that American kids can’t. That’s why you see freshman recruits in their late 20s which just isn’t a feasible option for American kids. It’s an uneven playing field.

Which colleges?

Really

Because it's a one-stop-shop, any of the athletes on the Kenya team are on par or better than the other countries, they won the meet. Also, Kenyans generally know english better as they are a former British colony and the prominence of learning English has continued, so it's easier for them to get admitted to US universities.

They were all over them in between races it was hilarious

i saw iowa state kid and cornfield hovering by the start line right where only the athletes could go just waiting to pounce. think i saw a couple more as well can't remember

It doesn’t make sense that a coach is going to get a signed a scholarship after a five minute sales pitch. The contract isn’t binding anyway, so the Kenyan can accept a better offer later on.

Tulane Cross Country Coach was there. I have been critical about Tulane for years. We what ended as a nice discussion. He let me know that any coach chasing Kenyans during the World Cross Country championships were wasting their time.

Yeah why would you not go to Florida if yo coach in the ncaa?

Pretty sure everyone went to world juniors track when it was in Eugene.

I was at a Euro world cross 20 years ago and there were probably 50 ncaa coaches crootin

I stayed at that hotel and some this did happen, but it is exaggeration to suggests swarms of coaching and begging.

These race traders that recruit foreigners over Americans need to be deported with the Somalians.