EKU X-C roster is 65% foreign

I was also an American who participated on a predominantly foreign team.

I think I was better for it from a running stand point and for personal develpment.

And if any of our taxes helped my friends better their lives, then that was pretty nice, too.

toro wrote:

I was also an American who participated on a predominantly foreign team.

I think I was better for it from a running stand point and for personal develpment.

And if any of our taxes helped my friends better their lives, then that was pretty nice, too.

+88

I want to agree with Silly Old Fossil... I do think we need to keep the middling runners in the sport past HS and I think it's an easy fix for a lazy coach to go and get a bunch of foreign talent. You resign as Head Coach and become Head Van Driver.

That being said, I do look at some of the women's teams where the schools are just giving money away to girls that have NO business running in college. They must field a team and due to Title IX they have pockets full of scholarship money that has to go to someone, so girls that weren't even the best on their HS team get money to run. I dont want to see that happen to the men.

Lexmark wrote:

That being said, I do look at some of the women's teams where the schools are just giving money away to girls that have NO business running in college. They must field a team and due to Title IX they have pockets full of scholarship money that has to go to someone, so girls that weren't even the best on their HS team get money to run. I dont want to see that happen to the men.

O dear God there are some slow girls in college running. I was at a meet a couple of weeks ago and there were girls 30m off the back of the pack 50m into the race!

Title IX has great intentions but there are many times it does more harm than good

Silly Old Fossil wrote:

Trawling through the Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) X-C roster, I see the mens roster is 65% foreign (13/20).

The womens roster is 41.66% foreign (5/12).

Overall there is a 56.25% foreign presence (18/32).

How say u?

This is in line with the Tea Party GOP's policy of free trade. Ya know, "free" trade with China that lets them dump their crappy goods while not letting our "overpriced" made-in-USA goods to be exported to China? The "free" trade that allows American companies like Gap to lay off 5000 workers in USA and hire 15000 in China this year?

Yay!! Way to go GOP!!!

From his dad's paycheck? How so? Athletic scholarships are almost always financed through money brought in by revenue sports or by things like alumni contributions and the like.

If his dad was making those sorts of contributions or going to his school's football games, then yes, you'd be right. But why would that matter as applied to foreign runners as opposed to any other runner? If I'm a Massachusetts resident with a kid going to a public college in Massachusetts and somehow public money is used to give a scholarship to a kid other than mine, then I'm paying for that scholarship regardless of whether the kid is from Boston or Botswana.

HRE wrote:

From his dad's paycheck? How so? Athletic scholarships are almost always financed through money brought in by revenue sports or by things like alumni contributions and the like.

If his dad was making those sorts of contributions or going to his school's football games, then yes, you'd be right. But why would that matter as applied to foreign runners as opposed to any other runner? If I'm a Massachusetts resident with a kid going to a public college in Massachusetts and somehow public money is used to give a scholarship to a kid other than mine, then I'm paying for that scholarship regardless of whether the kid is from Boston or Botswana.

Blame the MA structure on Mitt Romney. He's the one responsible.

HRE wrote:

From his dad's paycheck? How so? Athletic scholarships are almost always financed through money brought in by revenue sports or by things like alumni contributions and the like.

If his dad was making those sorts of contributions or going to his school's football games, then yes, you'd be right. But why would that matter as applied to foreign runners as opposed to any other runner? If I'm a Massachusetts resident with a kid going to a public college in Massachusetts and somehow public money is used to give a scholarship to a kid other than mine, then I'm paying for that scholarship regardless of whether the kid is from Boston or Botswana.

HRE, this $$$$ from revenue sports is mostly a myth. Eastern Kentucky doesn't bring in enough from the revenue sports to finance the revenue sports, let alone the non-revenue sports. And when was the last time you sent a sizable contribution to your alma mater.

College sports budgets have to come from somewhere - the general fund....for most schools. There simply is not sufficient revenue from other sources.

Colleges are dropping programs thick & fast. Those scholarships are becoming extremely valuable (more fighting over less). Could be a time when the only ones on scholarship are foreigners....like in tennis.

That's East Tennessee, not Eastern Kentucky.

run with the wom wrote:

Are you talking about 1972?

(See December cover)

http://trackandfieldnews.com/archive/past_issues/1972covers.html

I have been at DI schools with no football and basketball that made no revenue. At those schools, we still funded the entire athletic department without state dollars. Operating budget, salaries, scholarships, etc. When state budgets were cut, we were not affected because our funding was NOT from state dollars. Exactly none of our scholarships came from anybody's tax bill. I'm not sure if you've ever been involved in a collegiate athletic department as a coach or administrator, so you may not be aware of what really happens. To assume that a foreign athlete's scholarship is being funded by tax dollars (even at a state school), is almost always incorrect. I see this thrown out all the time and its much more often than not, false information.

So where does the funding come from? I hear a lot about where it DOESN'T come from.....but where does it come from?

In my experience, most of the funding comes from endowments. Most athletic departments spend a lot of time soliciting and building those endowments. Another source could be student fees. Most schools have an athletics fee for students. This allows students to get in to athletic events free of charge and also goes to help fund athletics. This is different than tax because you only pay if you attend the school. There are also technology fees that each student pays to allow for the buying of computers, funding of WiFi, funding IT salaries, etc. Each student pays these and each student gets to use the services the fee pays for. I am trying to head you off from making the argument that fees are the same as taxes. They are different because you can choose to not pay a fee by choosing to attend a different school (or no school at all). However, those taxes are being paid no matter what.

if you want to be angry about tax money going to foreign students instead of domestic students, you would have a better argument with academic programs in general than you would athletic.

The most famous XC runner in my T&F/XC lifetime was Nick Rose, definitely not an American. In fact, those foreigners included such moochers as Mick Bryne.

I sent money to my old school every year until first my niece and then my son got to college. Then the money went to them. But they're a D II program that gives some scholarships and all of that money comes from donors. It absolutely does not come from the general fund. The coaches' salaries and expenses for the team, travel, uniforms, etc. is funded from activity fees.

Silly Old Fossil wrote:

Trawling through the Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) X-C roster, I see the mens roster is 65% foreign (13/20).

The womens roster is 41.66% foreign (5/12).

Overall there is a 56.25% foreign presence (18/32).

How say u?

I would say the following.

1) And they are ranked #29 in the country.

2) I don't see the big deal about the large foreign presence. They can give out the same scholarships to American athletes and suck (because top notch Americans simply don't want to go there) or give them to foreigners and be good.

I also think people tend to make a big deal of this only when it's a large number of African runners - meaning that you might be racist. Where is the outrage that 80% of Iona and Providence's top 5 is foreign? There is none. Is that because most of those foreigners are white?

rojo wrote:

I also think people tend to make a big deal of this only when it's a large number of African runners - meaning that you might be racist. Where is the outrage that 80% of Iona and Providence's top 5 is foreign? There is none. Is that because most of those foreigners are white?

Pretty much.

The same thing that keeps Lagat's AR from this summer and numerous WC accolades (from this past year and year's past) from receiving the coveted "black front page" honor is what gets people up in arms when they see scholarship money from schools Americans don't really want to go to anyways go to predominantly black foreigners. Latent racism

26mi235 wrote:

The most famous [Kentucky] XC runner in my T&F/XC lifetime was Nick Rose, definitely not an American. In fact, those foreigners included such moochers as Mick Bryne.

Somehow the Kentucky was left out of this post.

Silly Old Fossil wrote:

Where is the incentive for high school kids (even fairly good ones) to stay with the sport....particularly with no chance of a scholarship.

How about the incentive to not be a pusssy.

Buck up and run - scholarship or not. You either want to be good and train hard, or you don't. Someone throwing money at you isn't going to make you better.

Pot McKettleton Esq. III wrote:

rojo wrote:

I also think people tend to make a big deal of this only when it's a large number of African runners - meaning that you might be racist. Where is the outrage that 80% of Iona and Providence's top 5 is foreign? There is none. Is that because most of those foreigners are white?

Pretty much.

The same thing that keeps Lagat's AR from this summer and numerous WC accolades (from this past year and year's past) from receiving the coveted "black front page" honor is what gets people up in arms when they see scholarship money from schools Americans don't really want to go to anyways go to predominantly black foreigners. Latent racism

that is ridiculous. People don't make a big deal out of Lagat running 12:54 5K because he is born Kenyan, and 13872634 kenyans can run 12:54 in the 5K, or have at some point. It isn't anything special to see a kenyan-born runner run sub 13. It happens ALL the time. Literally hundreds of kenyans either have done it or can do it. What is there to get excited about?

4 american born runners in the history of the world have gone sub 13 in the 5K. Sorry if it upsets you that we prefer to see such an event that is much, much more rare. Would I rather lagat run sub 13 than another Kenyan? yes. But at the end of the day, it just isn't that special to see another east african run sub 13.

you won't admit it, but you would MUCH rather see rupp or solinsky run sub 12:54 for a new 5k AR than watch an east african time trial a sub 12:54 for the 100th time.