Why is Kate Avery not running NCAA?

Augusto E. Perez wrote:

.............................. wrote:

Could you imagine a kid from Duke telling coach K he wasn't going to play in the tournament................

....to represent his country in international competition. That's supposed to be more important.

No. Imagine a world-famous track star who trains with, say, the Oregon Project and is paid by Nike to represent their brand and the OP team. Now imagine that this athlete ran a world record and while doing so was wearing his country's singlet instead of his team's. Of course that would be no big deal and the whole message board wouldn't freak out, right?

This is even worse. She gets a scholarship so she can compete for her team. Yet she decides to skip the most important meet of the season for her team to go run some silly race in Europe, and on top of that, she doesn't have to skip NCAA's to do that, but she decided to anyway.

Ambiguous AF wrote:

I'm really not a fan of how popular it is these days for people to just throw around phrases like "bad for the sport". Until I see a direct correlation between an athlete's decision and a negative impact on the sport then I couldn't care less about your armchair analysis.

I'll tell you why it's bad for the sport. Her decision isn't bad, necessarily, but it's really a sign of what is wrong with the sport.

Every meet save the Olympics/World Champs is seemingly optional. "It's only USA indoors (Cain last week)", "It's only Commonwealth Games (Farah last year)", etc.

Thus every meet save one is just a practice. People just race what they want to and decide what is important. Haile Gebrselassie was guily of this as well. Instead of battle Paul T on xc every year, he just gave up and moved on, "It's only xc."

The reason why the NFL is so popular is every game matters. You don't really have, "It's only the 4th game of the season."

The "It's only" excuse is ruining the sport. It's smart as if you are an athlete and things aren't going well, you do need to make sure you are good only one time a year - worlds/olympics. Financially that's how it works.

The "It's only xc" mindset has almost wiped out that sport professionally unfortunately.

I mean wouldn't you love to see Derrick versus Rupp at USA xc?

I don't really have a huge issue with Avery's decision (although I bet she's regretting it now (if it was her's to make)) as to me one of the reason's track struggles for popularity is because there are few team competitions. Fans like to go home winners and losers. A European championship has a team feel to it as does NCAAs so choosing one over the other isn't a big deal.

I've written an article on the attendance problems our sport faces. I'll put it up next week.

But Avery isn't really hurting the sport. It's showing an inherent part of the sport. Unless there was someway to force the atheltes to race everything.

rojo, you are talking nonsense. Athlethes have to pick and choose event for the good of their health and fitness, not just to compete with their rivals and make money etc.

We only have a limited number of races we can effectively actually race.

Haile didn't compete against Tergat because he was not a great xc runner, Tergat was. What would have been the point? Why should any runner have to race any event that they don't want to do?

oh pleease wrote:

Haile didn't compete against Tergat because he was not a great xc runner, Tergat was. What would have been the point? Why should any runner have to race any event that they don't want to do?

We're getting off topic here on Avery, but let me answer. For the fans.

Do you think baseball players really want to paly 162 games a year? No, but they do as they are forced to. Same thing with tennis pros, etc.

We all know that Rupp is likely to beat Derrick on the track, but would the same be true in xc? We'l likely never know.

In term of Haile, you ask, "What would have been the point?"

Are you serious? To be a legend. If he had world xc title on his CV, there would be zero holes in it. World records and gold medals on the track, a world record in the marathon, a world xc title. I guess the only thing missing would be marathon gold.

But are you suggesting the pros only run events they can win? Those one person fields are going to be lame.

You are actually making my point. The sport has some inherent flaws in it. You think there would be no point for Haile to race Paul as he wouldn't win. In other sports, there is more randomness. In soccer, an inferior team can and often does win. Same thing in the NFL. The Patriots this year lost to the Dolphins and chiefs and nearly to the JEts. With turnovers, anything can happen. In track, the only turnover is a fall or illness. Not something a fan wants to see.

Why do you guys think the NCAA is so great? Hmm, European title or American University title? Thats why she chose the Euros.

But rojo, these athletes aren't robots. They can only time their peaks a couple of times per year. And wouldn't that simply diminish the importance of World Champs and Olympic events?

I obviously agree with you Rojo that our sport is suffering from lack of viewer participation/ fans, but forcing athletes to compete in certain events will not solve the inherent problem of distance running. Also not by putting more emphasis on making Track and field /XC a team sport, which it really is not.

Starting with my second point, Football/ basketball/ baseball and soccer are so popular because you have in one game two teams playing against each other, front to front like in a battle field. There is something about "playing war" which cannot be mimicked in running.

This is entirely different then the US college concept of having 25+ teams of 7 persons running "against" each other over 10 k on some random field in Indiana. Sure, if there was not a team score maybe even less fans would watch cross country, but my point is that basic set up of running is inherently not a team event.

The ongoing loss of fans in T&F and running that come to meets to watch is due to the growth of media in our changing society. There is simply not enough ACTION and drama involved for the average person to see it as an incentive to travel to meets, watch and enjoy it. No "forcing" of athletes to face each other and no "team sport initiative" in an individual sport will fundamentally change that.

We can improve on making distance racing more attractive though. First of all, get rid of Pacemakers. in ALL MEETS worldwide. Again, the average person has no idea what it means to run a 5k in 12:45 , 13:45 or 14:45, nor do they care. They want to see people race each other. But that does not mean all the top guns have to race each other at least 5 times throughout a year (or whatever is suggested in this thread).

Now to Avery. Depth wise the NCAA is about the same level as the Euro champs in the mid-distance, if not stronger. However, being the Euopean champ is in my opinion worth more for an athlete than being the NCAA champ ( i know this sounds like I am contradicting myself, but it's simply because outside the US system most people have only a limited idea about what is going on in US college running). I am sure that in the UK Avery would get more press as the European indoor champion then being the NCAA champ (ok, none of this will happen this year, but that's on a different page.

As Iona is probably not competing for the team title at NCAA's I can understand her decision.

elmore345 wrote:

Why do you guys think the NCAA is so great? Hmm, European title or American University title? Thats why she chose the Euros.

except that the American Univerersity is likely FULLY FUNDING her education. What does the university get in return? RESULTS at the meet that matters most which is the NCAA Championship.

While I may be nominated for "dumb post of the year" by some, there is NO RATIONALE that can explain giving a kid a full scholarship for a sport only for them to decide not to compete in the MOST IMPORTANT meet.

I'll take your food, your housing, your gear, your education, your coaching, and then one of 3 times per year I can repay Iona for all of this expense, I pass.

NO EXCUSE.

And so I stand corrected, that isn't what is wrong with our sport, it is what is wrong the NCAA Track and field........I sure hope there is a consequence because it is an awful precedent.

I understand your point but it would have been agreed upon beforehand that if she is chosen to represent her country in a major champs then this would take priority. Looks like she wouldn't have won NCAAs anyway on the basis of this performance. Well done to Lee Emmanuel (& New Mexico Uni!).

To be fair these 2 events should not be clashing with each other & be kept at least 2 weekends apart.

I'm not so sure it's obviously better for Iona to have Ms. Avery compete at the NCAAs than at the Europeans. Over the past few years, many of Iona's runners, including many of their best runners, have been from overseas (ie, Marion Joly-Testault, Regina Neumeyer, Heidi Gregson, Hollie Rowland, Leonie Smith, Luci McLoughlin and so on). To the extent Iona "needs" these runners to stay competitive, letting Ms. Avery skip the NCAAs for the Europeans may actually help them at recruiting.

PS. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Ms. Avery's unfortunate history with deadlines as a possible explanation for her absence from the NCAAs. That might explain why her coach refused to say more.

Is it possible that upfront women's distance events are absolutely stacked this season, she maybe isn't as fit as she would like and dodged the competition?

Also, after this, what do people think the odds are that she is running in an Iona uniform next year (an Olympic year)?

Jsjjshksk wrote:

Is it possible that upfront women's distance events are absolutely stacked this season, she maybe isn't as fit as she would like and dodged the competition?

It's hardly fair to say she dodged the competition when skipped NCAAs to run at a more competitive meet.

Jsjjshksk wrote:

Also, after this, what do people think the odds are that she is running in an Iona uniform next year (an Olympic year)?

I'd have thought that was already the case. It looks like she's got a better chance of making the Olympics than most other college runners.

Does anyone know how & why she ended up at Iona, or why she didn't compete in her freshman year? It looks like she took at least one year off before heading to college.

The only thing I've seen is an interview where she mentions not liking school as the reason it took her so long to get to college.

I really didn't mean to rake this woman over the coals. As a fan of the sport I was just hoping to see her run on US soil a few more times before she heads back to the motherland. I wonder what choice she would have made if her Commonwealth Games schedule interfered with the NCAA XC season (they were held in November in Perth, Australia a few years back).

This is so obvious!

I reckon Avery wants to run World XC and I bet GB selectors told her she had to either run Euros or GB xc trials to get selected & they didn't want her doing NCAAs...or her coach worked out it wasn't a good idea to do Euros, NCAAs and then head over to China for world xc.

Something like that

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Jsjjshksk wrote:

Is it possible that upfront women's distance events are absolutely stacked this season, she maybe isn't as fit as she would like and dodged the competition?

It's hardly fair to say she dodged the competition when skipped NCAAs to run at a more competitive meet.

When you get beat by pros nobody cares but losing to your peers could hurt you confidence and your brand. Nobody sia anything when Ches ran the Wanamaker mile and didn't win, but if he loses to a collegiate you will certainly hear about it for a long time.

Skip Ad wrote:

I see she is entered in the Euros this weekend however it looks like she has qualifying standards that would get her in the mile and 3k for next weekend. Am I missing something?

Oh no, the 23 year old British junior is going to miss NCAA Indoors - the sport may never recover!

It seems her fitness this season is sub-par, in lieu of getting 5th or something at NCAAs, she can get a resume bump and cred with UKA by appearing at Euros. Pretty pragmatic really.