Why does this entire board think that the 2 year sabbatical is an advantage for BYU?

They are at a disadvantage when they first get back. It might turn into an advantage after they have been back a couple of years and get back into shape due to the age. They still only have the exact same number of years they can compete as everyone else.

We hit our physical peaks in earpy.twenties. many runners improve due to gradual increase in mileage but Mormons experience the opposite.

All I know is that if I had taken 2 years before I started competing in college, it would not have made a difference if I were an NCAA champion or not. Still, BYU continues to put up NCAA champions off of local Utah talent.

When are we going to acknowledge the reality that so many mormons have insane running ability? While being a small percentage of the population, they seem to be an outlier in the amount of HS, collegiate and professional talents they produce.

Not to go down a rabbit hole, but the LDS are of those churches which typically marry within the church. So, it seems plausible a certain set of hereditary traits could be shared within the church over a long period of time. Is a proclivity to running one of them?

Obviously. Are mormons of German or English descent?

A lot of people in this thread are acting like talent just goes away. It doesn't.

smh.com.au

Animal House to altitude house

Michael Gleeson

A short time ago, Ben St Lawrence was living life like a lead in Animal House.

Link:www.smh.com.au/sport/athletics/animal-...

Have you ever sat in a college course that was limited to ages 23 & under? Would love anyone to show me an age capped course at a NCAA institution.

More English than the US average, but there is also a decent amount of other Scandinavian. Mormon missionaries in the 1800s sent a lot of convert migrants from England to Utah. I don’t have a link handy, but maps of predominant heritage show most of the western US German, the SW Mexican, and a pocket around Utah is English. Some of my own migrant ancestors were baptized in England in the 1860s then sailed for the US and traveled on to Utah in the 1870s. Whole ships were basically chartered for migrants destined for Utah.

I don’t know if English genes is the relevant part for distance running, but a lot of Mormons who trace Utah origins to the 1800s are just naturally a little taller than average and skinny and athletically minded but not cut out for football.

There are of course a ton of Mormons for whom the above is not relevant.

Could it be that growing up in a Mormon household lends itself to a healthy lifestyle as well as an ingrained and additional discipline and work ethic, all major ingredients that benefit running at a high level. To some degree, is this not why running tends to draw from a higher socio-economic clientele?

It seems like a net neutral. Casey Clinger is a pretty good test case in that he ran his freshman year xc season right out of high school, then left for 2 years on a mission. Since coming back he's ended up about where you would have expected him to after coming top 25 at NCAA's as a true frosh. No worse, no better.

I think the bigger "advantages" by far are

1. Top 5 coach in Eyestone

2. School at altitude

3. Recruiting kids born & raised at altitude, plus having several elite feeder programs in-state like American Fork.

I would think that this is significant. More importantly, they are able to discover and mine the talent for distance running that they have available more than other places.

The simple fact of the matter is that probably more individuals with raw genetic talent for distance running never engage in running to begin with.... than those who do actually pick up the sport. At least in most of these United States.

As far as the thread topic, it is a foregone conclusion by everybody else in the country that BYU football gets a big advantage by having older players (due to missions)...

Obviously on here, there are those that dispute this for distance running. But do they dispute it for football? Because nobody else seems to do so. With BYU entering the Big XII this season, this has been a topic of conversation in football circles in my area.

All the American Record holders, except Donovan Brazier were in the mid twenties and older, a few in their early 30's

The top 10 all-time list for 5k average age is 22. We reach our physical peaks in our early twenties. Any biologist will tell you this.

As to football, anyone who actually has followed BYU recruiting and player performances over the years can tell you the mission helps for big lineman but is a huge negative for speed and skill positions.

Another possibility that LDS guys start their mission right after high school is that if they wait until after college graduation they are already 22 and looking to enter the workforce. The LDS Church leaders also know that the longer they wait the less likely they are to serve a mission. Life just gets in the way. They used to have to wait until they were 19 but that got bumped down to 18. Why? A possible reason is that it is easier to get 18 year olds right after high school graduation to go on these missions.

To add to post just above, and more significantly, answer those who say you could just serve after NCAA elegibility is used or even later:

There is an age limit for mission service. Several of you posters will know what it is now. Things have changed since I was that age. I was the generation that couldn't go at 18. The age was 19 then. So I'm not sure what the upper limit is right now.

There is another type of mission that elderly folks can do. You're not going door-to-door. My aunt did one working at a visitor center or something like that. But there's a big gap where you can't do either type of mission. You can't go at 30 or 40, but at 60 you can do one of these mellow ones.

This is sort of off-topic, but my aunt also served the type of mission we're discussing when she was young. In her generation (born in the '30s) it was not taboo for girls to serve, nor was it for my generation (born in the '60s). Then a whole new way of thinking - girls discouraged, guys very strongly encouraged - took hold. For example, my nephew went, neice didn't. Most of you know this, but I'm just saying the cultural norm changes over the decades.

Also a factor: tuition plus room and board for an LDS member is around $16k, which is cheaper than just about every state school in the country. Given how hard scholarships are to come by in this sport, it means they have a big advantage in getting the best walk-ons because it is cheaper to walk on at BYU than go to State U with a small scholarship. The big team means they can accept/train a lot of these "really good but not the best" high school athletes and see who rises to the top.

Name a BYU kid who won an NCAA championship BEFORE he went on mission. The facts speak for themself.

How many true freshman out of high school have won an NCAA championship in distance running? I don't know the answer to that, but I can confidently say that it's extremely rare.

The facts do shed some light on this, if you look outside your narrowband of reasoning.

Recent Examples of true freshman at BYU, and in Mantz's case before entering BYU:

Casey Clinger: 24th at NCAA XC Championships in the fall after graduating high school.
Kenneth Rooks: 8:36.08 PR in the Steeple and finished 11th at the national meet as a true freshman.
Conner Mantz: During senior year of highschool, made it to World Cross Country Championships and finished 29th place, just 4 spots behind NCAA budding star Justin Knight (25th), who competed after winning ACC rookie of the year in cross country the previous fall.

All of them exhibited remarkable talent before leaving for missions, and it's conceivable that their NCAA careers would have followed a similar trajectory had they not chosen to serve a mission.

Most of the people on this sight have never been great athletes. BYU is good because they have a great coach and program. The is a huge difference throughout the NCAA in this regard.