Coach not taking potential P5 scorer as a walk-on

I agree. They list email and recruiting questionnaire on websites but don't respond to either. They aren't good with answering their phone or responding to messages or texts. You have it correct in that an athlete needs to find a way to get in front of the coach.

Not going to pretend to know what this coach should do. However, 26 years in NCAA athletics has taught me that transfers are, by and large, higher maintenance and less reliable than the kids I recruit right out of hs. Often they are just downright pains-in-the-ass.

Not always, of course....but when kids bounce from school to school, it's often for a reason that doesn't flatter them. If you know what I mean. Maybe 2 pts in the decathlon aren't worth it to this person.

sorry OP--- i now see this athlete is not a transfer. 26 years in NCAA athletics have also tought me that I'm getting old/blind..

Another easy event to turn away as it is only one season, with a high injury rate, and needs highly specialized training that doesn’t lend itself to competing in multiple events to help the team.

Grades also play a part as a transfer. There are eligibility requirements and if one did not pass enough credits or get a high enough GPA there would not be a spot on a roster for someone who is ineligible. Along with that if you are a walkon with bad grades then that is a risk for a coach who may not want the headache.

Sounds like he already attends the school

The clock and tape don't lie. That is the beauty of our sport. This is not diving, gymnastics, or snowboarding where BS points get doled out by judges. If you can run, jump, throw well enough there is a school out there for you. If not at this ACC school then go find another school.

True but coaches are too dumb to pay attention.

A high school guy ran 1:47 in my area this year and is also a genius. Most schools didn't take his calls and a few offered tiny scholarships. Coaches are really not the brightest.

There are some amazing coaches with unbelievable work ethics.

And there are coaches who really makes sense why they are coaches and the profession pays them appropriately. Both work ethic, intelligence, and interpersonal skills.

It could be because of the event. Some schools, including my last two, just didn't have the staff to reasonably cover the multi's the way it deserves. Like another poster said, if they were an absolute stud then we'd probably find a way to make it work as a walk-on, but it wasn't an event we were investing in unless they could also score individually.

I was kind of like that guy. I was not all-state, or all-anything, really. I was just a solid HS varsity runner. I went to a D1 school because of location/major/etc. First week of classes, I sought out the coach to ask if I could run with the XC team as a walk-on. Coach said I could. I was kind of shocked, given the talent on the team. I did not last the whole season, because they were very good, and I struggled to keep up. I appreciated his willingness to give me a look, even though he probably knew I was not good enough. I thanked him for his time, and there were no hard feelings.

The real question, is your brother committed to staying at his current school? I know a d1 coach that loves the multi's, admittedly not P5 that would be happy to take some one that would score.

I'm not sure why a coach wouldn't respond if your brother could score, likely limited roster spots and lack of desire to coach the multi. I've seen that on a regular basis within D1. Teams pick what they want to emphasize and only focus on that.

Being serious, if he wants to be a D1 athlete, he can. Let us know!

Thank you for that post. Also more than a few coaches are incompetent.

And let’s be honest. In a non-revenue sport, the coach is very unlikely to be held directly accountable for missing a key recruit. If the football or basketball coach missed an incredibly gifted walk on, they definitely would be held accountable in the media and would be forced to answer for it. A running or swimming or wrestling coach? No one would notice. The athletic Director couldn’t care less. Provided the coach causes no major scandals, and the team doesn’t completely implode, the athletic Director is inclined to leave a coach there whether they’re competent or not.

Depth is pretty bad in the dec even in major conferences. There are probably people already on the team they could have do the dec and pick up those points if they wanted.

It's also not free points, roster spots for guys are limited as is and you're talking about an athlete that takes 5x the coaching resources for just a chance at some slim points.

There may be a weakness in certain events that they don't think he can reasonably overcome to be more competitive, or some indication of an attitude/academic/whatever problem that they don't want to deal with.

Obviously there's also plain cluelessness and arrogance from coaches that cause them to miss reject valuable athletes, just wanted to point out the justifiable reasons too.

And most of them are lazy, with low energy levels.

You guys just don't get it. When a 1:47 high school guy can contact coaches amd not get replies, it had nothing to do with all of the silly reasons that you are dreaming up. Coaches are incompetent.

That 1:47 recruit is equally incompetent if they don't just immediately move on to any of the 100+ coaches that will work very hard to recruit them instead of fixating on 1-2 poorly lead programs.

Plus we're not talking about 1:47 high schoolers and other obvious high impact recruits, we're talking about marginal/potential impact walk-ons.

I know who he is. He contacted all of the top teams in the country and he is attending a top notch school. Most of you aren't close enough to what is happening. You just comment in the theoretical world.