College coach contacted me. Love the school - not sure about him

laughing out loud.... I think I get what you're saying.

Kid- I think I know the team you're talking about (thinking lower level bay area school based on the info and a few sly posters????).... If so that team is rebuilding and needs talent. Take a leap of faith and go for it. If this is the place I'm thiking... it's a pretty campus, area, great education... and as another poster said- that coach might be fired or dead one day so don't make the decision based on the coach.

Happy hunting.

This is bad advice.

There's nothing wrong with saying, "Hey I love your school and am really interested in running for you in college. In fact, runnign is VERY important to me and will play a big role in where I decide to go. I was looking up some stats online and it looks like a number of the guys are slower in college than they were in HS. Why do you think that is? "

I’m with our benevolent leader, rojo… it is reasonable to ask the coach in a respectful and adult way what’s up with the progressions.

Rojo hits the Big wammy. this particular coach will get defensive and offended and feel like this kid doesn’t respect him, gotta know the audience.

Classic defend the coach move because apparently coaches are like the most prized possession on this message board for some reason.

That’s pretty consistent regression, and normally i’d tell you that’s okay if you aren’t trying to be super competitive and just want to be part of a potentially great team culture but a lot of those marks are such severe regressions that those athletes are getting beat up pretty hard at college meets. 4:20+ in the 1500m at the college level puts you at about as competitive of a level as the guys running 5:15-5:20 in varsity highschool meets, and a 4:20ish miler regressing to a 4:40-4:50 miler is a PROBLEM, if you ran those marks in highschool you should be able to perform as they have off of single digit daily easy miles, strides and not being overweight.

You also seem to be a bracket above most of this team in talent/fitness so other than good easy mile conversation they won’t be great training partners.

If your goal is to have the experience of running on a college team and traveling all over the country, getting your school paid for depending on division, then this could be a great pick, but if you are looking to compete and score/win titles in your college career this isn’t the one. There’s lots of schools that recruit 4:15-4:20 guys and turn them into 4:0x guys with the occasional sub 4:00 guy and if you want a shot at getting to that level you need to pick one of those.

Just because an athlete is capable of ruining their own career doesn’t mean a coach can’t.

Lots of college coaches are egotistical narcissists who are just good at recruiting, and if they coached an average highschool team’s talent field it would be below average.

Overtraining syndrome, injuries, and the wrong training stimuli for the athlete don’t give a crap if said athlete has the fighting spirit and dedication to work hard or not.

There’s a D1 college in my state that runs rinkydink workouts and could get beat by lots and lots of high school squads. It’s not a party school and the athletes I know there take it seriously. Are you telling me a better attitude would produce more results for those guys than booting the coach and hiring someone like Mike Smith?

Any idea what the approximate income number is???

Roughly 50% of income above $100k and 5% of assets. You could earn nothing and pay the full $90K per year if you saved your money.

Go for the best education.

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lists some numbers which i would double check by the schools themselves.

military academies don't charge but you have the service requirement.

berea (d3) is free tuition in exchange for x hours work a week. but that's a dropoff, like 1000-1100 SAT i think.

there may be some more schools that do this tuition free thing for an income, i think that got popular 5-10 years ago. there are also sets of schools that do 100% need with or without loans. but "need" in financial aid terms is a calculation that depending on income may assume some paternal contribution. which when i was a college kid i ended up working all summer to pay myself -- because my parents couldn't afford anything. [which means ol' need isn't quite being measured right.] and tuition has only soared since i went.

what i learned from my process was the better academic schools with larger endowments often made the better financial offers, even if i was an average admit in terms of numbers. my parents had tried to nudge me towards weaker schools that offered more scholarships (academic and athletic) that superficially felt like they would make me a good deal, and then the offer letter would show up, and the scholarships were flattering but the aid outside of that might be less generous, making the driveout higher.

to me the coach mostly gives the party line and the students are the resource. if you go on a run or (wearing my soccer hat) kick a ball around, you get a feel for who you're dealing with. depending who you get on a call or visit, they may be coach's pet or honest and open. coach's pet you can ask coach type questions, what gear do we get, how do you train, etc. honest and open folks are the best. they may love the place, good sign. they may warn you off it but say they're stuck. even if they're not that blunt, those folks would be the ones to ask the blunter questions, do y'all have lots of injuries, do you overtrain, is the classwork real taxing where running is an afterthough, ie, why do you all seem to regress. i'd also ask that type of student whether the team likes the coach. a competent or successful coach can he hell on wheels as a human being. you want a happy medium between doormat and saddles you up and rides you ever day for 4 years. pushes but supports.

i would never ask a coach why his charges seem to regress. if my analysis says that's true, and i get a reason from the runners i don't like, then i'm bailing. if i actually believe that is true, why am i still in their office or on the phone? if you feel like doing a 60 minutes reporter ambush interview it's not fitting well, no? which is why that sort of question probably doesn't get asked much. if the students tell you A B C did regress but A goofs off, B is too busy with major classes to make practices, and C is a pothead, ok, but i am going to be serious about it. if they tell you he overworks, you have your answer. if you still feel like asking the question you have your program red flag before you ask. having put the program in recruitment jail i don't know if i want to sit down with the coach and let him try to convince me to give him the cell keys.

unless i just adore that school in every other facet and am just on the track team for the heck of it, or with the idea i can be an exception or something.

The only people who think this is a good advice and will result in a productive conversation are people with zero EQ and/or complete spergs.

Bluntly speaking as a former FL (when Footlocker was the only individual option) guy, focus on the best school you can get into that will lead to the best career opportunities. You won't make a living running, and your family is what's important.

Your wife and kids will not love you more, but they may love you less if you are prioritizing your running.

One thing I have found, my wife doesn't care that I am a Footlocker finalist, nor does she care that I was All American in a non revenue generating sport.

I hope this puts things in perspective for each of you. Your wife will care about the aspects of you that are truly important.

For those of you advocating going to a university to prioritize PRs, I assure you that will not lead to a path of fulfillment long term, and if we were discussing a guy running 8:50, maybe you can make that argument, but this is really out of hand at this level.

I had OK State beating down my door, and even I had the decent sense to know that degree would be worthless.

D3 is for " Hobby Joggers. "

What if this kid isn’t a big enough tool to want a family some day?

Agree, absolutely ask the coach about development. His teams times are public knowledge and he has to know that you are aware of them. Ask about his training plan for you, what his expectations are, etc.. let him sell his program to you. If he can't do it to your satisfaction then look elsewhere.

I have a friend. He is a nice friend. He says to me: " Hey I'm hungry, Imma about to eat those rotten berries." I says to the guy " Wait for something sweeter and healthier to come along!?"

He ignores me..... eats the rotten berries... and dies. Move on kid. Move the F on.

Wantingmoree,

I'll offer my personal advice gained from decades ago when I was in the same situation -- hopefully this advice will be useful not just to you, but also any other high school athletes in similar positions who might be reading this.

(Note: it would help to know what year of high school you are currently in/finishing up, and what region of the country you're in. (i) I'll assume you're finishing up your junior year. (ii) I won't assume anything about your geographic location. (iii) I'll also assume that you are taking running pretty seriously. (iv) I will not give you similar advice to others here to just 'do school' and forget about running or do it as a club sport. (v) If you want to run seriously at the next level, then go for it. (vi) Be willing to 'eliminate' any college running program where you see 'red flags' of whatever type, and then keep looking for a program with a better fit).

1. On-Site Visit -- Critical that you visit the school for a weekend -- in-season -- and stay with a couple of the runners (if you can, do multiple visits). This is the best way to figure out 'culture', 'fit', 'inside information' and whether this could be a group of people you want to spend most of your waking (and sleeping) hours with for the next 4 years, and even potentially develop lifelong friendships with. (I found a great D1 running program fit for myself, and I still have amazing lifelong friendships with a 'group of 7' from 30 years ago. We're now at the point where some of our kids are now scholarship runners at D1 programs, even at the same university we attended/ran for).

2. Coaching Philosophy -- yes, you should talk with the coach about training philosophy, volume & mileage, rest & recovery, and how he/she thinks about 4-year development, not just a 'freshman jump.' The coach could be very strategic and long-term oriented, or just a bad coach with a sloppy approach to training. But you should try to find out this approach from both talking to the coach AND talking to the athletes/runners when the coach is NOT around.

3. Freshman Regression -- the on-site visit will also help you figure out this question/issue. (i) Partying -- maybe the team and/or school has a serious party culture, and the freshmen don't know how to handle their first year of true independence away from family and community -- binge drinking/getting hammered on the weekends, and not prioritizing consistent sleep, however often, can destroy otherwise promising running ability. (ii) Training Volume -- some programs just force freshmen to jump to big training volumes and high(er) mileage immediately, which can increase the risk of injury and/or actually over-train and make athletes slower, especially without a coaching philosophy that prioritizes rest & recovery. (iii) Poor Coaching -- and yes, some coaches are just not very good, and don't know what they're doing. Note: again, the on-site visit and talking with the current team members will help you figure this issue out, and it could be a combination of multiple issues.

4. Visit Multiple Programs -- my biggest issue during my search of long-ago was waiting too late to visit schools, and then locking in on a program I thought was the right/best fit. But I kept looking, paid attention to 'red flags', and eventually landed on a great fit
(maybe I just got lucky, in part) -- not a perfect fit, but much better than all the other programs I looked at and all the other schools I visited.

5. Big vs. Small / Elite vs. Best Fit -- Among others, I did an 'official visit' to Baylor, where I had received a (smaller) scholarship offer in the early 90s. I was a 400m/800m specialist in high school, and a 'decent' XC runner. At Baylor, I stayed with a 1:45 800m guy (who also ran a 45 split guy on their nat'l championship 4x400) and his roommate (who was a 29:30 10K guy, back when 29:30 was still a somewhat impressive time for 10K). Clyde Hart was the legendary head coach, and I got to meet Michael Johnson (who was already pro), and shake his hand and talk with him 1on1, then watch him do a track workout 6x200 and a weight-room session. I wasn't starstruck, but it was still pretty cool for a 17-year old kid. And I thereafter spent a lot of time thinking about how fast I could potentially run at a place like Baylor.

But the things I didn't really like were also important -- (i) Waco -- felt (to me) like a dust-and-tumbleweeds town (I'm from the surburban midwest, so could just be me), and the geography is flat-as-pancake (even moreso than the midwest). (ii) The Baylor campus -- at least to me in the early 90s -- did not seem 'very attractive'. The campus is urban with 'lots' of through traffic, and maybe I just had some idealized version of a more 'bucolic' college campus in my head that was different, but it didn't feel right. (iii) Team culture -- the 'team' felt a lot more like a collection of individuals running for themselves -- and didn't have the dynamic where I felt like this could be where I met lifelong friends. (iv) Coaching -- while Clyde Hart is/was a legend, the mid-distance coach who handled the 800 guys (and who would probably have started off being my primary coach) was not someone I felt comfortable with or gel'd with. This was later confirmed when he 'yelled' at me over the phone when I told him I was going somewhere else. So, I eventually decided to pass up maybe the 'opportunity of a lifetime' at that point, because the trade-offs out-weighed all the world-class advantages.

6. The Right Fit -- My choice ended up being Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, a mid-level D1 program with a decent history (since I almost never see individual university plugs on the LR message boards, I hope I'm not unitentionally violating any written or unwritten rules about plugging a specific school -- apologies, if so. I'm not recommending you go here, or even look at the school -- just explaining why I chose a much less 'elite' program than Baylor). (i) Birmingham -- not the greatest place ever at the time, but not dust and tumbleweeds Waco either -- although the Aug/Sept temps & humidity make for brutal XC training. (ii) The Samford Campus -- georgeous Georgian Colonial architecture, and a self-contained campus that felt more like 'college' to me. (iii) Team Culture -- a VERY strong sense of bonding, camaraderie and we're all in this together. Also, Samford is a dry campus, no alcohol on campus at all, and has a pretty religious student body, and 'southern' ideas about culture broadly. This can be experienced as quite 'repressive' depending on your worldview and what you want out of college. But I also met some very quality, high-caliber people who are still lifelong friends to this day. And the smaller student body at Samford made it much easier to form networks and groups because you were more likely to see the same people every day, as opposed to a campus with 20K to 50K students. Point being, it was a great place from which to focus heavily on running. (iv) Coaching -- this turned out to be a downside, in hindsight. The Head Coach Bill McClure had a very decorated, storied coaching career but was in his mid-70s when I arrived and was definitely past his prime as a coach (and therefore coaching at Samford, and not Abilene, South Carolina or LSU anymore). While I did get faster in college, it was probably not anywhere near as much as if I'd gone to a program like Baylor.

OK, so this post ended up much longer than I originally intended. Maybe I wrote it just as much (or even moreso) for me as for you. But with 30 years of hindsight, getting this decision right will have significant effects on how life turns out for you down the road. It doesn't mean there is only 1 right choice or 1 right school. But not choosing the wrong school is an important decision to try and avoid.

I wish you the best, and hope you find a program & school where you can develop (as a runner, as a human being) for the next 4 years and then spend a lifetime savoring the memories and the friendships. All the best in your search...