It is interesting because even Graham Blanks took a gap year and trained in Flagstaff with a bunch of future teammates. I think partly due to COVID. But still it seems like a gray area which will become even more common - missions or gap years do give an advantage. It will become far far more common if roster limits get set in place.
I dont see how being mormon or serving a mission is an advantage, i can only imagine going from not running for 2 years to competing in the ncaa is tough. also, there are other reasons why someone's eligibly can be paused, like the military.
one day i dream.
i dream one day i will wake up to a running forum.
that isn't full of hateful racist posts about a bunch of young Black men from East Africa.
we need less posts that are full of worry about the threat of the Black African.
one day i dream wrote:
one day i dream.
i dream one day i will wake up to a running forum.
that isn't full of hateful racist posts about a bunch of young Black men from East Africa.
we need less posts that are full of worry about the threat of the Black African.
Who made it about young black men? YOU. The OP was lamenting about a 28-year-old and a 26-year-old were racing in a college meet when most of the runners were closer to 20. Why did you have to make it about race?
LDSCURIOUS293032 wrote:
Anway have an idea of what percent of LDS guys just never regain form and quit running after their mission? I would be curious; I wonder if there are dozens of guys that were really good in High School that serve Missons and just quit running after.
I don't know the % but there are quite a few that never return to running.
The NCAA was created to act as a fairness and rules committee (and to not pay athletes)
Over the last few decades, specifically the last 10 years, the ncaa has relaxed more and more rules. Most are not taking Cross Country into consideration.
So all of these athletes were cleared and certified by the ncaa before the season started. There are very few rules left so what you get is really good athletes still competing. They aren’t American 18-22 year olds but they are following the rules.
Go look at NCAA football, most of the rules created have only football in mind. Outside of some Covid redshirts, the majority are 18-22 year old Americans.
Look like wrote:
Looks like out of the top 26 only two are not foreign athletes or Mormons. One Iowa state kid came in mid semester and was allowed to run. Not sure the regular American kid is at a disadvantage in their own country.
Actually the 2 non foreign iowa state guys in their top 7 are local Iowa kids but also old. One is a 7th year kid and one is a 6th year kid. Soooo basically you have to be pretty old or from Africa to have any chance of cracking the top 25 in the big 12