Unless there is a rules change / limit instituted, coaches will continue to stack their rosters with foreigners. It’s just the reality. They created an arms race and you get fired if you get left behind. Looking at the foreign composition of the SEC teams at the regional meets:
Alabama - 4 of top 7
Georgia - 4 of top 6
Oklahoma - 4 of top 7
Arkansas - 4 of top 7
Missouri - 2 of top 7 (3 others on roster)
Texas A&M - 2 of top 7 (2 others on roster)
Texas - 1 of top 7
Kentucky - 4 of top 7
Tennessee - 3 of top 7 (3 others on roster)
Ole Miss - 1 of top 7 (2 others on roster)
Florida - 2 of top 7
Auburn - 2 of top 7
LSU - 1 of top 6
Vanderbilt - 0 of top 7.
So, 44 total foreigners. 34 of the 96 whom ran at regionals (35%). Seems like most coaches are shooting for 4. Is this the highest percentage of any conference, or does the Big 12 have more?
Track and Field News editor Sieg Lindstrom has a good column on the increased foreign impact at NCAAs.
“Foreign recruiting numbers are up — in the distance ranks, for sure… 89 of 225 top-15 male placers (at conference meets) were foreigners, 39.6%. The women’s figure: 91 of 225, 40.4%.”
And of those foreigners, his stats reveal roughly 40% of them were Kenyan.
Chris Bucknam also defends using foreigners in a nice Q&A in another article in TFN.
Check out the post about a high school team in MA that was composed of runners from 11 different high schools (and ran as a single school all season). They won against all odds!
What people fail to consider is that Georgia recruited 17 distance men in the high school class of 2023. 2 of those guys turned out to be very good runners (Ryan Olree & Connor Rutherford), Georgia reaped the benefits of a large recruiting class by finding some great talent in the rough. In the current situation, those guys would not have an opportunity and would probably be FIJIs or Sigma Chi's.
What people fail to consider is that Georgia recruited 17 distance men in the high school class of 2023. 2 of those guys turned out to be very good runners (Ryan Olree & Connor Rutherford), Georgia reaped the benefits of a large recruiting class by finding some great talent in the rough. In the current situation, those guys would not have an opportunity and would probably be FIJIs or Sigma Chi's.
17 in one year? So how many can they have on their current roster, only 10? What is their future looking like going forward?
Who likes this? This is about college sports becoming semi-pro flooded with 28 year old internationals. How long until college teams aren't even enrolled? Roster cuts hurt everyone.
Most of those 17 UGA 2023 recruits were in state (didn't need scholarship), so the two who have developed- Rutherford and Olree- were recruits and have developed. Rutherford was the first US born runner to cross the line at regionals. UGA has worked their runners and avoided injury...they deserve this shout out for making nationals this year.
What people fail to consider is that Georgia recruited 17 distance men in the high school class of 2023. 2 of those guys turned out to be very good runners (Ryan Olree & Connor Rutherford), Georgia reaped the benefits of a large recruiting class by finding some great talent in the rough. In the current situation, those guys would not have an opportunity and would probably be FIJIs or Sigma Chi's.
Also I think it is funny he is being praised for having only six men on the team when that was not his intention. Two de-committed just in August and one left the team. I heard his goal was to have 9-10 men on the roster, he just fumbled 3 them.
Seems like the football coaches and ADs are getting their way. Fewer roster spots to support and over a third are foreign.
The sad thing is, the depth of competition at the US high school level is fantastic, so a lot of talented kids are not getting the chance to even compete at the collegiate level.
The sad thing is, the depth of competition at the US high school level is fantastic, so a lot of talented kids are not getting the chance to even compete at the collegiate level.
Which ones?
Mostly boys, but increasingly girls as well. Most coaches throw out the roster limit excuse, but increasingly I think ADs are encouraging coaches to take foreign athletes in their Olympic sports to free up more NIL collective money for basketball and football (they don’t have to pay NIL money to foreigners). I know a number of D1 caliber kids who can’t get on a D1 roster because of all the old foreign runners being brought in and the kids have to choose between going to a decent academic D1 school or running D2 where the academics are often sub par. A lot of talented 18 year old Americans are not given the chance to develop after high school because the coach feels it is safer to bring in the 22 year old Kenyan who has already run a bunch of pro races.