Lukas Verzbicas! The college hunt is on!

Then those coaches are idiots. Pretty much every team in the country can use a 14 min guy (pretty conservative) who runs well in cross country. And LV upside probably more along the lines of a 13:30 guy than a 14:00 guy 4.04 for a mile as a 17 year old is real fast . A lot of exceptions get made for guys lots of talent (see Rupp)

TalentScout wrote:

No way any DI college coaches are gonna let him train for triathlons and their 3 season program. At least not with any kind of scholarship.

From the interview it doesn't seem like he has any intention of dropping the triathlon training.

It's possible you missed some non-Americans? Hell, you missed an American gold medalist! Ever heard of Dave Wottle? Or are you saying Bowling Green State University wasn't an NCAA school? And it's spelled Fosbury, btw. I get the point of your post, but those are some ridiculously glaring errors.

Henry Rono? Gerry Lindgren? Jim Ryun?

G Prep... coward. I get your point, but a little respect for an athlete who won international competitions and could swim, bike, and run circles around you is a better approach.

Seems like recurring injuries throughout college never allowed Duplinsky to fully train for a good running or tri season. Safe to assume a major factor in this was that the Stanford coaching staff, particularly Tegan (since retired) and Floreal (current Head of T&F also overseeing XC, a controversial figure at best) never supported his triathlon training. The kids (yes, kids... young developing bodies) were worked over solid and Duplinsky presumably tried to maintain some semblance of multi-sport discipline, which together with a rigorous college education would break anybody. Too many injuries and we didn't hear about him. Not appropriately coaching/training/nurturing/caring for a guy like that is incredibly unfortunate; he is outrageously talented. Recall that he made Centrowitz his whipping boy at Maryland-area high school XC meets and he crushed it at worlds in winning the Duathlon and Triathlon Champs one summer. He may well have been a top contender at the 10K NCAA Championships for 2-3 seasons, and if he's reasonably healthy he could probably piece together competitive pro triathlon seasons in the coming years.

The current Stanford coaches aren't much better (still including Floreal), especially after a lackluster year that has Lunn nervous for top results. He'll push his athletes near and over the brink of injury in attempt to produce results (for the program's posterity and for his job). Not a good mix for an aspiring multi-sport athlete like Verzbicas, though Northern California is a paradise for triathlon training (plus it's home to amazing educational and professional opportunities).

BTW, it's indisputable Wisconsin-Madison is a premiere NCAA running school (e.g. see active stars Solinsky, Bairu, and Teg plus Coach Shumacher), but is Madison really a great tri training ground? The cold seems like a serious turnoff, especially compared to a place like Palo Alto, CA where you can ride hills, mountains, and clean routes year-round with pro and Cat-1 cyclists plus run and swim with serious talent at great facilities. I didn't know about Madison as a tri haven.

Stanford is awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed growing up just a bike ride away, but nobody has ever mentioned how strong he is academically. While he is a superior high school runner, Stanford doesn't bend and make the admission exceptions that many others would. Does anyone have any idea what kind of money they have available?

Who is Lunn?

Sorry, meant Dunn, Stanford's head distance coach (mixed up with Jason Lunn, 2003 US 1500m runner, in my head).

Duplinsky had top grades at his MD Prep school and he just graduated from Stanford. Still, Stanford is anything but a cake walk.

Stanford has money. Somewhat separately, everybody has money for Verzbicas.

One key lesson here is the value of forthrightness in expectations (e.g. pursuing multi-sport college career) and honesty in recruiting (e.g. making sure the athlete's goals fit with the program's goals and facilitating an environment that nurtures both with the athlete's care/health at center).

He's going to East Stroudsburg on a baseball scholarship

Very interesting observation, never really occurred to me about the NCAA not producing "world-beaters." All the same, you're setting the bar pretty high when you're talking only about Olympic gold medalists, since there are so few of them. Given that he's a bright kid and an American citizen, he would be making a huge mistake not to attend college. I am stating the obvious. What a mistake it would be to retire from his education and focus exclusively on whatever -- distance running or the triatholon -- given his young age. I would personally love to see him at my alma mater (The Farm), but so what? I'd say there were any number of schools where he could train beautifully. Does anyone actually know which way he's leaning? He might even want to stay near home, I have no idea.

I second the key lesson re: forthrightness and honesty in the recruiting process. These will be invaluable for Verzbicas and prospective schools to make sure the critical people are on the same page and that all remain happy and productive.

what about berkley? their xc team may not be the same as stanford, wisconsin, etc. but it's warm, probably awesome to train and they've shown success with guys like coe and matuszak. not to mention their academics are top notch

Fosbury wrote:

It's possible you missed some non-Americans? Hell, you missed an American gold medalist! Ever heard of Dave Wottle? Or are you saying Bowling Green State University wasn't an NCAA school? And it's spelled Fosbury, btw. I get the point of your post, but those are some ridiculously glaring errors.

I was citing the most recent medalists at each event. In the 800, Paul Ereng (1988) and Johnny Gray (1992) won medals much more recently than Wottle (1972) did.

In some events, though, I did have to go back to the '60s, or even '50s, to find a likely NCAA alumnus.

Fosberry (yes, I realize this is a different spelling than the high jumper).

bump

no duh wrote:

Stanford doesn't bend and make the admission exceptions that many others would.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Tiger Woods, anyone--with his sub-1000 (M+V) SAT?

What *really* surprises me is all these folks talking about "affording" the Ivy League. The Ivies are getting an increasing number of national-level talents (*cough* Donn Cabral *cough*), in large part because of their generous need-based scholarships. Bottom line: many kids would actually pay less to go to an Ivy than they would pay to attend their State Uni on a half-scholarship.

According to the short bio on the Gatorade Player of the Year website for Boys XC, he has maintained a GPA of 3.32.

I agree that Stanford, and, in fact, any Division 1 school, including the Ivys, will drop their standards for athletes if the coach really wants the athlete. But how much they can drop them does have limits. Take a look at this web page with Stanford's freshman admission profile:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/basics/selection/profile.html

It's pretty impressive - 30,500 applicants for 1700 spots, or 7.9% admit rate. 67% of admitted class with GPA of 4.0 or higher, but still only a 10% admit rate for those with perfect high school grades. For GPA below 3.7, only a 3% admit rate.

Very high SAT scores can offset lower GPA's, but the SAT numbers out of Stanford are also pretty darn impressive. I know a lot of the Ivys have similar high numbers, and even highly sought after athletes will have a better shot at admission if they can score at least mid-600's, and ideally over 700 on at least one SAT section. That's not too easy for most kids.

A college coach might also wonder why Lukas did not participate with his high school track team this spring. I know he as at a different level than his peers, but a kid who is coached by his parents and his own coaches and only runs a couple of post-season races might be a little tough to transition to a college team.

ddhf wrote:

no duh wrote:

Stanford doesn't bend and make the admission exceptions that many others would.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Tiger Woods, anyone--with his sub-1000 (M+V) SAT?

What *really* surprises me is all these folks talking about "affording" the Ivy League. The Ivies are getting an increasing number of national-level talents (*cough* Donn Cabral *cough*), in large part because of their generous need-based scholarships. Bottom line: many kids would actually pay less to go to an Ivy than they would pay to attend their State Uni on a half-scholarship.

There is no way you could know what Tiger made on his SAT. Cut the crap. I find it hard to believe they just bend the rules for anyone. I've chatted with Chris Derrick through posts and Dyestat and I know this is absolutely not the case.

University of Arizona?

Huge biking town and school has a great triathlon team. Also great training weather year round. Only thing that would maybe (and more than likely) not work out is an agreement with Coach Li and the track coaching staff.

Now that recruiting has started any idea where he might be going?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: University of Akron.