Levins in a foreigner too from Canada. Also he's half-black like all Semites Jews.
Levins in a foreigner too from Canada. Also he's half-black like all Semites Jews.
Some people might have already said some of the points I am going to mention here.
First Canadians in High school and collegiate running are viewed more or less like Americans. Second, Levins grew up in American schools athletic and people could see how far he was in high school days, and how much he improved with higher mileage (A dream of most runners).
As for the African athletes joining US colleges, no one knew about most of them. There stories are just a one page article as to how they were scouted, and how much they improved over night. Secondly, they are not seen as part of the American fabric, as they think, speak and act differently when they join such colleges. They have a lot to do to fit in Americanism.
To make matters worse, most Africans entering American systems are a little older or quite older than their peers. We can't blame them for this though, as kids in most developing countries start their education quite late.
What NCAA should do is not to ban foreigners, but to put age caps in place. I think over three years of the collegiate age shouldn't be acceptable.
Levins sports a Jew Fro and is a foreign Semite. He even acts like one of those kinds of people.
the problem is that the kenyans are not of the proper age, and have been running as professional athletes prior going to college.
Canadians or Australians who get selected are talented obviously and that's why they're picked, but they have come from a similar background as well. they have just finished school (which was their major occupation, not running.) so the playing ground is fair. when kenyans are picked, it's not fair. many kenyans admit to lying about their age so they will get picked up by a college.
brb im 18. brb he looks like 30.
bottom line though. White people like other white people, that's why eminem is so famous.
EPOed guys like Rupp did o.k. and went on to cheat in a medal at London. So why shouldn't Cam Levins and others take EPO too ?
Foreigners HAVE NO IMPACT ON AMERICAN DISTANCE RUNNERS.
Are they taking away their jobs?
Last I looked, American distance running is only getting better and the NCAA has been status-quo for the past 40 years with the amount of foreigners.
I used to race 'em and beat them and it was a lot of fun and great memories. My SR year I was the 3rd American to finish but still didn't make it to Nationals as an individual.
M.C. Confusing wrote:
I do love how the people that use Levins to call everyone racist miss the reason Levins was so loved. It has nothing to do with race. It was because Cam Levins was a 4:2x miler and 16:30+ 5k guy in high school. He was utterly mediocre. And through sheer force of piling on miles to the point where he was running 140 miles per week, he became one of the best runners in the NCAA, competing with guys that ran 13:50s in high school.
Cam Levins is what Letsrun inspires to be. Or wishes they had the stones to be. The mediocre kid that became great by working harder than everyone else. The African runners, fairly or not, are viewed as hyper-talented mercenaries. Guys who dont have to work all that hard to be great. That isn't exactly fair, because they work hard too. But that is how they are perceived, and that is why they are hated and Cam Levins was loved.
If one reads your second paragraph over again, you'll see there's lots of room for racism as a motivational factor for the haters and complainers. If it's not about race, then Abdi and Meb would be more beloved around here, right? I know Meb was a fine high schooler, but he was no German Fernandez, either. Nor a Ryan Hall, for that matter. Abdi didn't run at all in high school, if memory serves. And neither one was older than their other collegiate competitors.
Lastly, to those who say that African dominance is damaging interest in the sport, I'd love to see the evidence of this damage. It surely must be there, right? I'd love to see the attendance figures over the years that Hall, Ritz and Goucher were winning, vs. the last two years. If you don't measure interest that way, then there must be some other unimpeachable means to show this "obvious" drop in interest.
I respectfully disagree with the gentleman. First, some might argue that competing against superior foreign athletes will provide an impetus for American athletes to improve, but I will not rely on that argument.
To ask whether permitting foreign student athletes to compete in NCAA races is good for American distance running is to view the matter far too narrowly. Programs that bring foreign students to American universities are enormously beneficial not only to the foreign students who study here, but to the United States as well. Consider this small fact: after the turmoil and political change in Egypt, the President who replaced Mubarak has a graduate degree from Southern Cal. Egypt is vital to American interests in a volatile region, and we are far better off with a President in power who knows the United States from having attended a university here.
We can not invite foreign students to attend American universities and then circumscribe the activities they can participate in as students here.They are entitled to the full array of activities and sports that are open to any other student. They should no more be excluded from the cross country team than from the debating club or the school band. Foreign athletes should be banned from American national championships because they are not American citizens.
Let me take the opportunity to wish everyone in the LRC community a wonderful Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving thoughts always go back to the Turkey Trot in my home town, Buffalo, and I send special greetings to those who will be competing this Thanksgiving morning.
Who's Cam Levins?
..obvious wrote:
the problem is that the kenyans are not of the proper age, and have been running as professional athletes prior going to college.
Canadians or Australians who get selected are talented obviously and that's why they're picked, but they have come from a similar background as well. they have just finished school (which was their major occupation, not running.) so the playing ground is fair. when kenyans are picked, it's not fair. many kenyans admit to lying about their age so they will get picked up by a college.
brb im 18. brb he looks like 30.
1st, none of these guys look 30. A lot of them are a few years older than the other NCAA athletes, but they aren't 30.
2nd, A LOT of British and Irish runners are a few years older as well. People don't seem to mind very much, though.
Generally, it's pretty difficult to prove that some particular thing has caused damage to people's interest in another thing.
Anecdotally, I can remember a time when Sports Illustrated ran articles about track, cross country and marathons fairly frequently. Both national cross country championships and track championships, NCAA and AAU, were covered in most years (some for cross country, all years for track). The Boston Marathon was good for at least a short article. I can remember articles about the London to Brighton race, the Midland 15 km in New Jersey, articles about Gerry Lindgren, Ron Clarke, Dave MacKenzie, Derek Clayton, Kip Keino, Jim Ryun, Jurgen May, an East German, of all people, Michel Jazy. The list could go on and on.
There was a time when the Boston and New York Marathons were televised live and nationally. Local road races were covered by local newspapers in the sports pages and were actually about the competition rather than being about someone who's running because their grandmother died from the disease that the race is raising funds for.
All of that changed when almost the entire lead pack in big races became almost exclusively African. It wasn't happening when you had a mix of Africans and non-Africans at the front; when you had a Henry Rono and Juma Ikangaa mixing it up with Jon Sinclair and Bill Rodgers. There was still media coverage then which reflected some public interest. Of course this doesn't prove that the huge near all-African packs at the front of major races is why interest in the sport has declined but it's something that many observers have suggested as a reason for the diminishing fan and media interest.
On the other hand, I think we would not have the improved performances that we're seeing among the top Americans without the African presence. They've set the bar at a higher level than anyone would have imagined and I agree completely with John O'Donnell's post.
There is a simple solution: hold two races.
One is a competitive race that awards championship places and awards to the fastest athletes and teams.
The other is a special race just for American-born athletes. In this race, everyone gets a ribbon just for participating and is encouraged to feel special and as much like a winner as possible, without the dangers of actual competition. No one in the special just-for-American-born-joggers race is allowed to feel like a loser, so everyone gets exactly the same ribbon. Also: because the clock is biased toward faster runners, no time will be kept.
trollism wrote:
People are missing the point completely.
African dominance IS damaging the sport. Whether it's right or not is another matter.
Saying that African dominance is negative for the overall popularity of distance running is not racist.
Here's a solution: People can stop being racist (i.e. start seeing African runners as human beings striving, like anyone else, to be good at the sport). If people stop being racist, then "African dominance" no longer "damages the sport".
So, it's not racist, just jingoistic?
trollism wrote:
People are missing the point completely.
African dominance IS damaging the sport. Whether it's right or not is another matter.
Saying that African dominance is negative for the overall popularity of distance running is not racist.
To recognise the fact that the dominance of East Africans reduces the appeal of the sport to the "fans" is not racist - but racism is one of the reasons why the dominance of Africans leads to the sport being less popular.
I suspect nationalism is actually as big a factor as racism - Cam Levins was never as popular among US Americans as Rupp, Solinsky or Hall. But at the same time, Abdi Abdirahman will never be as popular as any of those. Mo Farah
Now, the question is, do you want to pander to racism by keeping "foreigners" out - or do you look for another way to increase the popularity.
College sports has the additional complication of a murky line between professionalism and amateurism. Top foreign athletes are often seen to be recruited first and foremost as athletes, which supposedly gives them an "unfair" advantage. For some reason, that seems to be accepted in sports like football, but not running - maybe the "white-collar" running fans are more racist than the "blue-collar" college football fans?
Querfeldein wrote:
To recognise the fact that the dominance of East Africans reduces the appeal of the sport to the "fans" is not racist - but racism is one of the reasons why the dominance of Africans leads to the sport being less popular.
That was my exact point from the very start.
Just seems that about 6 of the more hard of thinking posters didn't really understand.
As for the person who disagreed that the sport was struggling. Have you seen the world cross recently? Used to be popular - now it's not.
Cam Levins is white. These "foreigners" are black, or, more specifically, African. That's how.
End thread.
trollism wrote:
Are we supposed to use ESP to channel the fascinating stories while they answer 'I very happy' to every question in their interview?
+1!
Yeah! If there is one thing the LRC community will not put up with, it is bad grammar! I say the NCAA should ban everyone with bad grammar, foreign-born or not.
Foreigners won't kill the sport, but racists and Xenophobes just might.
trollism wrote:
Querfeldein wrote:To recognise the fact that the dominance of East Africans reduces the appeal of the sport to the "fans" is not racist - but racism is one of the reasons why the dominance of Africans leads to the sport being less popular.
That was my exact point from the very start.
Just seems that about 6 of the more hard of thinking posters didn't really understand.
As for the person who disagreed that the sport was struggling. Have you seen the world cross recently? Used to be popular - now it's not.
How do you know that world cross is not popular? It gets coverage every year. I bet it'd be more (maybe only slightly) popular if our top runners actually went and competed instead of staying home.