I have little respect for NCAA teams that assemble foreign XC Teams

I think the OP is specifying the East Africans and Kenyans is because they cheat. There is no regulation over there. All they do is dope. Nearly 300 athletes from Kenya have been punished for using banned substances since 2015.

What do y’all think of mandatory reporting (if it is’t already a thing) and getting TFRRS to add these two things to rankings.

- Age as of [pick the date]
- Nationality

That way LR grumps could run their own home grown age based rankings.

I don't know if you are having trouble understanding or you haven't been following recent recruiting updates. There is a massive increase in the amount of East African athletes who are clearly older coming into the NCAA. They are somehow able to get freshman eligibility with the way the rules work now. Schools are paying large amounts of money for recruiting services to handle a lot of the documents for these. A lot of these athletes have clearly run at a pro level already from their times.

There should be an age limit to stop this. I don't care if a team has an entire roster from a country. If the athletes are all 25 or older it's a problem. If a team had a 5 man roster of 27 year old white dudes from the UK it should still be a problem.

Isn't the "college athletes are employees" situation going to lead to serious cuts in non-major US college sports? Wouldn't that undermine a program's ability to bring in older internationals that should probably be pros if they can't offer the scholarships/NIL money they currently can?

Depends on the school.

There will probably be more full ride spots for Kenyans who can finish top 150 at nationals than there are eligible and fast enough Kenyans to fill those spots, however.

They arent 25 year old freshmen. Texas recruited a guy with a half marathon faster than the American record. Or OK State with this sophmore

worldathletics.org

Dennis KIPNGETICH | Profile | World Athletics

Dennis KIPNGETICH, Kenya - 10 Kilometres Road

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You see no problem with this. I agree with an earlier poster who said there should be an age limit. They said 24 but I think it should be if they are 23-24 when they show up they should get 3 years of eligibility and no (medical) redshirt.

The Kenyans would just cheat to get to whatever age they need - just like they do with drugs. An agent told me they have no morals or conscience…and don’t have anything to lose.

I once had a friendly Kenyan tell me it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t compete as a master : he said he was 40 but lied to be college-eligible years previously.

NCAA soccer has been getting more and more foreigners too, even Duke.

if I were king, I would limit teams to racing only two foreigners per XC race. And three per soccer roster. It’s taking away so many opportunities for US athletes.

This.

Lets do a cultural exchange....our 18-22 yr olds to E Africa, and their 22-26 yr olds to the US. Eventually, we can repatriate the US kids.

24 is too old. 23 allows for the normal 17 and 18 year old college freshman to finish in a fair and timely manner. It even allows for these kids coming out of Utah high schools at 19 and almost 19 to finish in a timely manner. I guarantee that if the hard cap is 23, all these missions will be done AFTER the eligibility expires, and all these redshirt + medical redshirt will suddenly vanish.

Sean Brosnan trained his Newberry Park team like a college team. They were developed in high school.

There are alot of bad high school coaches out there.

In DII last year only 1 of the 4 podium teams had even 1 American in their scoring 5.

Agree. D2 has been out of control.

Elite athletes are more than worth it to coaches trying to place in XC and score points in track. Your handful of 13:40 guys will get in the 50s or up in xc if they even make nationals and they will not score outdoors, whereas one 1:42 or 13:10 guy will qualify to nationals individually, challenge for the podium in xc, and score at indoor and outdoor track nationals. Ethiopia and Kenya have more than enough distance depth to fill the top ten American teams with second tier talent in their system. Add in strong talent from the UK and Down Under, and you can dominate far more easily with foreign-born athletes. That approach already rules NCAA golf, tennis, soccer, swimming, and others, where they have over 40% foreign scholarship athletes.

Let’s ban all athletes from turning Pro until they’re 24 because obviously the talent gap is too much for the college kids to handle. Lets ban all coaches over 50 because they have too much experience. Let’s ban Oregon from hosting NCAA because their track is too nice. Let’s ban all altitude training because it’s unfair for the teams in the southeast. Let’s ban

Honestly at this point American high schoolers will have to train like college athletes to have a chance to run in college. Any kid whose HS coach holds him back so he can develop in college won't get onto a college team. On top of that there will be kids severely limited by $$$ so the rich kids get to complete at the small liberal arts expensive D1 schools and those who can't afford that just won't be in the NCAA anymore because their state school is filled with foreign athletes. The whole "life isn't fair" is fine, but it's crazy to me how many people will claim to want to save American girls HS sports and then just tell the boys that life isn't fair.

Something else to consider. Men's Tennis is the number one dropped sport by NCAA schools. It does not help you Title IX wise. Many team rosters are solely international. It is one thing at a Power 4 school where only winning matters. However at a regional state funded university when you tell your AD & President that you have to recruit internationally to be competitive, then the reply may be "why do we keep the sport?"

Years ago I knew a tennis coach who told me he finally gave up. Every year he would go to the coach's convention and would stand up saying that they were killing the future of American tennis. Other coaches would just roll their eyes at him. On one thread we rant about how important collegiate "Olympic" sports are for the USA. If you are a taxpayer, is the reply "who's Olympic team?"

Yes, barely. I believe Vataanien did as well but neither lasted more than a year. And the whole episode seems really odd because Viren always has a translator when he's speaking to English speakers.