Rita Gary (Furman Coach) tweets about foreign athletes

I am not sure if the NCAA has ever had an age limit. I do think that an NCAA athlete's eligibility should end the calendar year the athlete turns 23. This allows for the normal 18-22 year old college age window plus one extra year in case of red shirt. People that were old for their grade in high school might miss out, but then again they had the advantage of being old for their grade in high school.

You realize that IG now tells you who linked the video when you click on a link, right “runfurman”?

Gee, no bias there.

It’s what Oregon , Alabama. New Mexico, Oklahoma State, Florida does. Good for her for calling these coaches out who buy wins instead of developing them

You do realize they still have to develop those athletes to be able to WIN right, they can’t just start winning immediately the moment they get here, as we all saw in XC at nationals.

Gary was clear about her goal, developing college-age Americans. Other people here, though, are hypocrites for rejecting affirmative action because they think it means that schools are accepting worse students, while demanding that college coaches take slower athletes because they are American.

Most of those school athletes have their own program and train that way. I know for a fact that multiple athletes at those schools are not twined directly by the college coach. The Florida coach who was at Alabama, for example, would let his 26- and 28-year-old Kenyans do as they please. And now, let's not forget about Oklahoma, whose national champ never used a computer before he showed up for school. Dave Smith did not develop him or others. They pay a huge upfront fee to agents to buy them. And let's not get started with Oregon.

Not using a computer is no indication of a lack of academic ability. Not reading books would be. However, Musau is much older than he says he is. A video he posted in 2021 makes him look like he is in his early to mid 20s now. That does not make him one of the older foreign NCAA athletes but he is definitely misrepresenting his age by a lot.

I do not think most people here know ms McCabe being Canadian....

She said out loud what a lot of coaches were thinking. Way to put your name on it. Unfortunately with NIL, the student part of student athlete has gone out the window. It is no longer a world of amateur athletes (which derives its name from the Latin word for love). These are now pros. In the NIL game $60k is a bargain (the football coach might have a hard time finding a top kicker or punter for $60k).

I get it but these are the rules, you can complain about them online but nothing will happen unless the rules change.

The whole idea of the ncaa being “fair” has never been the case. It’s not fair at all, we can try to make it that way but it never will be.

Coach Gary works at a small school in western South Carolina. And they recruit mostly American but I’d imagine the school and admission cater to Americans. The SEC and Big 12 schools loaded with international, probably because it is easier for them to recruit and get them admitted.

It’s not going to change, this recruiting game is going to explode.

This is the dumbest argument ever. Those American athletes are slower because they are 17 years old in high school as opposed to 23 year old international athletes. What we are calling for is a level playing field for American athletes because at this rate in 10 years Americans will be the minority in NCAA track and field.

The fastest way to ruin track and field in America is to deprive our biggest fan base - high school and college students - opportunities to continue in our sport. Why would they watch the NCAA championships or USATF championships when the sport betrayed them?

The NCAA Division 1 is effectively a professional sports league at this point. It should institute foreign athlete limits just as European soccer leagues do.

To point out the flaw in your broad stroke statement it appears the Furman staff is actually coaching more athletes per paid staff member than the programs with basically unlimited funding that you prop up here. Surprisingly, Virginia has a higher coach/athlete ratio. So, I will park this here comparing staff to number of athletes.

Staff does not count Grad Assistants, strength staff and other support staff like trainers, nutritionist and the like.

Tennessee - 12 paid coaches + 2 directors of Ops
SEC 35 men/45 women - 80 athletes (5.7 athletes/paid staff member)

Virginia Tech- 11 coaches + 1 director of Ops
ACC 45 women/45 men - 90 athletes (7.5 athletes/per paid staff member)

Arkansas - 11 coaches + 2 directors of Ops
SEC 35/45 - 80 athletes (6.1 athletes/staff)

Georgia - 10 coaches + 2 directors of Ops
SEC 35/45 - 80 athletes (6.6 athletes/staff)

Illinois- 10 coaches + 2 directors of Ops
Big 10 45/45 - 90 athletes (7.5 athletes/staff)

Oregon- 9 coaches + 3 director of ops
Big 10 (45/45)- 90 athletes (7.5 athletes /staff)

Texas A&M - 8 coaches + 2 director of ops
SEC 35/45 - 80 athletes ( 8.0 athletes /staff)

Alabama - 8 coaches + 2 director of ops
SEC 35/45 - 80 athletes (8.0 athletes /staff)

Florida - 8 coaches + 2 director of ops
SEC 35/45 - 80 athletes (8.0 athletes /staff)

NC State - 8 coaches + 2 director of ops
ACC 45/45 - 90 athletes (9.0 athletes /staff)

Washington - 8 coaches + 1 director of ops
Big 10 (45/45)- 90 athletes (10 athletes /staff)

Southern Cal - 8 coaches + 1 director of ops
Big 10 (45/45)- 90 athletes (10 athletes /staff)

Minnesota- 8 coaches + 1 director of ops
Big 10 (45/45)- 90 athletes (10 athletes /staff)

South Carolina- 7 coaches + 2 directors of ops
SEC (35/45)- 80 athletes (8.8 athletes /staff)

UNC - 7 coaches + 1 director of ops
ACC (45/45) - 90 athletes (11.25 athletes /staff)

Texas Tech - 7 coaches (0 women) + 2 director of ops (both women)
Big 12 (45/45) - 90 athletes (10.0 athletes/staff)

Auburn - 6 coaches + 1 director of ops
SEC (35/45)- 80 athletes (11.4 athletes /staff)

BYU - 7 coaches + 1 director of ops
Big 12 (45/45) - 90 athletes (11.25 athletes/staff)

Virginia - 6 coaches + 1 director of ops
ACC (45/45) - 90 athletes (12.8 athletes/staff)

Furman - 4 coaches
23 men/23 women = 46 total athletes (11.5 athletes/staff)

To summarize, it really is fairly ignorant and ridiculous to say a 4 member staff with highly likely a limited budget and not even 1 director of ops should be held to the same team standard as power 4 teams with much greater funding. Great coaches find ways to win. So, be good at something or suck at everything? I would guess they have chosen to be really good at distance based on the results they have produced over the past decade at a no-name school when they arrived.

If this is too long to read skip to the last paragraph.

It really should not be hard for a (coach) to get an adult 27:00 or 59:30 HM guy to run 27:45 or a 14:58 women to run 15:30. Is that development?

From what I can find Furman had a guy place 3rd in XC and he was 7th (top U.S. finisher) in the 10K, plus a guy place 3rd in the steeple (2nd US). What did those 2 do 4 years ago in HS? My guess is no where near what the NM, Tx Tech guys did nearly a decade ago when they were HS age.

Look it’s commonly known a few, say less than 20, top International athletes in NCAA D1 track are receiving in excess of $100,000 per year deals right now and $1,000 to $3,000 per month deals are very common. These are mostly distance runners since they have 3 seasons of value. Good for them.

Let’s just point out this is not sustainable and this, along with paying $60,000/year to a recruiting service for access to that most elite athlete list, will ultimately lead to teams getting eliminated. Key in this statement is $60K gets you access to athlete recruit list behind the Agent. Think of it as a pay wall. There seems to be lots of international recruiting services popping up that have a $5,000 buy in for access, but if you want to play in the men’s world of sub 27:50, sub 13:20 recruits, or women’s world of sub 4:08, sub 15:20 recruits you better have a very big bank roll. How is that not buying your talents? How is that meeting the NCAA higher education objective?

Obviously, only a few teams can even play that game and it’s easy to see who those programs are. I know, I know. Coaches are being paid to win and likely why the SEC is quickly adapting to a roster limit of 10 xc and 35 track by buying athletes. This model is not sustainable for the sport although D2 & D3 should prosper and fill the future void with many excellent coaches in those divisions. It will become the new normal and if you want to keep your moral compass intact where you will need to find yourself as a college coach.

Maybe it’s just out in the open these days but there certainly seems to be more shady people involved these days, or at least visibly involved. Let’s not forget, that’s always a 2 way street to play. One’s character very rarely changes for the good. The higher the pressure the more some are willing to push the envelope and justify their decisions and actions. Say, like running athletes in the NCAA who they knew were facing a WADA drug sanctions which Arkansas, Tulane and TCU have done in the last 2 seasons alone. Oh wait, those sanctions were still in the appeals process soooooooo. See how easy it is to justify.

Ornelas has some comically bad takes on Twitter so not too surprised to see his name in this but I'm somewhere in between on this. The NCAA operates as a semi-pro/minor league for its biggest sports. T&F + XC are catching up to football/basketball in the NIL era. I don't have an issue with someone wanting to come to the US to get a good education and playing a sport gets them that. I do think you can do it poorly/with no commitment to the athlete other than their times. Hopefully kids are getting good support from their coaches in more than just running. But let's not act like this is new. My college has been recruiting white international kids from Ireland/Australia/New Zealand for decades. They won a recent XC championship with a healthy # of international runners scoring. Nobody cared. Now you're seeing 1/2 of an ncaa track championship field filled by Kenyan athletes & people do seem to care. Idk why that is. Idk if the Furman coach is mad about the runners from my school.

At the end of the day, US runners are getting better & better so if there are less spots in D1 maybe that'll push them into D2/D3 and, honestly, that could be a good thing. It's ridiculous how much traveling the big schools do for conference meets. It would be cool to see people competing in state or regionally against close by schools.

Yes, for the 1 millionth time, people are pissed there are a ton of athletes from Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand competing in the NCAA too. People do care they are taking roster spots and scholarships away from Americans.

It's 100% understandable to be MORE upset over the Kenyan athletes than over the Irish athletes, because the Kenyan athletes have an extremely high rate of drug cheating and age cheating. They also were clearly receiving pro running $$$ as well and should not be eligible but the athletes and coaches lied to the NCAA.

Being mad about having to compete against 28 year old Kenyan dopers DOES NOT mean we are happy about the 23 year old Irish athletes in the NCAA. But we want to fix the biggest problems (and biggest NCAA violations) first.

+1000000 So sick of people trying weasel in these accusations of racism when people point out the obvious issues with Kenyan internationals (for the record I also support limiting internationals from Europe, NZ, ect. as well)

In addition this whole "well this is actually a good thing because American kids will be forced to go to JUCOS, NAIA, and crappy D2 schools and make them better" is the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard. So I'm supposed to get happy that our kids can't attend the STATE SCHOOLS THAT WE PAY FOR to make room fot foreigners. WTF!!!

Why should our children have to yield their opportunities in OUR COUNTRY to foreigners. There are lots of reasons to attend a large state school besides sports like better academic scholarships, financial aid, research opportunities, ect. There is no JUCO running Renaissance coming bozos. This is literal trickle-down economics theory yet people present it like some awesome point int favor of Kenyans.

Not dumb. I point to a direct contradiction. You offer a different argument, that it is about age. Then it applies equally to the Mormons. The Americans are 18 when they enter college, sometimes 19, not 17, so the real comparison is between 18/19 year olds and peak age athletes, who may be Mormon or international. If you can enforce an age limit without a religious exemption and without violating age discrimination laws, you'll see find 22 year old transfers competing for scholarships with 18 year olds, but at least it will be limited to some degree. You'll also be dependent on the veracity of foreign birth certificates. In reality, the objection is just to international athletes from Africa.

There is nothing about holding these two positions that makes me or anyone else a hypocrite. I am against our universities discriminating against white and asain Americans on the basis of their race. I am also against tax funded scholarships at state schools being given to foreigners. These two positions are not in conflict at all.

If a black American, gay American, or anyone else runs a faster mile than a straight white dude they should get the scholarship. If a 28 year old man from the world's doping capital runs a faster mile, he should not. This is just some weak attempt at a gotcha because you know your proposal (giving tax funded scholarships to foreigners) is ridiculous and would be hated by the vast majority of Americans.