Is the Oregon dynasty done already?

I think the point that everyone is making here is that they are not buying the "woe is me" attitude being expressed about Portland. Face it, the Pilots have no fewer than five foreign runners on their team (tell me how this helps out American kids, when foreigners take the brunt of limited scholarship funds?). Had Portland run with an all American team, as did Oregon, the Pilots would not have been in the top 10 in their Region. Kenya native, Osoro was the #2 Portland runner, with Kipchunga, also from Kenya, finishing 3rd. If these two were not running, and Portland had to go deeper into their depth, their #6 runner was Maide from Norway. So, take these three out of the mix and Portland would not have done well. Had they gone deeper yet into their roster, Bozzone from New Zealand and and Kenyan, Tarns, would probably have been running. I don't buy this "woe is me", Oregon has all the Nike support crap. Portland has plenty of advantages (foreign runners, scholarships geared toward a single XC program, as compared to focusing on track and field, closer to Nike, etc., etc). All that said, let's see what happens at Terra Haute before saying that Portland is anywhere near the program that Oregon is.

What's your deal with having a couple foreign athletes on the team? Big deal. You act like we are talking about Alabama or something. Even so, let's do something ludicrous like holding out Osoro, Kipchumba, and the dude from Norway. Well first of all, we would add in Cosby and Frerker, the two runners Portland held out from Regionals (both American from the state of WA in case you want to play the foreign athlete card again). They are both better than Portland's 5th man at Regionals (Geiger). So with team scoring we have Betterbed (5th), Dunbar (11th), and Geiger (39th). We'll say that Frerker and Cosby have horrible races and finish right behind Geiger, with Frerker (40th) and Cosby (41st). I didn't even remove Osoro and Kipchumba from the scoring pool, and that adds up to 136 points. That would have been 16 points behind UW for 5th place at Regionals, and that is assuming the worst out of Frerker and Cosby, so they very likely would have been 4th. So quit saying they wouldn't have finished in the top 10.

Bloop Bloop! wrote:

But would they have beaten Oregon and the FULL backing of Nike without their Kenyans?

would oregon have beaten portland without the FULL backing of nike? would u of o have won national titles if they weren't "loaded" with foreigners like kiptoo? one name? kill them! these arguments are revisionist and stupid, and inaccurate too.

and everyone saying portland overachieved...they were within 7 or so points of oregon at dellinger. and the xc v. track debate is ridiculous. smith was fired for not prioritizing distance and balancing his team. oh, never mind, i mean vin's team is the balanced one, since, like everyone on this board, i don't know what i'm talking about. god, i just need to stay away from you idiots, taking years off my life and making me dummer.

Whoops, I forgot to remove Portland from 2nd place (duh). So they would have been 4th at the worst, most likely 3rd. Suck it.

This is a really stupid post, and teddy graham is just showing his bias. For the last time, Osoro went to high school in the US! He wasn't training with Kenyan national team or anything, he was just picking on a bunch of really slow Dakotans (is that what you call them?). Also, the reason Portland, Northern Arizona, Alabama, Iona, Auburn, FSU, Providence, and New Mexico and so many more go for these guys is because schools like Oregon take all the American talent! Between Oregon, Stanford, OSU, Wisconsin, and Colorado, that's a whole lot of American talent. Very little trickles down to other schools, so they go after who's left and African talent. Also keep in mind that these Africans who do come to the US, while they are talented, they aren't a lock to dominate. Flotrack has an interview with the head coach of New Mexico, and they ask him about all the foreign runners and how they are generally looked down upon. Basically what it comes down to is no sub 9:00 2 milers or even 9:30 2 milers are usually going to New Mexico.

Oregon chooses not to take foreign athletes, so props to them, but don't hate on the schools that are trying to pick up runners after the likes of Oregon, OSU, Stanford, Wisconsin, and Colorado have already cleaned up.

Oregon chooses not to take foreign athletes, so props to them,

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Not that I really think it matters that much, but this fact is wrong.

Oregon had Chris Winter last year whom is a foreigner, he ran at NCAA's cross and the NCAA steeple ( and got passed by 2 guys in the last 5 meters helping Oregon loose the meet). They also have the NCAA women's champ in the Hept, whom is a foreigner as well, Thiessen is her name. Buckman on the women's side is from Australia. They had another girl steepler from Canada as well last year, Dana Buchanan. Their "Kenyan" last few years was like the Portland "Kenyan" both simnilar to Meb's situation.

Vinn also recruited canadian Marpole- Bird, but lost him to Stanford when he told marpole Bird's dad that University of Oregon's adademics are as good as Stanfords. ( you have to be slick to sell that line, even to a Canadian).

Over the years, Oregon has had Canadians ( a lot!!), Brazilian, Norewegians, English, Irish, Australian etc run on their teams.

Granted their teams are in no way foreign dominated. They just are not like some schools which never recruit foreigners..

Boy, aren't you the angry one. So, in summation, since we are talking about the Portland men's team....(apples to apples)...Oregon once had a NW guy from Vancouver, B.C. (Chris Winter) on the team. They also once had a guy who grew up in Kenya as a child before moving to the US. On top of that, they had Brazilians and Norwegians on the team about 20 years ago. This is supposed to put them on the same field as a Portland with 5 current foreigners on their XC team, and Okie State with 8 foreigners, and Alabama with 6 foreigners????????

Women's track is another game. Title IX gives so many schollies to the women that it is difficult to find enough quality female athletes to fill a national level team. That said, Oregon has occasionally forayed to Canada for athletes like Thiessen and Buchanan--another game.

[quote]Teddy Graham wrote:

Boy, aren't you the angry one. So, in summation, since we are talking about the Portland men's team....(apples to apples)...Oregon once had a NW guy from Vancouver, B.C. (uote]

******

Teddy, Teddy, Teddy,...calm down. How is this guy the angry one?

The guy above was just saying that Oregon is not a foreign free team.

He is not saying either that Oregon is a foreign dominated team ( he even says that at the end of his post) or that is has as many foreigners as Portland. He is not comparing Oregon to Portland. It appears to me that he is just giving examples of a few Foreigners on the team, so that they do have the odd foreigner, disputing the claim of the post saying they Oregon is a team that does not have foreigners..

Some teams ( UCLA and Georgetown men in th 80's and 90's) I know used to not recruit foreigners at all. They could walk on the team, but not get a scholarship.

Have a beer, and calm down! ( unless this is AJ posting, then just calm down)

Without Kiptoo, the team title in 2008 between Oregon and Iona would have been extremely close. In 2007 they would have been crushed by Iona without Kiptoo. My guess is, you would still kiss his ass, regardless of the fact that he is a foreign athlete, for those team titles. If you are going to call Osoro a foreigner, then you have to call Kiptoo a foreigner. And I don't care if the guy is from Eldoret, Kenya or Vancouver, B.C., a foreigner is a foreigner.

Anyways, I have a hard time reading any of your arguments because it is clear that you must be terribly biased. Your continuous comments about how Portland "wouldn't have finished in the top 10 at Regionals without their foreigners" just show that you are either a troll, incredibly biased, or just incredibly stupid. I for one am excited to see what happens in 6 days. If Oregon brings their A game and the Portland guys run like they proved they can, it will be very close between them.

Oh, so now we agree on something. Oregon will bring their A game in six days and Portland(foreigners or not)will be looking at their B-Hinds. The day will belong to Stanford, but it will be a pleasure to watch the Purple bunch crawl off.

On a more serious note....who is this Betterbed guy? Where did he come from...seriously good runner and my kudos to Coach Conner.

Oh, so now we agree on something. Oregon will bring their A game in six days and Portland(foreigners or not)will be looking at their B-Hinds. The day will belong to Stanford, but it will be a pleasure to watch the Purple bunch crawl off.

On a more serious note....who is this Betterbed guy? Where did he come from...seriously good runner and my kudos to Coach Conner.

Teddy Graham wrote:

Oh, so now we agree on something. Oregon will bring their A game in six days and Portland(foreigners or not)will be looking at their B-Hinds. The day will belong to Stanford, but it will be a pleasure to watch the Purple bunch crawl off.

On a more serious note....who is this Betterbed guy? Where did he come from...seriously good runner and my kudos to Coach Conner.

See Teddy, I hate to jump on you again, but this shows that you know nothing about Portland's program, despite your "criticisms..."

So FYI, Betterbed has been running Portland's A team for the past three years and was top 60 last year at NCAAs.

So, Betterbed was top 60 last year. That wasn't very good, and that's why I asked about him--moving to #4 in the West is a huge step up. Is he consistent?

What have I criticized about the Pilot program? I only pointed out the obvious FACT that their team would not touch Oregon if they had to give up all their foreign runners. If you see that as a criticizm, then you are hyper-defensive for some reason.

And if Oregon had to give up all their Footlocker finalists they wouldn't touch Portland. What is your point? The FACT is they can do a hell of a lot more than touch Oregon, they can beat the tar out of them.

Betterbed placed 52nd at last year's national championship, and unless you are a top 15-20 contender, that is very good. A few guys who finished right around him are Centrowitz, Emmanuel Bor, Michael Coe, Ben True, Diego Mercado, Hillary Bor, and Augustus Maiyo. Now maybe you think for whatever reason that only a top 15 finish is noteworthy, but any time you're near the likes of these runners you're doing pretty damn well in my book.

Being top 4, as Betterbed was in the West this year, converts to a top 15 nationally. Thus my curiosity.

So you think Cento and Diego finishing around 60th would be acceptable this year? Diego, maybe because he has has a tough year (physically), but for Centro that would be unacceptable in a big race.

Do you even know what you're arguing about anymore?

Teddy Graham wrote:

What have I criticized about the Pilot program? I only pointed out the obvious FACT that their team would not touch Oregon if they had to give up all their foreign runners. If you see that as a criticizm, then you are hyper-defensive for some reason.

Well, first you criticized their "overuse" of foreign athletes, and keep referring to Osoro as a foreigner. He's not. And you ignore the fact that UO won their two national championships with Kiptoo as one of their top guys.

If Portland had run without Kipchumba - they would have run Frerker and/or Cosby - who are in their top 5-6.

Malde is not in thier normal top-7 - so there goes your story about dependency on foreign athletes by UP.

Give up all their foreign runners....laughable. Last year and the year before, you didn't see people complaining about Kiptoo...at least I didn't. Now, UO loses to UP, and your the one hating on the Pilots.

I am a long-time supporter of UO teams. I used to run against UP - however, you cannot ignore the fact that coach Conner has done much more with much less than UO. It's not like his top seven has >50% foreign athletes like some other programs - he doesn't have much history in recruiting foreign athletes....go back in their rosters, and you will find he has pretty much home-grown talent from Oregon & Washington.

So - you are criticizing UP - a lot. As a Duck supporter, and a Pilot convert, I'm extremely happy that two of the top half-dozen programs in the country are located within a two hour drive of my house.

Why is having foreigners on your team a bad thing?

haha, YO wrote:

Why is having foreigners on your team a bad thing?

Well, to me, it's economics. Not all schools can afford them. Doesn't mean it's bad though.

What I don't like is when public schools (state-funded) give scholarships (my tax money) to foreign athletes....now, some schools have ways around that, props to them - and I also understand the underlying issue of building a competitive program....so overall, I don't think it's a bad thing....