NJCAA / JUCO track program suck???

Yes there are some fast people but they are all really dumb. They pretty much scored a 16 on the ACT which is what an average 4th grader would score.

Did they?

Please show us the evidence for that dumb claim.

I don’t even think the average 4th grader would know how to answer more then 1 question. If they were to get a 16 it would be all guessing. The average 4th grader barley knows fractions, multiplication and division. Also the science would be way above there level but there might be some basic questions they could answer. Honestly I don’t see the average 4th,5th or even 6th grader getting above a 8 I’m not exactly sure how the scoring work but I know the max is a 36.

Since you don't know "there" from "their", you are not a good resource. The ACT is multiple choice. Knowing absolutely nothing gets a score of about a 9. English as your first language gets you to about 15. So yes. a 16 is average for a young American child. Sorry to confuse you with the facts. The average student at Stanford scores 34. The average at Oregon is 25. The average at NAU is 22. JUCOs have no requirement. Athletes attend JUCOs prior to moving on to a real university because they score below 18 on their ACT.

Please crawl back under your bridge you troll.

Clearly you've never coached at a JUCO before

Aren't JUCOs much cheaper than a 4 year college and offer pretty much the same intro classes? It's financially smarter to take your u1-u2 classes at a JUCO for a fraction of the price of a university, intro to chemistry/calculus 1-2 etc... is the same wherever you take it. I feel like the 4 year universities are worth it in years 3-4 when you take advanced courses from really knowledgeable profs and work on bigger projects ... for intro/weeding out classes it really doesn't matter, you could learn that stuff on youtube if you wanted to.

No. The thread started by talking about world class athletes who would be on a full ride at a real university. Smart students also pay much less at real universities than JUCOs due to academic scholarships that JUCOs don't offer. But you are correct that the poor students who are not great athletes do pay less at a JUCO.

Do JUCO track programs suck? It all depends on your criteria. There are programs at all ends of the spectrum, just like NCAA. If you're talking about what's produced on the track or the field, there are some outstanding programs. Some are more geared to sprints and jumps, others to distance.

There are all sorts of reasons people go to community colleges. The important thing is choosing the educational and athletic paths that are right for you. If you continue to improve in athletics and work towards a degree, it doesn't matter where you are.

So Grant Fisher possibly should have gone to a JUCO instead of Stanford if it does not matter?

Freshman teaching at a JUCO is significantly better than at most DI schools. Lots of DI STEM washouts end up as STEM majors, like engineering, at a JUCO and then transfer and succeed. Junior JUCO transfers many times do significantly better than their peers who start at a major university. There was a study done about 20 years ago, but I lost track of that. DI isn't for everyone.

JUCOs were rolled out in the mid 20th century, citing the need for continual retraining and upgrades to education. Circumstances change. Career paths are cut short. People need to go back to college midstream, sometimes while working. JUCOs are in the community to make this a reality. The need is accelerating. Anyone who thinks they will attend college for 4 years and find a solid career path that will last 35-40 years is naive. You may be back in college sooner than you think, and it won't be at Harvard or MIT.

JUCOs have some really smart people, many who didn't fit in with the high school academic (or non-academic) culture, yet are genuinely smart. JUCO's also have some students who really struggle. Anyone who stereotypes university students as smart and JUCO students as dumb is a simpleton.

I have taught for 37 years in a JUCO, and consider this. I turned out hundreds of very successful students who work in every conceivable area of manufacturing from Chevy to Boeing to SpaceX. They all have one thing in common: they graduate from a local university with little or no debt, and work along side peers with 120k in debt. Yes, they all make the same starting salary.

Very nice post! Most college/university track students and their parents don't want to hear this but the cost of tuition is excluding many these days. I'd have to add that apprentice programs for the trades are pretty attractive these days as well. The number of high paying jobs for advanced degrees is in short supply because of the indoctrination of one can only be successful with a college degree. I know a PhD (physics) that runs a sun glasses hut at the shopping mall and another (chemistry) that runs a convenience store.

As far as quality athletes at JUCO goes...

I'm sure some will have some negative things to say about Steve Silvey at Blinn CC before they shut that program down but my gosh....what I saw at the Sun Angel classic one year in the early 90's was amazing! They would have challenged any D1 program like Arkansas, Florida etc... They might have lost to them on depth but definitely not on top end talent.

I have worked at two levels of coaching...JUCO and DI. It is very unfair to catagorize all JUCO athletes as dumb.

Many athletes fit one of the broad descriptions below

1) Internationals from nations where there was no infastructure to get athletes DI eligible out of secondary school; usually lesser recruited African nations (these were my favorite, as the talent was there and they often had no problem transferring after two years)

2) Talented athletes (domestic and international) who for whatever reason we're not DI eligible

3) Good athletes who were DI eligible but not talented enough for big DI or DII scholarships, but wanted free school and the opportunity to run collegiately (think 3:55 men's 1500m runners from foreign nations)

4) Local Americans who wanted to get two years done cheap (a lot of these athletes qualified for tuition scholarships, but would not even be given walk on spots for DI programs). This group often did not transfer athletically, but many were appreciative of the scholarship and opportunity and also were very fun to work with

At the institution I worked for most athletes were either group 1 or 4, with a couple from 2. Other competitive schools really focused of athletes in the third catagory. I would say none of the nationally competitive programs none focused of recruiting the second catagory (except maybe NMJC).

Wrong. You are focused on a very narrow group of athletes, male distance runners. There are baseball players, soccer. basketball, and many other sports. I coached basketball at a JUCO. 75% of our players were too dumb to be accepted to D1 colleges and the other 25% would have been D3 material. That is much more common for D1 athletes other than the few foreign distance runners. We had none at my school. We did have a few distance runners who received partial scholarships and lived at home to save money.

The question is regarding track, not other sports.

Okay. The answer is that nearly every world class track athlete that attends a JUCO is a foreigner who fails their ACT because English is their second language. 99% of the top American track athletes attend a D1 school. The other 1 percent fails their ACT and they attend a JUCO and then either go pro or drop out or they graduate to a D1 school.

I appreciate your response. The answer is not answering the question. Do JUCOs suck? Not where do JUCO athletes come from?

younger man wrote:

So Grant Fisher possibly should have gone to a JUCO instead of Stanford if it does not matter?

Look, if you've got a d1 scholarship, obviously you should take it. If your parents are loaded and you can walk on at NAU, you should do it. I'm talking about a guy who could run for an out of state school or maybe an expensive d3 private school. Or the kid who struggled academically. There is nothing wrong with going to a community college, provided they have a decent team and coach. Whether you spend 2 years at local comm college and 2 years at Central Bumfuk or 4 years at Central Bumfuk, you're going to end up with about the same prs. Obviously if you chose a really crappy team to run for that's not the case. Stellar coaching, flying across the country for meets, new shoes every season, etc. is only going to do the littlest bit for a highly committed athlete. I'd rather someone run at all than convince themselves they can hit the walk on standard next year or run for a xc only school.

I have coached D1 for 30 years and I am a Juco Grad. My time at my Juco was amazing! Best time of my life by far! Allowed me to gradually improve both athletically and academically. Best decision of my life by far. As a 53 yr old - I maintain more relationships with my friends from Juco now more so than any other era of my life. You will without a doubt be benefited in your life with a Juco experience prior to D1. Best of luck