Coach watching wrote:
I have 3 friends who are D1 college coaches so I know the landscape pretty well. They have told me that there are no coaches today who offer anything for runners slower than 9:20 junior year. Mid-majors don't offer more money for slower runners. In fact. they may even offer less. Those programs are slow because they are underfunded. In today's environment where many teams have multiple guys running sub 14 who won't even score at a conference meet, 9:20 guys need to prove that they can run fast before they will be given anything.
Thinking through a number of D1 examples I know of that don’t fit this statement. Mostly, I think you are discounting results away from the 3200. Maybe it’s right that you need a really fast 3200 if everything else is subpar.
- two kids with solid XC results who focus on the 800 in track and two kids with solid XC results who focus on the 800 and 1600. They all have slowish 3200 times on the books because they never really tried there.
- kid with a history of injuries in track but some great XC results when healthy
- kid with subpar times but proven family results at the D1 level
- small school kid that never races top competition or goes to big meets to help push the pace