College recruiting advice for a 9:34 guy

I tell this to all high school boys that are good but not the elite(and sometimes i even tell the elite this) WORK ON THE STEEPLCHASE BARRIERS. The steeple is still an event at the college level that has room to grow. Find the nearest college in your town and work on the water jump amd barriers. If those facilities are not availiable. Go to your local high school and practuce hurdling at 33 and then eventually 36 inch hurdles. Tell the college that is currently recruiting you that you have worked on the steeple and see if the coach may feel your are a more marketable to his or her college program.

As a 9:34 guy, you are "just a bit outside" of most D1 interest, but realistically, you are one good race from being what many want. Obviously the recruiting is now, so for now you are a 9:34 guy.

Power 5 schools for the most part won't be interested. As has been said, yes, you can find slower guys on most of those teams, but there's usually a reason, and it will be one that doesn't apply to you. The guy has a full ride academically and so it's not a big deal to give him a shot, or he's the nephew of the AD, or he wants to be a coach and worked out a deal with the coach, or whatever. Never base your chance on a team on the slowest guy there. Why would you want to do that anyway? You'll race less. You'll get less attention and interest from the coaches, etc.

Are these schools far enough south for you?:

Davidson

George Washington

George Mason

Atlantic 10 Conference. Good schools. Davidson gives great financial aid.

Perch wrote:

I have absolutely no idea how a coach from a school like FL or GA would respond if contacted by a 4:35/9:34 guy. Might just ignore it. But if I were a collegiate coach and had a 4:35/9:34 guy contact me I would ask a few questions. How long have you been running? Weekly mileage? Injuries? What was your HS program like? Progression through HS? Caliber of competition? Probably a few more if I thought about it for a bit. Send emails to the programs you're interested in and see if you get any responses. Doesn't hurt to ask. Maybe answer a few of the questions I listed to save the coach from having to ask.

Yes. 9:34 as a junior is not a death sentence.

Did you train all 3 previous years?

Do you think you can run something competitive as a senior?

i cant sub 5 :( wrote:

So, as a junior with a 9:34.46 3200, I was wondering some schools I would realistically be able to be recruited by. My 1600 won't help me as its only 4:35. I'm mostly searching for schools in the southeast U.S. I've done some research but most of the school I've seen don't have walk-on/scholarship standards for me to go off of.

For example, would I have a chance of being able to run for Florida or Georgia?

If you can get under 9:20 your senior year that would help increase the selection of schools. But what I would suggestion someone also said, contact the coaches and ask. Send the coach an email letting him know your times and some basic info. If they r interested they will contact u back. Good luck let us know how it goes. I 56 now but I was in a similar situation 37 years ago. I contacted the coach and walked on to the program. Wish u the best young man!!

1600m506pr:-/ wrote:

I've done a lot of research on this over the last year. If you don't run 4:10/ 15:30 you will likely never get on the team bus for a D1 team. The point of being on the team is to race, right?

However, you can be an important contributor from day one on many good D2 schools (ranked 15-25 nationally) or most NJCAA schools.

4:10/ 15:30 in College right ?

Find a school where you will 1) fit in with the coach and team, 2) will provide you a good education and 3) that is willing to offer you money. Don't go to Florida or Georgia just because of the name.

You need to reach out to coaches. Fill out questionnaires, even if it's a long shot. Show them you have potential and work hard and be prepared to face some rejections ... It's part of life. A school I reached out to told me I could talk to them once I ran 1:55 / 4:15 (I had a 1:59/ 4:22 as PRs which really aren't too bad lol) ... you just have to accept that.

as a junior I had your exact 3200/1600 times. I thought about walking on to a couple of bigger universities but went D3 instead and after coaching in the DI world for 4 years I think I made the right call. I was able to be a contributing member to some really good teams and it helped me continue to grow. Highly recommend looking at D3.

The worst distance team in the Big 10 left home a 3:45 guy and a 14:20 guy at the conference meet because they didn't make their travel roster limit of 32. That's the worst distance program.

1600m506pr:-/ wrote:

I've done a lot of research on this over the last year. If you don't run 4:10/ 15:30 you will likely never get on the team bus for a D1 team. The point of being on the team is to race, right?

However, you can be an important contributor from day one on many good D2 schools (ranked 15-25 nationally) or most NJCAA schools.

Did you look at just P5 conferences? There are D1 conferences where a 4:10 mile will podium and maybe even win the conference meet.

Sounds like an outlier situation ... Many runners worse than 14:20 made the big 10 conference champs, and I'd say big 10 is one of the better distance conferences in D1.

36 people make conference .. the 36th performance in the big 10 5000 last year was 14:41, and that's considering 5 (possibly 6) years of development from junior year of high school to senior year of college. I just think it's a little unreasonable saying you need to be a 4:10 / 15:30 highschooler to travel in college ... that's a top recruit. Plenty of 4:20/16:00 guys will go on to be NCAA qualifiers and finalists.

Mr. Slippyfist wrote:

as a junior I had your exact 3200/1600 times. I thought about walking on to a couple of bigger universities but went D3 instead and after coaching in the DI world for 4 years I think I made the right call. I was able to be a contributing member to some really good teams and it helped me continue to grow. Highly recommend looking at D3.

I agree D3 is a great option. Look for coaches who have been consistently good at taking kids with your times and making big improvements. Just as some athletes prefer a D3 setting over a D1 setting there are some really good coaches who prefer D3 also.

Not an outlier. I challenge you to list the guys who have PRs above 14:20 that competed at the conference meet for a team that finished in the upper 1/2. I doubt you find more than 1 or 2. But Ibwas responding to someone who didbt believe numbers like 4:10 and 15 minutes. Big 10 conference Teams are limited to 32 athletes. Yes you can maybe get to the meet if running for one or two of the doormat teams. But how fun is that? It took 13:52 just to place at the indoor meet.

I had about the same times in HS 40+ years ago, then ran on a very tiny partial scholarship at a local junior college for one year. They ran me into the ground, so I trained myself from then on and have never looked back. I did try to walk on at a large university when I transferred but did not have time to put in the training they did and keep my grades up. I ran much better solo and certainly enjoyed it a lot more than I did running for a team. The financial aspect was pretty minimal in my case, so ditching the scholarship for peace of mind and my personal health made a lot of sense. Good luck!

Also, the long term payoff for focusing on your education and getting a useful degree is MUCH higher than any financial return you will get from running. Run if you enjoy it but don't expect it to put food on the table.

What are your grades like, what do you wanna study, how long have you ran, and how much does cost matter? Look at instate schools as well...

I looked up 5 years worth of high school senior runners in my state that were slower than 15:30 and over 4:15. I also looked up girls stats who were slower than 19:00 in high school.

Of the 150 or so, one qualified for the Olympic trials, maybe 2-3 others had mild D1 success.

D2, D3, NAIA and NJCAA is where the sub elite high school prospect found success.

I'm not opposed to D3 as a whole, but most of these schools don't offer engineering and have a very high tuition rate. so although they may be great for me athletically, they don't fit my bill academically or financially.

I trained starting the summer before my freshman year, but I comparatively sucked until this past season (my sophomore PRs in the 1 mile/ 2 mile were 4:54 and 10:19). I do think that with some higher mileage I can continue to make big jumps.

original poster wrote:

Should’ve clarified in the original post but I’m not looking for or expecting any athletic scholarships, I just meant a spot on the team. Thanks for that website

How about you give some thought to the poor shlub who is having to pay for all this = your father. You are obviously a Georgia resident. Sadly, you don't have a lot to choose from. Georgia sucks when it comes to colleges.