Hard to get recruited

You tried every P5 in Mississippi...so Old Miss, a National level team where sub 8 3k is what it takes to be a top 7 guy and Miss State who does not sponsor mens XC and has zero incentive and chance of scoring mens distance points against Ole Miss, Alabama, and Arkansas.

If those times are legit I guarantee schools would offer them at DI level (outside of P5). Lipscomb, South Alabama, MTSU, North Florida and Belmont are the best DIs in that same region, right now, and some (maybe all) of those schools would put an offer out for those times if you contacted them.

You are blinded by your ego and your arrogance.

It honestly sounds like you just want to be able to brag that your sons run for a big name school. They care more about the football and basketball teams at a school than whether the track program is a good fit for them....WTF??????

not clueless wrote:

You are blinded by your ego and your arrogance.

It honestly sounds like you just want to be able to brag that your sons run for a big name school. They care more about the football and basketball teams at a school than whether the track program is a good fit for them....WTF??????

Correct! "P5" is really just a football thing. It has no real bearing on track and field. If you're stuck on big name schools (that are only big name because of football), then that's pretty sad.

There are lots of good schools out there, even if they won't be playing in the ESPN bowl games.

Not once has the OP mentioned getting an education as the main driver of this process. That is very telling. It seems that going to a P5 with a big time athletic department is the goal. More interest in the brand name rather than the quality of the product?

If your kid doesn’t have pro potential based on his high school performances, then why pine for the big elite programs? Wouldn’t it be better to get more money and four years of racing at a mid major instead of getting book money and left off of the travel squad? Those big schools will always bring in studs that will push your son down the depth chart.

The blanket includes 30 schools. It doesn't mean one thing is more important. And if the school is big-name in your words, more employers will have heard of the school.

Honestly, your problem is looking only at Power 5s. 4:16/9:20 are fine junior times, but it's pretty much expected that a guy like that will be walking on at best at a Power 5. In 2021, over 100 juniors ran 4:16 or faster. That's a lot of competition to deal with. Combine that number with all the sub-9:20 juniors that didn't run 4:16, and all the guys that ran well in XC this year and didn't run 4:16, and your son comes out as probably the 200th best recruit in his class. There are 65 P5 schools. Not all of them have an XC team, and many of them do not put money into their distance team. So, realistically, there are maybe 50 full rides available to P5, and maybe 100 30-70% scholarships. Your son is on the outside looking in.

However, there are over 300 Division I schools with cross country teams. Some of the mid major teams have very competitive programs and academics (the America East and Ivy League have already been mentioned, but almost every conference has at least one team that is stronger than some Power 5s. I disagree with the sentiment that you should look at D3. They are D1 level talent, and no matter what the people here say, D3 is ridiculously weak compared to D1 and you will simply not see the same level of competition at all. Go D1, but look at mid majors where your son will actually get a scholarship and the attention of the coaches.

Lowest Common Dominator wrote:

Not once has the OP mentioned getting an education as the main driver of this process. That is very telling. It seems that going to a P5 with a big time athletic department is the goal. More interest in the brand name rather than the quality of the product?

If your kid doesn’t have pro potential based on his high school performances, then why pine for the big elite programs? Wouldn’t it be better to get more money and four years of racing at a mid major instead of getting book money and left off of the travel squad? Those big schools will always bring in studs that will push your son down the depth chart.

Correct as well! Trust me, ten years after you graduate no one will care where you went to college, and they certainly won't care that you were on the track team.

Go somewhere that you can get a good education at a good price (meaning, you stay out of debt). Graduating debt free...now that WILL benefit you ten years after you graduate!

ALSO...If you run in college, go somewhere that you will actually get to race. I'll never understand why good, but not great, high school runners get so hung up on big name schools where they probably won't get entered in a meet until their junior year (if they last that long). What's the point of being on a track team if you never get to race? So you can be the fastest kid in your dorm on weekends while your teammates are away at meets?

Don't knock D3! For kids with a high GPA and good SAT scores, those "weak" institutions can generally put together a much better academic aid package than most D1 schools can offer for athletics. I have known a few kids with similar times to the OP's son that went to great D3 institutions for next to nothing. Most received only lukewarm interest from lower rung D1 programs that could have used them. As someone said up thread, getting your degree with little to no debt is the goal.

D1 competition is better by far but, why does that matter in the grand scheme of things? 4:19 runners do not suddenly become 3:57 guys getting towed along at a big invitational. Improving to 4:10 will not get you into the same heat as the sub 4:00 guys. In D3, a 4:10 kid makes the national meet and can get some glory. In D1, he might not survive the semi-final at most conference meets and his season ends in mid-May each year. Worse, he gets put in the "B" heat every year or doesn't get that sweet bus trip to the conference meet.

This thread should be shown to every recruit/parent. It would save them from the stupid belief that they must go power 5.

I see so many 4:15 runners go to a power 5 school and never achieve anything, often times never even racing. Then I see kids at that ran 4:30-4:40 in high school run 14:00/29:00 for 5k and 10k at a mid major or D3 school.

Surely those runners aren't more talented than the 4:15 runners, but they actually get individualized coaching. They actually get opportunities to compete.

Here he comes wrote:

The blanket includes 30 schools. It doesn't mean one thing is more important. And if the school is big-name in your words, more employers will have heard of the school.

In reality, what you can do with your education is waaaaay more important to an employer than if they've heard of the school or not...

Your son does not need to run in the P5. I know plenty of guys, myself included, that have run faster time than either of your son's, don't get P5 offers, and go somewhere mid-major D1 on a full ride (combination of academic and athletic). Unless your son's only goal is to say he runs P5, he'd be much better off contacting some mid-majors.

Additionally, coaches don't just recruit off of times. They recruit off potential. The fact that your oldest son ran 4:12/9:10 in HS and then only ran 4:08/24:45 (8k XC I assume), means that he was pretty close to tapped out in HS although the 24:45 is more impressive than the 9:10 if it was a legit course and not a flat fast course. With that being said, he didn't improve much in college (which although it could be bc of poor coaching), it could point to them being pretty well trained in HS, and if they were already receiving higher end training in HS, then college coaches could see your younger son as being low-ceiling, and not worth the money.

Just my two cents as someone who just went through this entire process not too long ago.

not a game wrote:

This thread should be shown to every recruit/parent. It would save them from the stupid belief that they must go power 5.

I see so many 4:15 runners go to a power 5 school and never achieve anything, often times never even racing. Then I see kids at that ran 4:30-4:40 in high school run 14:00/29:00 for 5k and 10k at a mid major or D3 school.

Surely those runners aren't more talented than the 4:15 runners, but they actually get individualized coaching. They actually get opportunities to compete.

exactly, just go run at BYU, not a power 5.

just the ticket wrote:

It is very common. Most 4:15 type kids have a hard time finding a home because they want to be on a P5 team but don't get much love. I have had several kids at you sons' levels end up going D3 and it worked out well. Others went to mid majors and got lost in D1 as 4:10/14:30 type guys.

This. Assuming you are financially able, I highly recommend going D3. I ran faster than your sons in high school, went D3, and am currently loving it. The ability to be able to potentially run in national meets as a freshman is great. Even if your sons drop an insane amount of time, it’s very possible they still won’t get near a national meet at the D1 level.

How come no one suggests to run faster????

You got three months to put in some big miles and then go find some fast races in April and May.

And what happened this past cross country season? What place at the state meet? Did you run any post season meets?

I’m fascinated by the guy running 4:14 and “signing” —does that mean getting athletic scholarship money?— with Duke, as well as interest from other good programs.

Because he wrote an email that said he was lightly trained? At 50mpw? Huh?? I don’t find 50mpw as a junior in HS to be especially undertrained. What mileage do top kids run these days??

If this info is true, Colin 69 should be teaching a master class on selling oneself to schools to frustrated parents like OP. Do you have other performances you are leaving out besides the relatively common 4:14?

For some more history/perspective, I ran 49 relay/1:54/4:13 in the dark 1990s, when we all ran 30-50mpw tops. That was good enough to get me in the CA state final and Arcadia invite mile, the top national meet at the time. Almost nobody was breaking nine in the 2 mile nationally.

I received interest from Pac 10 inc UCLA, Ivies, Big West, and other random D1 schools. I ended up choosing the largest athletic scholarship which would minimize my undergrad debt.

I don't think he meant that he got an athletic scholarship. But Duke is a unique situation, they hired a director that HATES distance and they hired a woman to coach the men who probably doesn't know what deserves a scholarship. It's so anti-men's distance they might need to give small scholarships just to fill their roster.

Why would she not know "what deserves a scholarship"? Is she new to coaching?

Go to where you can race. Then if you improve, you can always transfer up.

There's no glory in qualifying for what is essentially a JV race,. And to the other poster, no a 4:19 guy doesn't magically become a 3:57 guy in D1, but there's a lot more incentive to run 3:57 when 3:45 doesn't get you to regionals (compared to D3, where 3:45 wins you nationals usually). Year after year, it's proven that raising the bar causes people to improve to hit it. We've seen it with the marathon standards, when the Oly Standard went to 2:11:30, a record number of Americans ran under 2:11:30. We saw it on the track outdoors last year, when you had runners like Jack Yearian and Eric Holt who normally would be 3:39-3:40 guys running 3:36-3:37 just because that was the standard. A guy who's lifetime peak will be 4:00 in the 1500 will not do that much better in D1, and will arguably do worse. But a guy who has 3:45 potential (4:12-4:15 high schooler) is far more likely to do that in D1. For every anecdotal example of someone doing that in D3, there are legitimately a hundred of someone doing it in D1.

I did not get any athletic scholarship, same with everyone else in my class. I simply picked Duke because I liked the campus and culture there the best, and because i felt they had the most potential as a team. Also, the reason i had interest was not because i only ran 50 mpw, I only ran 4 interval workouts the whole track season which impressed a lot of coaches. They liked the fact that i ran 4:14 off of solely tempo runs and threshold repeats. Also, 95% of the recruiting process if you’re not running 4:08/8:50 junior year is selling yourself to the college. Don’t lie to them, but exaggerating aspects of you as an athlete that make you unique is very important. Every college coach I talked to thought I could have been running 4:08 with proper mile training last season. That’s how it’s done. If you still don’t believe me i can screenshot the emails.

All the best,

Colin