Unpopular opinion: What Passes for Women's Collegiate Level Track Talent Is Terrible

You're just figuring this out? My administrators at every Power 5 school I've coached at told me in no uncertain terms "take any woman with a pulse." And when I was at mid-major DI's, I had to offer scholarship for 2:18/5:20/11:30 women because plenty of other "DI's" were offering them (no talent, non-athletes) big money.

Many men's races are tactical where many women can go all out and win the race.

Please provide the names of 5 schools. I am in an exhaustive search and have found not 1 P5 giving anything for those times.

I wouldn’t say it is “terrible”. It is certainly less deep. You pretty much need to be built like a boy and have high testosterone to be at the pointy end. This is just much less likely for women. That is why the top women are much more outliers than the top men. This results in a noticeable lack of depth when comparing the two.

Start by asking why is their about 10% difference in world records between men and women. Then follow that by thinking about the differences between the very best women and those you consider “terrible”. You probably think they just need to train more though. This is LRC after all where some people think anyone can run 4:30 mile if they just try harder.

Sure, a lot of schools will take "anything with a pulse" as long as they're willing to walk on or take $1-2k of "scholarship" but that just goes to show OP's point, that a lot of these athletes aren't actually good enough to be running collegiately. They're just there to fill space: fulfill roster requirements, or meet Title 9. I'd be surprised if any P5 schools would give "big money" to girls with those times. As someone else here said, even a 4:55 mile is not that great. It's respectable, don't get me wrong. But definitely not a top 20 time in D1 which makes me think that must have been a typo or was misread. I don't even think that would be in the top 50. I'd be surprised if a mid-major D1 was giving any significant scholarship to a girl who ran 5:20, you could find that anywhere.

Not a typo, this was from ORU here in Oklahoma. I saw that article too and thought that can’t be right. Directly from ORU’s athletics page: “Mazzei's 4:55.72 mile is one of the 20 fastest times by any Division I athlete in 2021-22.” However, it looks like they raced at Arkansas’ meet which was on Friday before 90% of D1 raced the next day. So it might have been technically true for about 6 hours haha but still. Kind of laughable that they would post that

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

You're just figuring this out? My administrators at every Power 5 school I've coached at told me in no uncertain terms "take any woman with a pulse." And when I was at mid-major DI's, I had to offer scholarship for 2:18/5:20/11:30 women because plenty of other "DI's" were offering them (no talent, non-athletes) big money.

You are so brave on here, sh!tting on your female athletes. The 4th string American football players at your mid-major D-1 school were no doubt sub-par athletes. I know you didn't call the slow fat 350 pound guys on American football team slow and fat to their faces. I bet you don't walk around campus talking the way you post.

not a peacock wrote:

Please provide the names of 5 schools. I am in an exhaustive search and have found not 1 P5 giving anything for those times.

I said I had to give those women money at mid-majors. Not P5's. At my P5's, they were thrilled to "walk on" to make sure they got in, got a t-shirt & a free pair of shoes. And the occasional hang sesh with the girls at a local meet. But Grand Canyon University, Lipscomb University, Creighton University, Pepperdine & St. Johns were all giving women like that money...some significant money. Need more? Sure, these schools have no business being DI...but they are.

OKrunner wrote:

Not a typo, this was from ORU here in Oklahoma. I saw that article too and thought that can’t be right. Directly from ORU’s athletics page: “Mazzei's 4:55.72 mile is one of the 20 fastest times by any Division I athlete in 2021-22.” However, it looks like they raced at Arkansas’ meet which was on Friday before 90% of D1 raced the next day. So it might have been technically true for about 6 hours haha but still. Kind of laughable that they would post that

To be fair, that was probably some 20 year old sports info intern doing that...who just took a couple minutes to TFRR those marks, found a stat that was technically true, then took 5 more minutes to write the release. Most of us coaches don't have the time or energy to proof read every sports info release...or go back and diplomatically explain why that post made us look like idiots every time they make us look like idiots. Maybe once a semester. But then we get a new intern the next semester...

600yd/600m man wrote:

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

You're just figuring this out? My administrators at every Power 5 school I've coached at told me in no uncertain terms "take any woman with a pulse." And when I was at mid-major DI's, I had to offer scholarship for 2:18/5:20/11:30 women because plenty of other "DI's" were offering them (no talent, non-athletes) big money.

You are so brave on here, sh!tting on your female athletes. The 4th string American football players at your mid-major D-1 school were no doubt sub-par athletes. I know you didn't call the slow fat 350 pound guys on American football team slow and fat to their faces. I bet you don't walk around campus talking the way you post.

At least those slow fat 350 pound American footballers are likely doing their job and contributing to bringing home the bacon for our Title IX fodder to get their immaculate locker room. And you're right, I walk around campus patting Susy on the head, saying "great job - you're an inspiration!" As she builds her social media brand with the "P5 jersey" I tossed her with the new NLI rules. Win/win. I stopped fighting this a long time ago...

Blame title 9 for resulting in aggressively recruiting on the female side to accomplish equity where there otherwise should not be.

Title 9 is the stupidest thing in sports right after the whole trans mess, except this is arguably more damaging to our sport.

Must have been a long time ago. I don't think Creighton is funded. GCU offered my daughter nothing for a 5:10 1600.

600yd/600m man wrote:

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

You're just figuring this out? My administrators at every Power 5 school I've coached at told me in no uncertain terms "take any woman with a pulse." And when I was at mid-major DI's, I had to offer scholarship for 2:18/5:20/11:30 women because plenty of other "DI's" were offering them (no talent, non-athletes) big money.

You are so brave on here, sh!tting on your female athletes. The 4th string American football players at your mid-major D-1 school were no doubt sub-par athletes. I know you didn't call the slow fat 350 pound guys on American football team slow and fat to their faces. I bet you don't walk around campus talking the way you post.

The guy isn't a coach and he doesn't have any athletes to sh!t on. Just another LR incel raging about women on the internet, par for the course around here.

Title IX is the best thing in sports for females. Before title IX there were schools that didn't even have women's track. Girls softball at LSU didn't even have grass on the field. Glass from broken bottles everywhere. The bad news was that LSU had a top ranked wrestling team that had to fold due to equal scholarships. SMU shutdown men's track and they picked up a women's equestrian team. I don't know how that is even a college sport. Title IX had to exist to have some sort of equality. What should happen is reduce football scholarships.

This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion on here, but quotas ought to have an expiration date. Those ladies the poster above alluded to, the ones who ran on terrible surfaces littered with broken glass, were tough as nails and are exactly the kind of athlete you would want on your team. Anybody who chooses to compete despite the odds stacked against them is worthy of respect.

Yes, quotas were necessary to give women's sports a level playing field, but now that time is at an end. It is 2022 and women's TnF is just as high profile as the men's events. By extending quotas well past their intent we have institutionalized mediocrity.

We see this in other aspects of life, where the government gives everybody free money, the "anti-work" movement and the cancer of wokeism destroying the very fabric of society.

another incel posts another angry incel thread

how original

Something to think about is the fact that everyone thinks 5:30 girls have no business being d1 runners (maybe not) but if you compare a 5:30 women to the average women 5:30 is very impressive and many magnitudes better than average… I would wager that there are more men on average that are closer to say 4:10 a time that is definitely considered respectable that there are average women close to a 5:30 mile.

This was hard to explain and I may have made it confusing but I think it made sense.

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

600yd/600m man wrote:

You are so brave on here, sh!tting on your female athletes. The 4th string American football players at your mid-major D-1 school were no doubt sub-par athletes. I know you didn't call the slow fat 350 pound guys on American football team slow and fat to their faces. I bet you don't walk around campus talking the way you post.

At least those slow fat 350 pound American footballers are likely doing their job and contributing to bringing home the bacon for our Title IX fodder to get their immaculate locker room. And you're right, I walk around campus patting Susy on the head, saying "great job - you're an inspiration!" As she builds her social media brand with the "P5 jersey" I tossed her with the new NLI rules. Win/win. I stopped fighting this a long time ago...

^^^ The incelness is practically boiling over in this one! ^^^

my guess...he got cut and blames the females for him not being fast enough to make the team.

in the end who cares? Maybe the slowest female athletes on an NCAA team are worse athletes or don't take it as seriously as the slowest males on the team. So what. Did you think that being a fringe level athlete in a fringe sport entitled you to something? You think you're going pro? In the long run, you'll probably be better off not spending 4 years as an angry and disgruntled fringe athlete.

Much bigger things you should be worried about.....like learning how to relate to women, for starters.

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

You're just figuring this out? My administrators at every Power 5 school I've coached at told me in no uncertain terms "take any woman with a pulse." And when I was at mid-major DI's, I had to offer scholarship for 2:18/5:20/11:30 women because plenty of other "DI's" were offering them (no talent, non-athletes) big money.

I am not just figuring this out, it's just that I was at an indoor meet this weekend and frankly, most of the girls had no business wearing a collegiate kit. Their performances were the academic equivalent to allowing someone into college that can't do fractions, and struggles to read.