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

I spoke about this many years ago. I have on a couple of occasions taken volleyball players and even cheerleaders and coached them to scholarships in one season. I am talking about the late 90s, the standards may be a little higher now, but back then, you could get a decent amount of money high jumping 5'5" and 5'7" could get you a full ride. Regardless of what published standards where, all you had to do was look at what scored in therr conference meet Btw, an athletic 5' 8" volleyball player only needed to learn the mechanics and could be jumping 5'5" in a matter of weeks.

not it wrote:

Scholarship? I have 2 daughters running in college and another one who is a junior. My daughters are not slow but one got a $2k scholarship and the other got nothing. You aremistaken about money. P5 schools are fully funded by have 50 women for 18 scholarships. Most other teams are way under funded.

You are both correct. The max # schollys for women is higher than men AND schools tend to allow more roster spots for women in an effort to align with Title IX.

Both combine to put more women in a position to compete but neither guarantee they are at a 'collegiate' level.

Something that I don't think anybody has mentioned yet is the fact that female athletes are generally more injury-prone. This has the dual effect of limiting their ability to train and taking out a decent-sized chunk of the talent pool for each major competition.

Charles Bukowski wrote:

coachy wrote:

There are women running in college that didn't even run in HS. If we are talking about just getting on a team any female can do that. Some colleges are just trying to field a team of women. I have personally seen this at both private schools and state schools. This isn't the case at every college but there are opportunities if a woman wants to run in college.

One one hand it's bull$hit; it's not "fair", but on the other hand, why not? I'm ok with handing out equal amounts of sports scholarships between male and female (even if many of the college female runners are slower than freshman high school boys). it's not about that. College is about improving the person. That's why you go. Sports improve people, both men and women.

I'd like to think NCAA DI athletics used to be about other valuable life lessons as well. Like perseverance through major obstacles, sacrificing self-interest for the greater good to accomplish a very difficult task (teamwork), and all the other skills useful in high-level competition (say...unfairness for example, like how some people are just blessed with better genetics). You know, kind of like how life is. But I'd be fuggin' crazy to challenge my women with these life skills now...sure, my top 5 -10 women would happily embrace this challenge. But the other 20 want nothing to do with that - especially when they don't even have the innate ability to compete at a high/DI level (can't blame them right?)...and unfortunately the majority get to set the tone/culture for the rest of the women. And I have exactly zero interest in being crucified on social media, called by my local paper or Voice in Sport for comment, and then fired by my AD because I indirectly made their life harder...so I just give everyone high fives, shoes, t-shirts and "great jobs!" and everyone goes home happy [enough]. It's always interesting to follow how they handle life after graduation though...

Good post, and good car reference.

Big engine in a small body: It's not unlike how guys would put V6s or 305s in Chevy Chevettes back in the '80s to make them run with the then-new third-gen Firebirds/Camaros.

Question... does your AD force you to carry 30 girls on your team? (top 5 to 10 plus the other 20 = about 30)

flyingfrog wrote:

At least most runners are in college to get a real degree. FB and BB players seem to think they will go pro or end up with a 1. journalism 2. speech 3. music appreciation degree.

Most FB and BB players get degrees in sociology, general studies, communications.

Journalism is THE WORST degree one can get from college.

OozmaKappa wrote:

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.

I agree with this. I'm for equality...but Title IX is not the best option.

Iron Bars wrote:

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.

THIS. Title IX may have been good early on, like unions, but at a certain point, they either need to modify it or eliminate it.

Some of them, even if they aren't good athletes, are blessed with good connections so even the crappier women still get good jobs b/c they are pretty, popular and are good on social media.

Women are good at networking and using social media; this gives them clout and a network to get them forever jobs. Men have to work MUCH harder to succeed in some industries than women.

"Strongly encouraged"...and definitely "forced" if I want to keep a couple extra 4:16'ish men around to help develop them.

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

15_50 wrote:

Question... does your AD force you to carry 30 girls on your team? (top 5 to 10 plus the other 20 = about 30)

"Strongly encouraged"...and definitely "forced" if I want to keep a couple extra 4:16'ish men around to help develop them.

Isn't it interesting how differently distance /XC is treated than other sports? Some schools are exactly the opposite... limiting numbers. I often wonder how it all got this way. It seems very odd.

In any case, sorry to hear how frustrating things are there.

15_50 wrote:

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

"Strongly encouraged"...and definitely "forced" if I want to keep a couple extra 4:16'ish men around to help develop them.

Isn't it interesting how differently distance /XC is treated than other sports? Some schools are exactly the opposite... limiting numbers. I often wonder how it all got this way. It seems very odd.

In any case, sorry to hear how frustrating things are there.

Partly because the athletic department gets to count our women 3x for Title IX numbers...so 30 women all of a sudden becomes 90 when counting them for XC, Indoor Track and Outdoor track (and 25 other track and field women all of a sudden become 50 when double dipping for indoor/outdoor). But this is also a big reason why our women's sport will be untouchable once schools really start axing sports once the P5 break away & the NCAA collapses.

Long Time DI P5 Coach wrote:

Partly because the athletic department gets to count our women 3x for Title IX numbers...so 30 women all of a sudden becomes 90 when counting them for XC, Indoor Track and Outdoor track (and 25 other track and field women all of a sudden become 50 when double dipping for indoor/outdoor). But this is also a big reason why our women's sport will be untouchable once schools really start axing sports once the P5 break away & the NCAA collapses.

Yes. I get the 3x concept. It's just strange to me that some ADs don't use it that way even when they have a football program.

It certainly will be interesting what happens when the NCAA collapses. NIL & the transfer portal will soon make all of this a pretty big mess. We'll soon see how this shakes out. I am guessing that some P5 schools who aren't big draws in football may get left behind with the mid-majors. Fewer teams to share the $$ with.

What do you mean they don't use it? They have no choice. A runner in XC counts 3x regardless if male or female.

not a peacock wrote:

What do you mean they don't use it? They have no choice. A runner in XC counts 3x regardless if male or female.

it's in reference to the other poster being strongly encouraged to have 30 on his team as opposed to other schools limiting numbers to 10 or 12. they don't use the balancing 'advantage 'when they limit numbers. thats all i meant.

At the end of the day, they have the same total roster spots and scholarships for men and women. If they add 10 women x 3, that's 30 more guys they have to add. Every school chooses what is best for them.

not a peacock wrote:

At the end of the day, they have the same total roster spots and scholarships for men and women. If they add 10 women x 3, that's 30 more guys they have to add. Every school chooses what is best for them.

Ummm...that's not how that works. Most universities base Title IX compliance on whether their student-athlete gender ratio reflects the schools ratio. Like most universities now, we're about 60% women to 40% men. If we're applying that to the cross country team alone, that means - in theory - I can have 20 men for my 30 women. *However,* the calculation is made based off the entire athletic department's ratio, not just the XC/Track team's...which means we have to find a way to balance out all of football's men between all the other sports. This usually gives me a men's roster cap of about 10-15 depending on the year...which means I'm always turning away sub 4:20 guys who are going to the university anyway (true-walk ons) - who I'd actually really like to work with. If I want to go to bat with my AD for an additional male-walk on, I better have AT LEAST two more women ready to add as well...enter your 5:30 women (or sometimes a lot worse) who are just happy with running buddies and a t-shirt. This is assuming the football coach isn't asking for more walk-on roster spots...in which case I'm forced to cut male walk-ons already on the team. Or dig me up some 6:00 women.

Yes. Same meaning proportional to student body. My sons' teams have the same number of male and female members because their colleges have more female sports.