Isai Rodriguez.... doesn't get enough credit

Coach Dave Smith on Isai: “Fearless.”

Especially after he was in a life-threatening, head-on car accident about a year ago. Amazing talent. Not German Fernandez level, but close.

He beat Conner Mantz back in 2018 at nationals when they were both RS freshmen(Mantz 10th, Isai 4th).

I don't know a lot about him but he obviously has a scary level of natural talent. He finished 2 seconds behind Morgan Mcdonald and Grant Fisher that year as a FRESHMAN.

I thought he would be a monster talent who would dominate for years.

Hopefully this year he can figure it out.

He's a very good cross country runner and many of us thought he'd be contending for multiple crowns, so it is very good to see him back. If you look at his track pr's, he's nothing like German Fernandez level talent in any way, however. Let's not forget that GF ran a 4/8:34 1600/3200 double in high school off of low mileage and then 3:55/7:47 and a national championship at 1500m as a freshman before struggling and then coming back with a 3:34 months after graduation.

He defeated Tom Brady yesterday. Goat.

I remember when he was a freshman and the Brojos were commenting on the race and just kept blathering on and on about the courage and audacity of the white kid frshman right next to him to "have the guts to ne right up at front as a Frshman! An AMERICAN freshamn! Wow! Impressive!" .....and not even acknowledging Isai's existed or bothering to look up who he was.

Yes, this race^

Ripped Moe Foe with great form.

Just reread the race thread from 2018 and it's absolutely hilarious.

ROJO just flat up refuses to acknowledge Isai even AFTER he finished 4th as freshman.
He mentions Mantz about a dozen times or more, including about 3 references to Manzt's 'BIG bALLs!'.......

and when discussion of American hopes for a title in the future...again mentions Mantz but not Isai.......and this AFTER Isai just finished 4th as a freshman.

In what world is a 21 year old finishing 10th more impressive than a much younger runner finishing 4th? Obviously Mantz deserved attention, but why completely ignore Isai, who had the better race? A historically impressive race for an American freshman and not even mentioned.

Imagine if a white American freshman had placed 4th in NCAA......ZERO chance Rojo wouldn't have been all over it the entire race and after. People in the thread even point Isai's finish out and rojo just ignores. I'm not saying ROJO intentionally ignored Isai because he wasn't white.....I'm saying he never even considered him. Probably never even crossed his mind that maybe he was American too.

Instead, he's mentioned once midrace, name misspelled in a generic obligatory list of the lead pack.

just scroll through and read the red tagged rojo posts from about page 8.

LRC gold.

It’s almost like that “white kid freshman” was somebody who was already pretty well known for their running accomplishments who many fans had their eyes on, while Isai was having his first real breakout race and nobody knew who he was. People do crazy stuff at nationals and other big stage races, he could have literally just been some 25 minute dude caught up in the spotlight, so yeah, makes sense that brojos didn’t have anything to say about him.

agree with OP though that this guy doesn’t get the hype he deserves, absolute XC monster, 4th in 2018, 8th in “2020” , and 22nd in 2021, that’s 3 appearances at the big dance and 3 all-American performances. Lots of more celebrated runners have done worse.

and what is the excuse for rojo not mentioning him AFTER he finished 4th and beat Mantz and several people pointed it out on the thread?

There isn’t one lol, rojo just isn’t that good at his job sometimes. I’m just trying to tell you that it isn’t racist. He wasn’t unknown because he isn’t white, he was unknown because he was in the middle of having his breakout race. Be more reasonable please.

there's people who will bend over backwards to see everything as race based,

and there are people who will bend over backwards to deny that anything is ever tied to race.

You seem pretty firmly in the second group.

You're honestly telling me that if some white American freshman finished FOURTH at nationals that Rojo wouldn't have been flipping out as it happened?

You 100% know that would have been the case.

To insist otherwise is being intentional obtuse.

I can't speak for Rojo, but I can point out that in the article Gault wrote, Rodriguez was featured just as much as Mantz.

To steelman Rojo from the information gathered from the article: Mantz has a history of placing well, including beating McDonald at WJXC, and 3 time FL finalist in high school. He also pushed the pace, getting Pre comparisons. Rodriguez had 4:27/9:26 PRs out of high school, and had a finish of 24th at FL South. He was also 20 years old already, compared to Mantz's 21. Watching the race, Mantz really was out front pushing the pace while Rodriguez was in the pack, so I can understand being excited about him.

At the end of the day though, 4th>10th, which is why I think it is kinda weird he'd ignore Rodriguez, and why I think Prefontaine is super overrated.

letsrun.com

Morgan McDonald Gets His Storybook Ending As NAU Men 3-Peat at 2018 NCAA XC Champs

Jonathan Gault

By Jonathan Gault November 17, 2018 MADISON, Wis. -- This is the day Morgan McDonald had been dreaming of. Maybe not the snow that turned the Thomas

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