It's amazing to me how bad bad D3 track is

Not all D3 conferences are that bad. There are some that are REALLY bad sut some that are decent. MIT, Johns Hopkins, U of Chicago, WashU, North Central, some of the WIAC teams, and others, mostly have solid athletic teams. The UAA & NESCAC schools are pretty solid across the board as well.

In women's soccer some of the top D3 schools can beat some of the D1 mid-majors. Some of those that are on play for the UAA & NESCAC schools, as well as some of those outside of those conferences, could play at a P5 (or I guess it's P4 now) school. They're at the schools they chose because they wanted a great education without attending an Ivy.

and also a more balanced life *

Knew a guy who “played football” for MIT a long time back. He described as, “it’s cool to miss a game if you need to study for a test.”

I’ve always wondered what kind of intramural club that sometimes played other schools that was.

The 2 bads in a row were intentional. I'm sure the best D3 could be D1. But the worst D3 are running times I could beat and I didn't even run in high school.

For 99.89 percent, D3 would result in the same outcome as D1. Biggest difference is you'd get to run more at D3.

The worst D1 runners aren't very good either. Nobody judges the quality of D1 by how good Seton Hall is, but how good the All-Americans/ National Qualifiers are. It took 14:09 to make the national meet in outdoor. That's pretty solid.

Yes you can pick out the lowest-performing conferences in Division 3 and rightly point out the lower performance level. But you can also pick out some pretty embarrassing (maybe moreso considering some of these athletes brag about being in #D1) conference performances in D1. Every heard of the NEC? Took a whopping 11.02 to score in the Men’s 100 last year. 800 was 1:55. 110H 15.82. Who other than a #D1 could make the incredible 6’ to score in the HJ?

How about that bastion of #D1 excellence, the Atlantic 10? 10.82, 1:53, 15.11, 6’4”. The historic and prestigious Big East? 10.94, 1:50, 15.40, 6’2” (won’t even get into the 42’ TJ, the 42’4 SP, or the astounding 129’ Discus excellence).

Plucked out just a few events but look for yourself and you’ll see plenty more embarrassment in other events.

These marks get laughed at by the SEC, Big 10, and Bullis High School. So I ask you, what is bad?

There’s a spectrum of professionalism in college sports. Some people train like pros with coaches making 6 figures. Other teams are no cut with volunteer/stipend coaches and maybe practice a few times a week. i’d

Also, just by the way, the D3 American Rivers Conference which is a bunch of schools you never heard of in Iowa and Nebraska had these stats as the last scoring marks in their championship in those same events: 10.66, 1:55, 14.88, 6’

So aside from the D3 kid that made it to the Olympics in the steeple, a Lacrosse kid ran 10:0x last year I think and 9.99 wind aided in the 100m. There are a handful of sub 14:00/29:00 every year. At the top end the kids would be potential all-Americans in D1.

The difference is, D3 is all about opportunity so at a lot of schools, if you want to participate they’ll let you.

The typical D3 athlete aspires to being called “Doctor”, “Chairman”, or referred to as a Nobel Prize recipient in the future. That’s preferable to being a former D1 and now the second assistant manager of a Best Buy that won’t shut up about his 13:45 clocking from 20 years ago, his master’s three peat at the local Turkey Trot, and that time he was “pro” (equipment only deal) two decades ago.

There’s a lot of variation in D3. I didn’t make my teams varsity but one of my high school teammates who was slower than me made his. He was also a junior college all American.

Yep, the floor is much lower in D3. Little to no barrier of entry. I went to college in Mississippi and ran for a school like that, and there were definitely others around. On the other hand, our conference was different than Mississippi Valley State, and there were plenty of full, competitive teams, even if they were much slower than D1. Ran in the 16's for 5k and 35 for 10k and was falling out the back of the race, but really glad to have been able to run.

Low level DI teams are not all that different from low level DIII teams. Just looking at Paul Short results from last weekend show that some DI A teams were barely competitive with DIII teams, and got absolutely toasted by some top DIII teams.

Miami was weak when I was running d3. It was always cool when they showed up so I we could finish ahead of a D1 team.

so you grab one of the worst D3 conferences, with schools i haven't heard of, then say "let's assume that part for the whole, D3 sucks?"

NESCAC or SCIAC are usually similar to something like SWAC or Patriot League.

i mean, if i wanted to be flip, the distance running in SWAC D1, you can get points there with 16-flat or 35:40. you wouldn't get points in my D3 conference with that.

so =p

Once you get to D3 and NAIA the scholarships become "well maybe depending on your major and then it's an academic scholarship anyway". You're half a step up from just being a club team. It's no surprise the scoring times are much closer to human than elite.

also, basketball is a misleading comparison. they can play 5 at a time but scholarship 15. presumably a lot of fulls. so it's like football in the sense you'd tell someone go D1 even if they rotted 4 years on the bench. therefore those hierarchies will usually be more strict. free school can override academic quality or concern with how much you play or how competitive you are to the standard.

compared to, say, someone with D1 walkon and D3 running options is paying for their school either way. so someone might pick a good academic D3 or decide a lower division program gives them more chance to shine. so IMO D1 and D3 TF and XC have more overlap.

your implication is actually backwards.

It's not surprising if you think a little about colleges as well. I mean some of them are in places that aren't exactly centers of distance running, for one. But there's a ton of small schools that are 1/2 or even 1/3 the size of a suburban high school. Then those places are probably relying heavily on recruiting in select majors, say football player business dude. So you're not even getting a typical cross section of 18 year olds. So those conference meets are going to look a lot different than say, the 10,000 student Wisconsin State system, etc. At the end of the day, as someone already mentioned, the programs serve the same purpose. It's not going to matter if you're cranking out 7:30 miles or a couple minutes faster. You're not going pro. But you do get a chance to be on a team, so something you like, improve.