ED EYESTONE THROWS SERIOUS SHADE AT SUDBURY, GAUSON, AND SMITH FOR INTERNATIONAL RECRUITING

The former Weber State coach also spoke against it in the article:

“The NCAA now allows potential student-athletes and current student-athletes to have agent,” Pilkington says. “The current NIL rules do not allow NIL money to go to foreign athletes in the USA. They can receive it in their home country.

“The schools with the larger budgets are paying the agents or recruiting service companies who then pay the student-athlete. (The athletes) don’t get paid NIL money but the school is paying either the recruiting service or the agent and it gets passed on to the student-athlete. The agents get their cut and, because of the transfer portal, start looking for a better deal for next year for the athlete.”

Ed sounds like a hypocrite. He is complaining that many are older? Does he even look at his own team. Do better Eddie.

Yeah, I wonder why people viewed 18 year old Canadian freshman like grant fisher or Justin knight as a lot different than 28 year old Kenyan pros!

deseret.com

The surprising change that is disrupting this college sport

https://www.deseret.com/authors/doug-robinson/

BYU coach says NIL is the reason foreign distance runners' dominance in the U.S. collegiate scene began to surge again a few years ago.

Open link

This article is a must-read. Ed Eyestone, who relies on overage Americans non-stop (Conner Mantz was almost 24 when he won both of his NCAA XC titles) complains about how the NCAA is now dominated by overage foreigners.

Some of the quotes:

“If you make a stink about it, someone will say you’re racist,” says Eyestone. “But I’d take a Kenyan (recruit) if he was born in the U.S. Actually, we’re currently recruiting one. Some coaches have decided to take a shortcut by taking foreign talent. Many are older and developed. I always felt I’d be embarrassed to have seven foreigners on the team. The NCAA is definitely the way we develop talent in this country.”

“It doesn’t help the U.S. developmental effort. It doesn’t encourage young American talent; it discourages them. (Foreigners) take scholarships and roster spots and the limelight.”

Can someone please just replace the word “foreigners” with “overaged Mormons”? I don’t get why Ed is so upset.

I do think there should be an age cap. And some reform. And will admit yhis quote from former Weber’s state coach Paul Pilkongton is right on the money:

“I retired at the end of June because I did not want to deal with this crap,” says Pilkington. “ ... The NCAA has screwed this up. A coach can’t contact a student-athlete on another team but an agent can. I was at the Mountain Region champiomships (last Friday) and spent some time talking to my former boss, the athletic director, and he told me that agents are contacting athletes all of the time trying to get them to transfer for more money.”

Sorry but there is no comparison between people like Solomon Kipchoge, Doris Lemngole, Ishmael Kipkirui, and Koitatoi Kidali who were top PRO talents before coming to the NCAA. They (allegedly) heroically declined massive lifechanging pro money, despite living in dirt poor villages, just to maintain NCAA eligibility.

Kipchoge declined pro money for 10 years after turning 18 just to one day be allowed to run in the NCAA!

And they are deciding to stay in the NCAA despite technically not being allowed to receive NIL money. So their families are sleeping on dirt floors in huts in villages with no electricity but they are declining hundreds of thousands of dollars just to run for a college team.

And it would be racist to claim that they are illegally accepting NIL money through their agents or intermediaries.

Legend of the sport with thoughtful, measured comments. What exactly is the criticism since he is 100 percent correct? Over age, mail order recruits are ruining the sport at the D1 level. Blame the coaches and agents, not the runners, who are merely doing what anyone would do. The sport is flourishing at the grass roots high school level only to be eroded at D1. You would think some shoe companies would start pushing for some changes, and bizarre that anyone defends these practices that erode opportunities for domestic runners and exploit foreign recruits.

I am not comfortable with the racism here. Overage is overage. Many of these Mormons are getting stronger and more mature on their Missions. Hypocrisy is rampant.

If a Kenyan was born in the USA he would NOT be a Kenyan, He would be American.

Doris Lemngole, a Kenyan, attends the University of Alabama on an athletic scholarship. Why are Alabama taxpayers subsidizing a foreign runner? That is a scholarship that could have gone to an American runner, maybe even an Alabaman runner. I highly doubt Alabama taxpayers want their hard-earned tax dollars to be spent on the development of foreign runners. It's the same story in Iowa, Oklahoma, New Mexico, etc.

I don't care if we are talking about Kenyans, Ethiopians, Australians, or Canadians. It's long past time to eliminate foreign athletes in the NCAA. And while while we're at it, the Army should stop recruiting foreign runners.

America First.

"Other coaches need to get the courage to take a stand against the international recruiting problem that is objectively bad for the sport."

This isn't about courage. The solution is not to shame coaches who recruit foreign talent but to prohibit foreign athletes from receiving sports scholarships, especially in publicly-funded universities.

Who has Eyestone developed or coached to the next level, like winning Olympic and World Championships medals, before the insurgence of Africans? The dude is matched with older athletes like BYU tradition; he is now crying foul because he couldn't be the only one. His former older athletes will do well in the U.S., but outside here they get crushed like mosquitoes. He can't ignore the fact that BYU still has an advantage in recruiting compared to New Mexico, UTEP, and OSU. Glad the likes of Jane and Blank are fearless enough to care about the Kenyans. Lol. He will recruit Kenyans born in America… that's an American racist moron. Why do these few moronic coaches act like Scholarbook or Africans created roster limits? Fix the issue—throw away roster limits to give chances to local kids. Blaming and hating on Africans seems like the new trend, more acceptable than before. Who recruited Kip Kangogo

Eyestone is up to his ears in moral quicksand. Even in my day we had to run against over-aged Mormons from BYU. How was that better? Samson Kimobwa was a month younger than me. Was it fair to him that competing against BYU was unfairly stacked against him?

Truth is, there will be about 15 foreign runners in the top 25 every year. Over-aged Mormons dilute the field even more. Ed, just let it go. BYU benefits from unfair recruiting. Nobody really cared until you threw your blatant hypocrisy into the equation. BYU was always about religious hacks. Age cheats, clean living, soaking, silk underwear, heck, Henry Marsh used to use caffeine before races, and he cheated at Risk! None of that was fair.

I’m sympathetic with the general vibe in this thread but for the sake of balance, it needs to be acknowledged that taxpayers don’t pay for scholarships at the University of Alabama.

might be missing something as a non-American here, but do the missions not only last like a year or two? would that really give a huge advantage?

Taking two years to bicycle around the world is training in disguise.

Article: According to Eyestone, one reason that his star senior, Casey Clinger, gave up his collegiate eligibility in the middle of the 2024 outdoor track season was due to the presence of African distance runners.

“Casey said the NCAA had better talent than (professional road racing), so why not go pro, get a contract and race guys on the roads professionally that are not as good as the 25-year-old freshman at a university,” the coach explained.

Missing from the Article: Casey was 26 when he was BYU's top finisher at last year's XC meet.

Kenyan-American

Is there a team of pure blood native Americans? Otherwise it’s all foreign talent

lol at BYU complaining about Kenyan super teams. Yes the Mormons aren’t quite as bad since they’re at least American and weren’t pro-level runners when they entered the NCAA, but it’s still laughable. Some of these guys are having kids at 26 and still competing in the NCAA. Time to put up an age limit.