Roy Griak invitational turns down Western State

I agree with Chippewa on improvement -- its not just at Western State where people get better. (Sam Burley ran 1:54-1:55 in high school, only applied to Penn and the Air Force, and bam now he's kickin butt with 1:45.) I thought that Western (and its rival Adams) recruited at a heavy level too, I mean Michael Aish didn't exactly stumble upon the place.

I'm surprised by the lack or respect by many of you for the Western State program. I'm a division II coach and have much respect for what they have accomplished and feel confident in saying that they would be much better than a middle of the pack DI team at the NCAA level. They train much harder than most DI programs and have developed more than a few "average" hs kids into sub 14:10 types. You're right that every program has a few "success stories" like this, but not every program turns them out as consistently as Western has. Possibly their best trait is that they've saved their best running, especially in XC for the NCAA races. In '00 Abiline Christian looked to destroy everyone at DII's after beating Arkansas twice (once in Ark's home invit.) At NCAA's it wasn't even close. Western ran away with the title. Give them respect. They do have foreign athletes, a few who are older, but they are doing a great job developing ALL of their athletes.

Regarding the points for at large bids, whether or not Western State runs doesn't effect any of the D1 teams because points are based off of how you do against other D1 teams throughout the season. So, it really doesn't matter if your team loses to Western State because you'll still be losing to the same D1 teams you would have lost to without the D2 school. I also think it's ashame that Chris Siemers won't get the chance to light up all the D1 boys at Griak, cause he would.

no spam from me dude.....no worries

does anyone know how western trains?

or any other usefull info a prospect might want to know?

2min runs

long steady states

Mile repeats

The Griak meet has too many teams and too many runners as it is. The course is pretty tight so they have to run separate divisions. They could do what Notre Dame does and run the divisions based on how good the teams are as opposed to what NCAA/NAIA division they are. If they did that, however, I am guessing that a lot of the DI schools that haven't built their reputation wouldn't go to Minnesota to run the "B" race.

It's too bad for Western, but they can and will still have plenty of opportunities to prove their mettle.

Thank you for also pointing out that there are already plenty of people in the "A" race, and combining them would be way too much of a mess, besides the fact that they are DII and they should quit whining because they don't get there way, A race equals DI, B race D II and III , why should they change that just for one team? Quit your bellyaching and just run.

Because an "A" race means number 1. The very best teams available. It's like on the track, the "A" race is filled with best runners, "B" has the next best, and so on down.

They should be in the "A" race because they are one of the top few teams in the country...REGARDLESS OF DIVISION.

Actually, they aren't called the "A" and "B" races, I just mentioned that that is the way it would be if they divided the races by the strength of the teams as opposed to by their respective affiliations and divisions. The division II/III race at Griak is hardly a "B" race as there are many very good teams in that race. The people at Minnesota decided a long time ago to divide the divisions rather than having "A" and "B" races.

I don't think it has anything to do with a bias against the DII and DIII schools as Gary Wilson, the Minnesota women's coach, was a very successful DIII coach before coming to UM. I think it simply takes any politics out of the process. It would be awfully hard in late September to tell a team that they are not good enough to run in an "A" race. How would you make that call? And, if you did, a lot of those DI schools wouldn't come.

The current system at Minnesota takes out the subjectivity. You know what race you are going to be in no matter what. If you don't like it then too bad. There are plenty of other races. The Griak meet is hardly worth getting that worked up about.

Doesn't Notre Dame include D2/D3 schools in the Notre Dame Invitational? I believe they take the top few schools in the "weaker" race and move them to the faster race for the next year and the bottom schools of the "stronger" race get booted to the weaker race... I'm sure someone can correct me on this - I remember schools like North Central and UW-Lacrosse competing against the big schools in the fater race.

You are correct, Doug, about Notre Dame. They put the teams in the races purely based on how good they are. However, I can't imagine they would ever let Wheaton in the "Blue" race! JK!!!

Actually, if i'm not mistaken South Dakota State also tried to enter the "Gold" race about 5 years ago when they went on to win DII Nats. They were not allowed to compete either. I think the way they have it set up now is fine. I was a DII runner and would have loved to compete against the the DI guys, but oh well.

I also think some DI guys have a serious superiority complex. Fast running is fast running, regardless of Division, age, or whatever, and Western has proven that they can run with just about anyone.

Did they get in this year?

angry wrote:

I have just been told from one of our coaches that the Western State mens team has been rejected in there bid to race in the D1(gold) race this year. This is pretty sad considering its just an invitational. Are they afraid? I guess there wasnt really reason, other then..."this is how we always have done it"

pretty dissapointing

There's that D2 writing ability (6th grade level) we all expect.

Took me far too long in this thread to realize it was 20 years old.

I was sitting there going "who the hell cares how Western fared against Ritz when he was running for CU?"