Why Does Oklahoma State and Alabama Recruit Foreigners?

I'm for excellence: academic and athletic.

If that means more international students, bring it on!

i haven't had time to read most of this retarded thread, but i would bet a paycheck that not a single person, if there is even more than one on this thread, that wants to "limit foreign athletes" has ever worked in college athletics. i bet none of them are coaches or teachers either.

you all seem to have this perception that these foreign althetes are all devious pricks. work with them sometime. there's a lot of nice kids who can run pretty fast and contribute a lot to a school and a program.

oh, and show me one taxpayer who is "fed up." give me a break.

okay, if Ok state has more foreigners, lets look at the breakdown of where the athletes came from. and lets just count top 7 athletes since anyone else doesn't actually matter at NCAA's

Utep all kenyan. didn't bother arguing that.

New Mexico's top 6, british and a kenyan (though they brought kirwa from another US school so technichally they didn't recruit him abroad)

NAU- MCNEIL, Ashkettle, Bostrom. top 3 runners foreign.

so i will give in to the fact that NAU has less rostered foreigners than ok state but then again, lets look at ok states top 7

OSU- Fernandez, Vail, Lowe, american born, Chirchir, mesecho, kosgei, foreign born, recruited here, dont know who their 7th man is but lets assume he is foreign for you sake, and still, less foreigners than UNM, UTEP, and one more than OSU, yet foreigners are less important to the team score than they are to NAU.

once again. i don't care about recruiting abroad. all these teams can do as they wish.

I am arguing that its not just those 2 you listed, and it doesn't really matter in the long run since they foreigners don't win team titles alone... in fact the last few champions have done it with very few foreigners

I only read the first 2 pages and the last but I think the person who started this tread is a absolute retard. You are an idiot. My freshman year running I almost quit because are team sucked so bad now we have gotten a kenyan and and Irish guy that are really good. The kenyan guy is really nice and he makes very good grades and runs really well. The new talent from overseas has sparked an interest in our program from the alumni. People dont want to see a group of in state kids or americans get there a## kicked. They want to see results. These guys have also made me a better runner, as I have set goals I thought I would never reach. They are good for programs and are good for helping develope american tallent. The NCAA probably has some of the best competition for people of the college age. How does better competition not help develope american runners. I venture to say you have never had a winning bone in your body. Football would be doing the same thing if there was some country that produced amazing football players. I have so much more to say but your probably just ignorant and it would be pointless to keep typing, a good face to face chat would be better.

because to be the best you got to run with the best. running would die in america if foreign runners stop coming here. i thought americans are not afraid of challenges. instead of welcoming tough competition you want to limit competition. what would happen if foreign students don't come to the US. entrollment will fall, competition will fall.

...What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

first of all, taxpayer dollars are used to fund athletic programs at public universities.

secondly, the Alabama athletic department is probably not self sufficient. NCAA records from the 2005 academic year show that Alabama athletics brought in $18,784,112 and spent $18,872,742. In the last few years, athletic department spending has risen at 3 times the rate, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, as university spending as a whole, and it would seem unlikely that Alabama suddenly found some huge new revenue source from athletics. it's a common misconception that college athletic programs are hugely profitable.

numbers wrote:

first of all, taxpayer dollars are used to fund athletic programs at public universities.

secondly, the Alabama athletic department is probably not self sufficient. NCAA records from the 2005 academic year show that Alabama athletics brought in $18,784,112 and spent $18,872,742. In the last few years, athletic department spending has risen at 3 times the rate, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, as university spending as a whole, and it would seem unlikely that Alabama suddenly found some huge new revenue source from athletics. it's a common misconception that college athletic programs are hugely profitable.

you are right, most college athletics programs do lose money when viewed on a spreadsheet that only takes into account revenue generated with profits made. what you wont see though is the huge PR values, dotations, and school spirit which is engendered through sports which ultimately leads to more donations. also note that was 2005 when alabama had a bad football year with no lucrative major bowl game... if you check last few yrs i am sure it would have been better with the first yr success of nick saban then the second yr when they made a bcs bowl game. i also know for a fact that georgia techs applications went up 300% the yr they made it to the final 4 (2004 i believe)... no more people got admitted obviously but thats a lot of 75 dollar admission fees to say the least.

now back to the primary post regarding foreigners being recruited at these institutions. the main reason coaches go after foreign athletes is to jump start their programs. in the running world top HS athletes dream of going to the stanford/oregon/colorado/wisco's of the world. those are like HS football guys wanting to go to the florida/oklahoma/ohio state/uga type schools... also HS runners tend to be more cerebral and care about their education as pro running is usually not their end goal. also, have you ever been to oklahoma? i have spend 4 of the past 12 months there for work, and let me tell you it absolutely SUCKS. yes the people are nice but other than that it completely sucks. very few people would want to go there. alabama is kind of the same though i think it sucks less than stillwater. not to hate because they are okay college towns and you could definately have a blast there, but its not so glamorous to people raised in the US. take a foreigner though from africa and he is in heaven though lol. Arkansas is kind of the same way and they recruit lots of foreigners as well.

You were just looking at ticket sales.

From the report you cited, UA's athletic department had revenues of $62,287,192 and expenses totaling $56,989,608. That is a net PROFIT of $5,297,584.

The current figures are much higher. Budget runs about $89 million these days while still churning out a profit. In fact, the AD addressed the BOT with these notes yesterday:

"-- Athletics will contribute more than $1.5 million of $3.5 generated by trademark and licensing program to support university's scholarship program.

-- Since creation in 1981, UA's trademark and licensing program (use of trademarks and car tag program) have generated more than $38.8 million in support of scholarship programs at UA.

-- Athletics also continues to pledge an additional $1 million annually to UA "in support of faculty positions."

http://blog.al.com/bamabeat/2009/09/notes_from_mal_moores_appearan.html

While many athletic departments are funded by taxpayer money, the University of Alabama IS NOT ONE OF THEM. Please leave them out of the taxpayer argument in the future.

americans chickening out again. instead of asking, how can we train to be like kenyans, you seem to be discouraging competition. there are thousands of international students who are entroll in american universities, if you don't feel good about foreign athletes, you don't feel good about all the international students. kenyans happens to have a talent and they used it to acquire education

The issue here is not discrimination or racism. No sensible person would argue that foreign athletes should not be allowed to compete in the NCAA.

The issue is the lack of balance on teams like Alabama's. Joe Walker makes virtually no effort at all to recruit blue chip athletes at the regional or national level. He simply picks up the phone and talks to his Kenyan connections. It's hard for people in the region and state to root for a team that is comprised solely of foreign athletes.

Certainly Walker has had decent results while at Bama, but it has come at the price of killing any sense of continuity between the present program and the alumni. When I ran at Bama in the mid 90s, we knew the guys who had come through 5-10 years earlier. Some of them still ran with us, and they often showed up at meets.

But nobody from my era wants to be associated with Alabama distance running anymore. We can't get behind the Kenyan B team anymore than, say, the Germans would get behind a bunch of Americans invading their university sports. They would resent it, and not without reason.

Walker severed all ties with Alabama's tradition when he began recruiting exclusively from Kenya. I hope it was worth it.

To the op:

So which foreign athletes have been recruited recently and which country where they from?

I'll look at it from a UO-WSU perspective, which I'm most familiar with. Rono set his WR's in the summers of his college years, with the exception of the steeple, which was run at a meet in Seattle in April or May.

Chapa ran down and drilled Kimwoumbwa for the 1978 NCAA 5K title in Eugene.

Rono won three steeple titles and three X-C titles. WSU did not win an NCAA outdoor or X-C team title during this era. Oregon did, beating Kenyan-laden UTEP in '77 X-C team race. I didn't hear Salazar, Centrowitz, McChesney, Chapa, etc., complaining about the Kenyans. They just beat them.

Outside of Rono, Oregon's guys were pretty much right there or better than the other WSU foreigners. McChesney ran 13:14 in one of the summers of his collegiate years (though he never ran that while running in UO meets). Salazar beat Kimeto and I think Kimwoumbwa in a 5K in Eugene. Chapa's 3:38 1,500 was better than any Kenyan on the WSU roster.

I saw Jim Hill blow the Pac-10 field away in the conference 1,500 in Pullman. Hill also won a Pac-10 X-C title, I believe WSU had a Kenyan in the race. As noted earlier, Pre never lost to John Ngeno of Kenya/WSU.

If we put Matt Centrowitz, Jr., and Andrew Wheating on UO's teams of the late 70's/early 80's, not one WSU Kenyan could run their times.

If you put Rupp in the same time machine, he would lose to only Rono and beat the other Kenyans. And he'd be right there with Rono in the 10K.

The key isn't complaining about them, it's beating them, which has been done and can be done today.

Get tough, defeat them.

Former Bama Runner, you are correct. I am from Alabama and I was a four time regional qualifer in the 1500. I did not want to go to bama because I did not want to only have Kenyan guys to train with. I don't mind training with foreign athletes, I just think that the Bama distance squad is one sided. It just shows me that he can't train a 15:30 guy to run 14:30. He can bring in five 14:00-14:30 guys and go to nationals.

I know I am going to get some flack about this, so who can name me some Americans that he has taken to the national level. Kevin McDonough is all that I have.

Recovers wrote:

Former Bama Runner, you are correct. I am from Alabama and I was a four time regional qualifer in the 1500. I did not want to go to bama because I did not want to only have Kenyan guys to train with. I don't mind training with foreign athletes, I just think that the Bama distance squad is one sided. It just shows me that he can't train a 15:30 guy to run 14:30. He can bring in five 14:00-14:30 guys and go to nationals.

I know I am going to get some flack about this, so who can name me some Americans that he has taken to the national level. Kevin McDonough is all that I have.

Todd Fayant and Troy Henderson are others, Henderson was All American thanks to a Kenyan Walker brought in.

There aren't many 15:30 runners in Alabama running in HS. Each year there are 2-3 at most and those guys generally don't improve in college no matter where they go.

There are tons of 15:30 guys who get better in college. Hell I was a 16:00 guy in high school who went to run only one 5k in 14:46. I do remember Todd Fayant now, but I don't remember Troy Henderson.

Mtn Dew wrote:Todd Fayant and Troy Henderson are others, Henderson was All American thanks to a Kenyan Walker brought in.

Troy Henderson was part of the David Troy era at Bama for most of his career, so he hardly counts as a shining example of Walker's 'development' of local talent. He achieved All-American status because he was part of a strong DMR team, but was otherwise not a particularly impressive runner. If I recall correctly, he had a PR of 9:14 in his specialty, the steeple.

Back in the mid 90's when you guys didn't make nationals and were very average.

Joe Walker and Alabama will be fine again this year finishing top 10 in the nation for the 3rd year in a row. Oh and winning another SEC championship in XC. Another thing you guys were no where close to doing in the 90s.

I know back then you all circle jerked together and held hands by the camp fire. But now they win, sorry you cannot get behind them. They don't need losers like you around.

Oh and I call bullshit on a 4 time regional qualifier from Alabama. There hasn't been one. Actually since Joe Walker showed up at Alabama name one high school kid from Alabama who runs distance who became an All-American in college. Please don't bring up d2, d3 or NAIA. You can't name one, because they do not exist.

"Okie State is the undisputed importer of foreign cross country runners. Okie State currently has at least eight (8) on the team."

Not undisputed. Tied with Tulsa.