Van Dalen's

Because once David Lee Roth quit back in the 1980s things were just never the same. They tried Hagar, Cherone, and are now back with Roth, but those sibling bonds just can't be broken.

I hope this helps answer your question.

They wanted to run with the devil. It made all the papers.

Stony Brook has a history of recruiting athletes from New Zealand.

Honestly, the school has been recruiting in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and England since the mid-late 90's when the school moved from D3 to D1...the previous coach made some connections and helped lay the foundation. Obviously, Coach Ronan has been using his own connections from his days at Providence (along with his own pedigree).

Academically, Stony Brook itself is a top 50 research institution worldwide. It's reputation internationally is much better than it is in the tri-state area.

The team has been steadily building for the last 13-15 years to attain the position they are in now (heck, Men's Lacrosse is now ranked 5th - took 20+ years). Financially, the admin has begun to hand out more scholarships to XC/Track (more so for gals), and the 3 million dollar Mondo track facility will be complete soon. The facility was designed and nixed back in the 80's and gain in '98-99...

Why run there, you ask??

Great academics

Close to NYC (capital of world)

Good DI schedule (they compete where necessary)

Decent Coach (great recruiter)

Scholarships

Surrounding training area is safe/nice/scenic

Better places?? Of course...

Worse places?? Definitely...

It just seems to me that if I was a great runner, I'd want to go somewhere that would allow me to build a championship caliber team. That's just me though. Is their team any good, or is it just the two of them running ridiculous times?

Um, ever heard of Liberty University?

The women's team got 7th at XC nationals this year, so the number of schools they would have had a better chance at a title are in the single digits. If you're talking about a track title, that's a different story of course but they can qualify individually for nationals in track, you need a decent distance team to get you there in XC.

Yes and they got lucky in getting Chelanga... I forgot all about them getting 7th. Wasn't this time first time in a while they had even been to nationals in a while?

Hot Diggity Dog wrote:

It just seems to me that if I was a great runner, I'd want to go somewhere that would allow me to build a championship caliber team. That's just me though. Is their team any good, or is it just the two of them running ridiculous times?

Either your command of the english language is very poor (possibly), or you confused me as to "allow ME to build a championship team". The coach builds the team, not the athlete, since they do the recruiting. Maybe the Van Dalen's got a full ride for both of them, where no one else was going to give them the same deal. Maybe they want to develop themselves as individual athletes and don't just want to be someone "on the team", and they believe that Ronan is the guy to do it for them - seems to be working somewhat.

Nick Symmmonds went to a D3 school, yet he is an Olympian and is on the short list of top 800m runners in the country. You don't have to go to the "best" programs in order to develop as an athlete, for some people it's the last thing that they need.

Well I obviously didn't mean personally build the team... I didn't say anything about going to the best possible programs.

Yes, but you need to consider what they would be without the twins and/or consider what the other schools would be like with the twins. At a good (20-35) team without them, they make a top 5 team, with a better team (10-20), they make the podium, maybe the top rung.