suppose a track team is given 20 roster spots (people that compete for this team during the season... not the amount of people listed on a website), and the cross country team is given 12. suppose your school costs 55K per year, you have no scholarships, and no pull through admissions. how would you recruit? my take... you get the best damn distance runners available so that your xc team is as strong as possible while giving you a strong distance based crew on the track. realize how blatantly unfair this situation has been all along for the spiders.