People who think this isnt bad for the sport are in flat out DENIAL

thou art a buttmoose wrote:

yeah but its all perception. We as runners differentiate between Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Eritreans, but the public does not. They think of Americans and rented imports.

Look at the Jordan Hasay effect. How many girls got into running because of her? A LOT. Americans can relate to a little blonde girl with blue eyes from california.

People DID go to track meets when things were more American. The 1964 meet between the US and USSR in the LA Coliseum had 15-20,000 people cheering.

Yes having better americans is definitely good for the sport. Track was way more popular when we had the best runners in the world. That being said the only way to get runners better is to have better competition it. If you need to run 1300 to even have a chance to get into the Olympics your going to have more 1300 runners. The NCAA should be molding the best athletes to be competitive on the world scale and if they restrict foreigners the american athletes wont get to that level.

I have a friend who was a typical football, baseball sports fan who barely even considered running a sport . After the 10000 at the olympics he actually made the comment that it was actually very interesting. Is that because Rupp got second, almost undoubtedly. As a middle class american he cant relate to many Kenyan distance runners but Rupp looks like someone you might know and be fiends with. How did Rupp get to that level? By competing against the best and not limiting himself. Winning NCAAs is great but competing on the world scale is what athletes should be striving for.

RuKiddingMe!!! wrote:

I hope my vote counts.

It doesn't, because there is no vote on the matter.

So it's time for you to stop the WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! crap and take a swing at living a decent life.

Terry, how many Americans are competing in the NZNCAA???

Where is the two-way street?

The real issue is not with foreign athletes. American universities are filled with foreign students.

The issue is with the programs that rent these athletes, so to speak, and don't develop programs. That is what hurts the sport. Witness Arizona. They have two outstanding runners - that's it. They can't make NCAA's with essentially three runners scoring? This at a major university which should easily be able to attract lots of 9:10-9:15 high school two mile talent and develop that kind of talent in 14 minute 5k runners? Look at the results. Sambu and Lalang are great runners - but have they become incrementally better while at Arizona?

Look, Johnny Mac at Arkansas always had a number of foreign athletes. But he developed athletes and teams, too. They got better at Arkansas. Ditto for Villanova. In contrast, UTEP and WSU rented athletes back in the day. Most excused it because, well, the feeling was that American kids did not want to go to these rural schools. But they didn't really help the sport in terms of developing athletes. Colorado builds interest and fans because kids like Van Halen improve over time and become All Americans. And that kid has every incentive in the world not to work hard and be focused given his background. Kudos to Wetmore and to Van Halen. Fans don't want just fast times - they want to identify with people. Developing kids is a far better way to go.

20806 wrote:

I have a friend who was a typical football, baseball sports fan who barely even considered running a sport . After the 10000 at the olympics he actually made the comment that it was actually very interesting. Is that because Rupp got second, almost undoubtedly. As a middle class american he cant relate to many Kenyan distance runners but Rupp looks like someone you might know and be fiends with. How did Rupp get to that level? By competing against the best and not limiting himself. Winning NCAAs is great but competing on the world scale is what athletes should be striving for.

If Rupp was black, would your friend have still found it interesting?

Ho Hum wrote:

Yes, you are wrong. Foreign athletes have been a part of the NCAA for a long time, and yet cross country has continued to grow in popularity at the high school level. The general public doesn't care about running because they can't run themselves and they find the sport uninteresting.

If you want to blame anyone for cross country's problems, look to the rise of big-money (and big time money-losing) NCAA football/basketball programs, and ADs whose job is to support the football and basketball teams at all costs.

The "well that's how it has been for a long time" argument couldn't be more hollow. So in the 1970s when women wanted to play collegiate sports, should the right answer have been "women have not been in the NCAAs for a long time so that makes it ok"? If something is wrong, it's wrong and doesn't matter how long it has been wrong.

The pro foreign supporters would like to see collegiate xc go the way of world xc.

Maybe they'd like to see a 100% foreign field.

Who won the 5000 and the 10000 at the last NCAA Champs - A Canadian

Quit whining and start training harder if you want to beat them.

As long as we field nothing but foreign teams we'll never know what would happen if the us distance runners could do if they did "train harder". We slam the door in their face at age 18.

HS coaching is notoriously terrible. You can take a kid thats done nothing more than a 50 mile week and develop them (yes, imagine that!) into being a better runner by the time they reach their early 20's.

Now us coaches go for the easy fix, bring in a bunch of 20something foreign athletes and tell the us kids that they are not welcomed in the sport.

thou art a buttmoose wrote:[

Americans can relate to a little blonde girl with blue eyes from california.

.

Where is the rest of her from?

thou art a buttmoose wrote:

yeah but its all perception. We as runners differentiate between Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Eritreans, but the public does not. They think of Americans and rented imports.

Look at the Jordan Hasay effect. How many girls got into running because of her? A LOT. Americans can relate to a little blonde girl with blue eyes from california.

People DID go to track meets when things were more American. The 1964 meet between the US and USSR in the LA Coliseum had 15-20,000 people cheering.

Lol. How many people outside of this messageboard even know who jordan hasay is? not a lot.

How many got into running because of her? even fewer.

This is a good post

way it should be wrote:

Step 1: Have a course where you can actually film the leaders the entire way.

Step 2: Must be an American CITIZEN, BORN in the USA.

I'm trying to decide if this post is idiotic or ignorant. Maybe both.

Kenyans are only better from birth to the time they start running. Americans may train harder but in the beginning they lose due to poor American diets and poor methods of being raised with little physical activity (that's America). Until these problems are fixed, American's will never dominate running. Americans don't lose to the Kenyans during training and in their 20's 30's ect, they lose to them because of their early years.

Am a Kenyan former NCAA student athlete. My advice to you all is "just keep your comments saved somewhere coz you will need it same-time next year" and that might save you a few seconds of typing. Meanwhile the mission continue. Next mission, taking over Olympic team and if you have not noticed, look around.

Kenyan Boy wrote:

Am a Kenyan former NCAA student athlete. My advice to you all is "just keep your comments saved somewhere coz you will need it same-time next year" and that might save you a few seconds of typing. Meanwhile the mission continue. Next mission, taking over Olympic team and if you have not noticed, look around.

The Kenyan Olympic team is just awesome. Didn't you leave most your best athletes at home because of certain issues?

You keep making a big deal out of the word AMATEUR. Do you have any evidence that any of these African dudes are not amateurs? I'm sure the NCAA would love to see it.

I would find this complaint a lot more valid if there were actually good Americans this year. It isn't like there was an equivelent of Rupp or even Derrick in this year's race. None of the American runners were any good. Can you really imagine any of the American runners in this race making an Olympic team without drastic improvement? Without foreign runners, there just would have been a really slow winner.

go away please wrote:

Give it 5 more years and there won't be an American in the top 10 in either race. I guarantee we will never see an American winner again. Why actually work hard in development as a coach when you can just rent a Kenyan. Mark Wetmore has it right and I hope CU wins today. Defend foreign recruiting all you want, the TRUTH is, soon no American teens wont even want to even run XC

Maybe Americans like you just need to get up off their fat asses and train harder. Honestly, Kenyans are amazing because they train incredibly hard and dedicate themselves to running from childhood. If we never see an American NCAA champ again, it's nobody's fault but ours. Stop blaming your own mediocrity on someone else's accomplishment.