Do 4:30/9:40 kids even get looked at by d1 recruiters?

Not by good D1 schools

Yes, but it depends on how developed they are (under trained) and xc performances. Maybe a partial scholarship?

im going to say if ur a 430 / 940 guy you better send some letters to college coaches, let them know how under trained you are and how much you would love to attend their school and just be on the team if you want to get looked at.

zero scholarship at any school that has a semi respectable team. 410 / 900 guys get partial scholarships at decent schools.

if you are a girl, then yes.

I knew two kids who were right around that level. No Divsion I interest. One was told to run summer all comers and get his mile down from 4:33 to 4:25 and he could be a walk on at Cal Berkeley.

He passed...didn't feel he could hit that level.

The other chose a division III school.

They used to but now a days probably not.

I hit those times and got a little interest from mediocre/bad D1 teams. Rutgers even had me go on an official recruiting visit.

swerve wrote:

Not by good D1 schools

Okay, this probably sums it up. (By the way, we are talking about good D1 running programs--there are plenty of good D1 academic schools that don't even have a t&f/xc team!)

People don't understand that there are *many* D1 teams--at least a large fraction, if not the majority of the ~300 that sponsor men's cross--that range from mediocre to truly terrible. Trust me, they'd be thrilled to hear from a 4:30/9:40 kid.

But, as others have mentioned, you're probably going to have to be the one who does the approaching. These teams are not very good because, in part, their coaches do little or no active recruiting--often because they're part-time and simply don't have the resources (time, money, staff) to do so. Do a little research on the NCAA's D1 xc teams and send out emails or pick up the phone.

And, yes, there are teams that would give some scholarship dough to a 4:30/9:40 type.

Coaches that don't allow these kids to at least walk on while practicing and competing unattached are REALLY missing out. If you are confident in your coaching methods (I'm implying that some probably are NOT), then you should love having a scholarshipless farm system; there is zero downside. I know plenty of guys who were WAY slower than this in high school and went on to do VERY well on the DI level.

I know someone who got some money as a 4:30/9:40 kid in the last couple of years. He was not undertrained, ran 12 HS season and summers but he was under raced in the 1600 and 3200.

His 1:55.0 800 was better but his thing was he loved relays and had 49.3 and 1:52.8 relay splits. All the college coaches in the area had heard or watched him pull a good relay squad to the verge of the state records.

Used to when? Buddy of mine hit those times in Canada in the early 80s and wrote letters to a few dozen D1 coaches. The couple who replied said he was knocking on the door, but not close enough.

gnomebe wrote:

They used to but now a days probably not.

I was a 1:58 800 guy (which I am guessing is equivalent)and recieved interest froma few D1 schools. They weren't very good track programs, but at least one was an excellent academic school which is all that really mattered to me. I didn't end up going there and didn't really need the money, but the option was there.

Like others have said, there are a lot of D1 schools out there that you have probably never ever heard of that would be happen to have a 4:30/9:40 guy. Come to think of it, a guy on my team was around those times (I think 4:35/9:50) and recieved quite a bit of interest from the local D1 schools (with lousy running programs).

I ran a 1:58, 4:30 mile in high school, but got recruited by a shit ton of schools because I ran a 2:34 in the 1,000 m and placed 4th in the state as a junior. I don't know why that time was the one that stood out, might be because many states don't run it or because I placed top 5 as a junior and they had time to recruit me. This was 2005 so the depth wasn't as great today. I got letters from everywhere and free applications. I wanted like every Pre maniac to go to Oregon and Andy Powell even emailed me back when I applied and expressed interest saying he would be happy to have another MA person on the team (still have that email). Moral of the story I went to a small D2 School that gave me a huge Academic/athletic scholarship because I was paying for school myself. I wish I didn't though. We had three coaches in 4 years and I was the best on the team as a Frosh hindering reaching my potential. My senior year of college at a meet I saw that same coach that recruited me at Rider U talking to his athletes about game plans for their race and hyping them up. My coach looks over and goes "run smart". It was like a movie scene where you see what could of been...Go somewhere with a good program if you want to run! Boom

ummm wrote:

im going to say if ur a 430 / 940 guy you better send some letters to college coaches, let them know how under trained you are and how much you would love to attend their school and just be on the team if you want to get looked at.

zero scholarship at any school that has a semi respectable team. 410 / 900 guys get partial scholarships at decent schools.

not remotely true. you obviously haven't competed at the D1 level.

first of all, 4:10 and 9:00 guys get full scholarships almost anywhere they go. do you realize how few people run that every year???

i ran 4:23 and 9:32 in HS and i was recruited at and given a half scholarship to a good private D1 university. i made our varsity 7 all 4 years, and all 4 years we beat schools like penn state, villanova, navy, etc, schools that "don't accept" walk-ons. we had one studly guy out of HS, a 9:09 guy i believe, and another that was a 4:15 guy, but most of our conference-winning and almost NCAA-qualifying team was made up of 9:20-9:50 HS 2 milers. the mentality at those huge D1 schools is that if they get 15 guys that run 9:10 and give them all full scholarships and hammer them all into the ground, hopefully at least 5 will emerge healthy and fast. generally they do. but as a smaller D1 school without those funds, we were able to consistently stay on the bubble of qualifying for nationals by developing talent.

nooengland wrote:

Coaches that don't allow these kids to at least walk on while practicing and competing unattached are REALLY missing out. If you are confident in your coaching methods (I'm implying that some probably are NOT), then you should love having a scholarshipless farm system; there is zero downside. I know plenty of guys who were WAY slower than this in high school and went on to do VERY well on the DI level.

In fairness, however, some coaches are hampered by policies that do not permit them to carry a lot of guys on the roster (Title IX and other concerns); and most/all schools will not permit the coaches to train guys who *aren't* on the roster (liability and other concerns).

The school I run at gave a little more than books to a kid who ran 4:07 for 1600 this year...so what have we learned today children?

IT DIFFERS WITH EVERY SCHOOL

We happen to have a good overall program and don't use all our scholarships on distance.

I ran 9:33 and a 4:35 relay split in high school at over a mile above sea level. I was top ten in cross country as well, and I didn't really start running until senior year. I got "interest" from several regional schools in NM, CO, WY, ID, etc, but money was never part of the conversation. I ended up going to a school which showed no interest but had a great program. I got chewed up and spit out, and, in hindsight, I probably would've been better off going to a school that wanted me with a proven coach, even if I didn't get money. You can always ask for money once you become a contributor to the team and you can also try to get in-state tuition if you go out of state.

__

gadzooks I hope this is true - I love to hear stories about teams developing talent.

On the other hand, gadzooks I hope this isn't true - that many schools just see who is left standing.

this athletic scholarship thing is ridiculous and so distorting. What kind of ridiculous logic puts a running coach into the situation where he has to hammer kids down to keep his job?

If I were a college president I would cancel all athletic scholarships except for football and basketball.

Williams had a 9:40 hs guy eventually win D3 XC nationals. Another former Williams guy ran 3:39 this year and 3:58 in a road mile recently, and there's no way he was much better than a 9:30 type in hs.

But look at the NCAA 800m results so far:

3 Heats. Advance top 2 from each heat plus next best 2 to final

American: A 1:42.60 8/28/1985 Johnny Gray, Santa Monica TC

College Best: C 1:44.3h 6/10/1966 Jim Ryun, Kansas

NCAA Meet: M 1:44.70 6/1/1990 Mark Everett, Florida

Name Year School Prelims H#

===================================================================

Preliminaries

1 Leoman Momoh SR Arkansas 1:47.44Q 1

2 Casimir Loxsom SR Penn State 1:48.71Q 2

3 Elijah Greer SR Oregon 1:48.76Q 3 1:48.755

4 Declan Murray SR Loyola (Ill.) 1:47.48Q 1

5 Eliud Rutto FR Mid. Tenn. State 1:48.91Q 2

6 Brannon Kidder FR Penn State 1:49.01Q 3

7 Harun Abda SR Minnesota 1:47.78q 1

8 Travis Burkstrand SR Minnesota 1:48.74q 1

9 Harry McFann JR Columbia 1:48.76 1 1:48.752

10 Patrick Rono SO Arkansas 1:49.17 3

11 Sean Obinwa JR Florida 1:49.23 2

12 Grant Grosvenor SO Montana State 1:49.41 1

13 Ricky West SR Penn State 1:49.87 1

14 David Mokone JR Western Kentucky 1:50.38 3

15 Ryan Waite SR BYU 1:50.57 1

16 Russell Dinkins SR Princeton 1:50.70 3

17 Samuel Ellison JR Villanova 1:50.99 2

18 Hector Hernandez FR Texas A&M 1:51.37 2

19 Charles Grethen SO Georgia 1:51.91 3

20 Tomas Squella FR Arkansas 1:53.27 2

21 Josh Hernandez SO Texas A&M 1:53.78 3

22 Brandon Lasater SO Georgia Tech 1:54.27 3

23 Anthony Lieghio SR Arkansas 1:55.08 2

24 Kisean Smith FR Georgia 1:56.45 2

Almost all the guys there are from major programs, aside from Montana State, Loyola, Western Kentucky, and a Kenyan from Middle Tenn. St.