XC Team but no Track!!!

Son if you're talking about CALIPERS and using them to check your BMI your're too damn fat to be of the CALIBER to qualify for nationals. Just a thought.

I was in the same situation when I was in college. I went to the DII University because it was one of only a handful of school with a top-notch aerospace engineering program. I was recruited to run cross-country, but was struggling because I still wanted to run track. We had a men’s and women’s cross program. I talked to the coach and he said they are not a sanctioned NCAA sport for track, but the distance guys competed in a few meets every spring. Within my first semester there, I looked into how to form an official club track team, through the university student government.

I talked to the SGA president, faculty supervisor, and the financing officer. I learned what forms, memberships info, rules that I need to form a club, (just like any other student club, such as chess club), and started filling out the proper paper work. I needed ten signatures and people willing to be responsible for being officers for the club. That was easy since I just got the entire Cross team to sign and needed people to step up and take charge.

I then learned that each club, which was chartered through the SGA, was eligible to receive $500 a year in funding. It isn’t much but helped with started up funding for marketing.

Long story short, the fist track season, it was just the distance teams running meets. But we got some write-ups in the school newspaper and people started taking notice that we had a club track team. Other students starting inquiring and wanting to know more about it. Even other athletes from other NCAA sports asked like basketball players for the jumps and sprints.

Since the club was open to any students enrolled full time, the 2nd year, we had about 20 male and 15 female track participants. I will be honest, most were not that good, but it was a start to the team

With the help of my cross coach, I was able to keep building the track club, and go to more and more meets every tear and with extra fundraising and donations we pretty much acted like full NCAA team. We usually ended up just carpooling ourselves to the meets, and didn’t travel all over the country, but ran indoor and outdoor seasons.

By my senior year, the University added added a new NCAA sport but it was women’s track, and the men’s team was around 30 guys, s still a club, since the school has hockey team that takes up allot of scholarships, Within the first year some of the females qualified for nationals in about 4 events.

This was from 1996 – 2001, so it was not that long ago, and it can happen. Just talk to the right people, make yourself visible, seek out money.

Good Luck.

Thanks!!!

Kamikaze-

Other than the "aerospace engineering program" major your story is very similar to the school I coach at. We had a Track Team back in the '70s which was phased out a year or two before I came here as a student in 1983. We've had XC since 1969. I started coaching in fall 2001, and one of the seniors that year had started Track Club at our school freshman year. He went the same route you did, through the Student Association. Started off small with mostly just the Men's XC team and a few of the Women's XC runners, doing a couple of Indoor meets and 4-5 Outdoor meets. Every year they appy for maximum funding (our SA has a sliding scale where new clubs have smaller max funding than established clubs).

Naturally, when we go to meets most of the entrants from our school are in the distance events. But we usually have 3-4 throwers and a couple of jumpers, and we always have a few people who want to try the sprints & hurdles.

We can't get into NCAA Championship meets, but we're able to get to a bunch of schools that have meets 2nd semester. We also will support active team members who want to try USATF meets. Mostly it's just trying to be a true club with open membership for our students.

At the request of some members, the club has also started to do some road races. In fact last May we announced the club was doing a local 5k and we got 65 runners to sign up and show up. That makes the Track Club one of the biggest clubs on campus (we're talking 1800 students so not a big school).

This year we plan on getting a little more formal. We've shown we can get the numbers out, now we need to show a stable club base. The hope is that as the administration of our athletic department changes over the years (both staffign and attitudes) that someday in the not so distant future we'll be able to move Track Club into Track Team.

Congratulations to you for getting something going that really made a difference.

NCAA allows 5 meets in the spring representing the university for cross country only schools. This does not count as track and field for the school. Check NCAA manual.

I know that for sure.

What I'm not sure of is if you can qualify for regionals/nationals, you may be able to and pay a $500 fine.

if you're not on an officially sanctioned team, you can't qualify for nationals.