Random fact of day - Lee Emanuel was 25 when he won his 2nd NCAA title in 2010 - List of Oldest/Youngest NCAA Champs

Nyambui was 28 when he won his last NCAA outdoor titles in 1982

DOB Feb. 13, 1953.

Edward Cheserek was 19 and 294 days old when he won the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Championship.

Rono ran for Washington State

BK was 18 years, 3 months, and 3 days old when he won the NCAA XC title in 1988.

Sulemain wrote:

Nyambui was 28 when he won his last NCAA outdoor titles in 1982

DOB Feb. 13, 1953.

Unless outdoors used to be in January, I believe that would have made him 29.

But he's white and this is letsrun so it is okay.

Miles Batty won a title or two didn't he? And he had to be 25 or 26

my dad was 17 when he won the NCAA championship

K5 wrote:

But he's white and this is letsrun so it is okay.

Miles Batty won a title or two didn't he? And he had to be 25 or 26

Batty was 23 when he won his 2 NCAA titles.

Kirani James was 17 years nine months when he won outdoors in 2010.

Didn't Cheserek have a few grandkids already?

Wasn't Ryun only 18 as a sophomore (freshmen weren't eligible) when he won his first NCAA?

Lawi, Sambu, Kithuka, Cheserek, all Africans, several foreigners, the BYU guys. I've expressed this in several threads before- different cultures view age differently, You can't impose "white middle class American" culture on everyone. Kenyans don't get out of high school over there until the age of 19 and their not coming directly over here out of high school. Why do you think you see so many Kenyans do great things in college and then fade out? It's because they were 26 or older at some point in college. Cheserek is not 19 or whatever. That's just what it says on his birth certificate here in the U.S. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone's accomplishments, I'm simply bringing to the table that age is irrelevant and you need to stop caring so much. Americans caring so much about age limitations is what prevents them from succeeding to the highest level. Why do we not have even more fast runners? Because our culture tells us that if we haven't run a certain time by a certain age, we'll never break 4 minutes for the mile etc... If people would stop putting so much emphasis on age, I think you would see a transformation in the running culture of the U.S. So please stop worrying so much about age and just be concerned with running. This experiment is futile anyway. There's no way to do an accurate assessment.

*they're

jimjamesrunner wrote:

If people would stop putting so much emphasis on age, I think you would see a transformation in the running culture of the U.S.

Ha! Right.

Age shouldn't matter in the WC, Olympics, the summer circuit, invitaionals, etc. But when you compete in an association that HAS age limits, then it is an issue.If they have a 'different' time culture (does time work in another dimension on the African continent?) then they should not compete in our collegiate system.

Being a top African NCAA runner doesn't make you automatically older than you claim to be.

It's total crap and it's unfair to those runners.

LI Runner wrote:

Age shouldn't matter in the WC, Olympics, the summer circuit, invitaionals, etc. But when you compete in an association that HAS age limits, then it is an issue.

If they have a 'different' time culture (does time work in another dimension on the African continent?) then they should not compete in our collegiate system.

The NCAA does not have age limits, you seem very misinformed.

NCAA age limits were discussed here:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1000899

If I understand correctly, the final word there appears to be the post of compliance chick, which essentially says that as long as you don't compete between your 21st birthday and when you enroll in college, you are not limited by your age. This rule effectively puts 26 as the oldest age you will tend to see, but in principle someone could only start competitively running at age 25 and be competing in D1 at the age of 30 (or ages 75 and 80, respectively, for that matter!).

The funny thing is when Lee was 25 he wasn't even the oldest on the UNM team. They had a Kenyan that was at least 4 years older. Different cultures completely view age differently.