I was asked this question this week by a parent and, knowing next to nothing about college recruiting, didn't have a very good answer. Do college coaches, ie those that might be handing out scholarships, look at all at freshmen or sophomore year times? Is it just junior and senior times than matter? Or just senior year? tks in advance
There is no good answer here. Frosh and Soph times don't matter much but they can contribute to the trends that coaches will be looking at when they are recruiting athletes as juniors and seniors.
For example, my very successful local HS team has two types of kids:
1. A group of experienced age group runners that have followed a well worn path to this school. They've run regularly since middle scoolers.
2. General students that have joined the XC team with no experience.
Right now there are two juniors in the top-5, one out each of these two groups, and if I was a college coach I'd take the kid out of group 2 since he has more upside and has reached the same level on 2 years of serious running. A coach would look at his freshman times and realize that he had no prior experience.
Two of the seniors at this school, are group 1 kids and, while they have run fast, you can look back and see that their improvement curve has been very shallow.
The most insightful answer I've heard is that college coaches will know who they are going to recruit by the end of that classes' junior year. Senior year is mostly about taking final visits and sealing the deal but coaches won't be adding too many names to the list after your junior year of track.
Thanks for you response. So for a group 1 runner what would be the minimum 5k times that a coach would want to see freshman, soph, junior and senior years? Lets say for a D2 or D3 school.
5k-16:30-16:00 minimum. Or at least when they would consider a decent scholarship. Other decent track times to compact to those cross country times would DEFINITELY help.
However, the main thing with the 5k is unless it's on the track they truly look more at placing in championship meets during cross country. The coaches look for competitive runners who still have a lot of pop in their legs. They look for milers mainly, because milers can move up and sometimes down at the snap of a knuckle.
Thanks a lot. This is a big help.
Couldn't you just point the coach to your athlete's MileSplit page? All the significant races and the yearly progression are laid out for the coach to see.
Junior year track times, and senior year cross country results.
Yes, freshman and sophomore times are looked at to see the athletes progression, but aren't necessarily important.