Scholarship Offer for High School Girls In Top 50 Nationally (All Grades)

So what kind of package did she get? Were our suggestions helpful/correct?

I'm a head coach of a mid major DI university, I've coached all variety of athletes and teams.

Personally, I don't give a rip about talent alone. It takes fire, personality, and being able to mesh with the coach and teammates to be truly great.

Show me an athlete that has that in the tank and I'll produce an All-American, show me an athlete without it and I'll the result will be quite different.

All the best in the journey.

TrackCoach wrote:

I never recruited a XC runner. For one, there is too variability among XC courses and I wanted an athletes who could score points in the 800/mile/5000 at the conference meet. If she has good mile and 3200 marks 9.5 times out of 10 she is going to be pretty decent at cross or developed.

I have heard from many others sources including college coaches in person that they recruit and award scholarships based on track times. Coaches will provide potential recruits with walk on times and scholarship consideration times that are all based on track times. I would encourage high school athletes to compete at New Balance Nationals Indoors and Outdoors in whatever events they can qualify for such as the 800, mile, 2 mile, and 5000 meters if they are mid-distance or distance runners. Running 5000 meters around a 400 meter or worse yet 200 meter track may sound boring but it can give college cross country and track coaches a better idea of what times the athlete may be capable of running for longer distances. Many distance athletes are not nearly as competitive at 800 so if they are stronger in the 3200 meter/2 mile in track than I would encourage them to try a 5000 meter track race. Look for an indoor or outdoor 5000 meter track race. Some colleges allow top high school athletes to compete with the college runners. Some high school runners I know have run their best times at either New Balance Nationals or at a local division 2 college meet. It is easier to do the above than to qualify for NXN in Portland or Foot Locker in San Diego. Qualifying for either should help any cross country runner with scholarship offers but coaches will still be looking at track times and most distance runners receiving scholarship qualified for neither NXN or Foot Locker. I would still recommend that cross country runners attend either their regional NXN or Foot Locker competition or both. Many college coaches go to both but they are there primarily to watch juniors and seniors that they are already in communication with regarding recruiting.

I agree that fast track times do not always translate into cross country performance in college. Three high school girls that I know of were among the top in my state with 1600 meter times around 4:40. They are now college juniors or redshirt juniors and have yet to make it into the top 7 of their XC teams. These girls may have been the 0.5 out 10.