Tell us your weirdest college recruiting story

I mentioned my Cornell visit on another post, after which Rojo asked for some details.

I took an official visit to Cornell on Halloween weekend in 2003. I was and 800 runner and had gone maybe 1:55 at that point.

Anyway, the guys I stayed with took me to a Halloween part that night with a bunch of other athletes. I drank a ton of jungle juice, got drunk, and spent most of the party grinding on some 6' tall female basketball player. Ended up losing my v-card that night and getting locked out of the apartment I was staying in; my host had to let me in at like 4am.

I'll be in Portland for world champs in March; if Rojo is there and I run into him first round is on me.

I was recruited by louisville back in 2008, ended up meeting up with some basketball recruits. Night got pretty memorable from there.

Visiting WSU in 1979 after running a HS three mile at the Kibbie Dome and meeting briefly with then coach John Chaplain. Took a freezing cold short run around the WSU campus with Henry Rono, Cheriyout and a few others. A good buddy of mine ended up joining those guys.

Met the coach of a smaller private school at the state meet. He sent me their brochure and media guide. Back then in the 90s the price tag was pretty high at $25k just for tuition. I had a GF I wasn't interested in leaving so I talked to him a few times but lost contact for 4-5 months.

Then one day in July we broke up and I realized I was being an idiot. Called up the coach and asked if he still had a spot on the team for me.

He said he did but I was living on my own working part time so I could run. I told the coach my situation and that I couldn't afford the tuition. All he said was "we will take care of you."

I asked what that meant, and he just said, "you get here and we will take care of you."

So I packed my car and I half expected to get there and turn around. I barely had gas money to get there. When I showed up he gave me a full ride. Food, housing, books, everything. I went on to make track nationals as a junior and senior. We missed XC my senior year by 3 points and were the first team to not get an at large.

He trained us well through the off season: tempos, long runs, fartleks. But for some reason the 12-16 weeks in season he had no clue. I mean the paces, what he had us doing... It made no sense.

Still I am grateful for what he did for me. I didn't agree with the training but I shut up and did it. I could have run faster but still enjoyed my experience.

I was asleep on the couch at my hosts house when at 3 in the morning a couple of drunks stumbled in and jumped on me. They were pretty hammered, and after a couple of minutes they realized I was not who they thought I was and took off. I have no idea who they were, not anyone I formally met on the trip. I was never able to find out if they knew my hosts and took off because they realized they tackled someone they didn't know or if they stumbled into the wrong house. I know I never locked my house during college which is stupid looking back, its amazing more crap like this or theft doesn't happen to college students.

BTW this was not the reason I chose to go to another school.

I visited Cornell on a recruiting trip in 2000 before I had ever heard of let's run dot com. I also had a wild night out at a party on Eddy St with the track team. That night it snowed 8 inches, and the team ran like 18 miles the next morning. Even the prospectives - me and one other guy turned around after twenty minutes.I went to a D3 school, not as far north. I wonder where the other slacker spec went.

Cornell Visit wrote:

I mentioned my Cornell visit on another post, after which Rojo asked for some details.

I took an official visit to Cornell on Halloween weekend in 2003. I was and 800 runner and had gone maybe 1:55 at that point.

Anyway, the guys I stayed with took me to a Halloween part that night with a bunch of other athletes. I drank a ton of jungle juice, got drunk, and spent most of the party grinding on some 6' tall female basketball player. Ended up losing my v-card that night and getting locked out of the apartment I was staying in; my host had to let me in at like 4am.

I'll be in Portland for world champs in March; if Rojo is there and I run into him first round is on me.

Nice one. It may slide by a few....

rube wrote:

There was a D1 university I really wanted to attend, but I needed to make sure the coach actually wanted me there. He had some stupid policy against directly recruiting his athletes, so he sent his assistant coach and a few athletes to try to get me.

I insisted, demanding to be directly recruited by the head-coach. The next day, the assistant coach returned to my house with a copy of the college newspaper -- on the front page was a letter from the coach, inviting me to run for the university.

Later I found out he didn't write the letter himself.

LOL ^^^

For me, it seems like NAIA and d3 coaches are willing to do about anything to get a kid. I was talking with a couple D1 and lots of D2 schools and my excuse to let a D3 coach down easy was the cost of the school was too high. (because even with a full athletic offer it was like 50,000 a year still) Anyways, with that information he had every single JUCO coach he knew calling me and asking me to run for them so I could transfer over to this other NAIA school after two years.

I was lightly recruited by four schools, and had one scholarship offer. I went to a big state university instead that had a good XC program, where i was not recruited.

I was told I was a half miler and couldn't run XC (I was a miler). At least I made the indoor and outdoor team from Frosh year.

If I wanted to run my best, I woulda run for one of the teams that tried to recruit me! At least the state univ. I went to had a good department in my major.

I was on a recruiting trip at a D2 school and there was one guy on the team that I used to run against when he was still in high school. The first night the team was taking me to a house party but the guy I knew could not go due to work. So we went to this party, I had some drinks and next thing I knew I was conversing with this cute blonde girl and we started to hook up. So one thing led to another and we ended up at her apartment for the night. The next morning the girl had to give me a ride back to the dorm rooms, I had told her that I was a student because I felt stupid saying I was a Senior in high school. When she dropped me off I asked for her phone number and she said that she had a boyfriend but the night was fun…I was like, HELL YEAH! MY FIRST ONE NIGHT STAND!

So the second night of the trip the team was going to dinner at the coaches house. When the guy that I knew from high school walked in I went right to him and started talking about how much fun we had the previous night. He seemed peeved the whole time I was talking and he finally said…yeah, I heard about the whole night. I was like…uhhhh, how could he know about the cute blonde girl??? He then pulled out my watch…I had left it in the girls apartment and he found it. He knew it was a christmas gift from my dad and it had my name and my high school engraved on the back. I totally freaked out and started to apologize profusely…the dude said it was cool and that she was s slut anyways…I was like, HELL YEAH! MY FIRST SLUT!

This kid that is a junior now at a D3 school was on a recruiting visit and the people that were hosting him ended up showing him a picture of of one of their roommates p3nis.

coach d wrote:

It wasn't weird back then, but now...

I was recruited for football. Of the 5 recruiting visits, one was to Penn State. While I played both ways in high school, they were recruiting me to play defense, so I went to see the guy who was the defensive coordinator and who would have been my coach if I went there (I didn't):

Jerry Sandusky

Yes, I met him (not in a shower or a sleepover) and nothing unusual happened.

That is because he was not intersted in 17 or 18 year old boys ... now if you were 10 or 11 years old ... same story, very different ending.

I refuse to believe this many weenie 17/18 y.o. runner boys got laid

girrrrrrllllll wrote:

I refuse to believe this many weenie 17/18 y.o. runner boys got laid

Same thing as always: self-selection.

Remember, hundreds (at least--maybe thousands) of people who frequent this site got recruited, but the thread asks for "weird" stories. What could be weirder than a HS runner getting laid? Or rarer?--which is why only a handful (so to speak) of them have posted about it?

I ran at a D2 school. We had a kid who came on a visit and stayed with some of the freshmen in the dorms. He was kinda had a "tough guy/douche look" and was in the way during a track workout. Well come to find out he wet my teammate's roommates bed. like full release. I secretly wanted him to come so we could call him "BW" (bed wetter)

I have a very common name and did not run in high school. A southeastern DIII coached e-mailed me about running xc for him, obviously thinking I was someone else. I wrote back saying his offer was a case of mistaken identity but since he asked about my PR, I told him I ran a 23-minute 5k. His next e-mail asked for a link to the race results and asked if I would consider running for his school anyway.

Some curvy chicks with big melons and hairy bushes were walking around in the dorm shower room. Signed letter of intent that same day.

Some curvy chicks with big melons and hairy bushes were walking around in the dorm shower room. Signed letter of intent that same day.

Went on an overnight visit at a top d3 school in the northeast. I flew in from Texas just to see this school because I was very interested. The coach and day-time activities were fine, but once night fell, things got crazy. There were parties and it made me uncomfortable so my host took me back to his room and I slept on the floor next to his roommate's bed.

Here's the catch: my host's roommate walks in an hour later with some girl he met on tinder and they proceed to furiously have sex inches away from me. I stared wide-eyed at the ceiling as the fluids of passionate love making dripped on to my glossy auburn hair throughout the night. When morning came, our tinderella lay with her bosom exposed to the sky, revealing two black nipple piercings. I starred at them for a few minutes before my host woke up and got me out of there.

Safe to say I didn't attend this school. However, I still furiously swipe right whenever I travel through western Massachusetts, patiently waiting for the day I match with the studded princess that forever changed the way I think about the phrase, "soft nut."