college teams relying on foreigners

BobDoug wrote:

"providence, villanova"

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Not nearly as much as the past. Particularly with women. Neither school --to my knowledge?-- recruits east africans.

I would also not count "the great White North" eh.

Racist. If you don't have US citizenship, you're a foreigner here. Simple as that.

would you turn down a sub 4 miler that was interested in your team because he was not American? Are you against schools recruiting out of state aswell? Whats wrong with getting the best talent available? ALot of times its the international kids reaching out to schools.

UTEP and middle Tennessee take a look.

UTEP is 100% Kenyan including the coach.

Middle Tennessee...

Many coaches can't coach. So what they do is recruit foreigner athletes to garner quick results and parlay that to greener pastures.

There is so much wrong with this practice. From how it impacts a HS athletes training to try and gain a scholarship at 18 vs many foreign athletes who are much older, to program funding etc.

The benefit is quality and expectations rise when any program is able to recruit top athletes, it pulls everyone else up. Problem is when programs overweight with foreign athletes, that in many cases are old... Much older, it becomes counter productive to the development of US HS athletes.

The NCAA should have limits to numbers of foreign athletes on a team. Suggestion: 30%

I agree that there should be more strict age limits, but why are you saying that these guys can't coach? They are just trying to get the best athletes and get those athletes to run their best, regardless of where they are from.

Is that so.... wrote:

Oh look, a cry baby posting about another cry baby. F*ggot

Love how this touches a chord and brings out the true colors w/ your language. The truth still stands that ASU almost always has an older foreign athlete running for them who has an extensive racing history post secondary school before arriving there. Then they magically are granted 3-4 years of NCAA eligibility and maybe even an extra for a medical waiver from an "injury" they had whilst running for their club back home. Good times... Level playing field? I think not. Play on ol chaps.

Limits for development wrote:

UTEP and middle Tennessee take a look.

UTEP is 100% Kenyan including the coach.

Middle Tennessee...

Many coaches can't coach. So what they do is recruit foreigner athletes to garner quick results and parlay that to greener pastures.

There is so much wrong with this practice. From how it impacts a HS athletes training to try and gain a scholarship at 18 vs many foreign athletes who are much older, to program funding etc.

The benefit is quality and expectations rise when any program is able to recruit top athletes, it pulls everyone else up. Problem is when programs overweight with foreign athletes, that in many cases are old... Much older, it becomes counter productive to the development of US HS athletes.

The NCAA should have limits to numbers of foreign athletes on a team. Suggestion: 30%

UTEP has 26 foreigners on its men's and women's rosters. Most of their coaching staff is foreign. Then again, no US kids, for the most part, would consider going to El Paso. Middle Tenn has 24 foreigners.

Odd how you guys only ever mention the African athletes as a problem. Wonder why that might be.

Yes Part of what I wrote did focus on age and yes primarily African runners fall into the much older age category. Not limited to Africans though. Often Aussies and Europeans are a year or two older when they arrive as freshman.

As well Mormon athletes gain a big advantage due to being two years older after their religious work. Distance events are the clear winner with those that have greater maturity.

To some extent this has caused US HS athletes and their parents to push the age scale as well. Many top recruits are 19 and 20 year old Freshman in college.

Nevertheless, the main thrust of the tread has to do with the large number of foreign athletes gaining athletic scholarship to US universities. The impact of that is up for discussion. If you think it is good or bad provide suggestions. I think when teams have an overwhelming number of foreign athletes it is bad. Having some foreign athletes on a team is good and that is why I suggested a 30% rule be instituted by the NCAA.

Wow. ASU. We are still singled out. Awesome. 51 titles and counting. Miraculous. Avgerage age must be 24-26 years old and the NCAA must surely grant some favors for Adams State. Go back to college and study your P's and Q's. Your logic is poor at best.

Cry me a river please. No nerves hit.

American runners can wait to go to college as well if they are so concerned with a scholarship. I would argue it is probably good for kids to take a year or two in the real world before pursuing their studies. They can compete during one gap year, and after that, only at events like National Trials. Most American kids would rather just get on with it than hem and haw over going to school in a place like El Paso or otherwise.

Your 30% rule seems arbitrary and baseless.

Why is this always an area of critique for certain programs? Do Tennis programs, whose rosters are rife with international student-athletes, fall under such scrutiny? Why is it that only distance athletes and specifically Kenyan distance receive such attention? Nobody criticizes Providence in this same way... why is that? They are a program that always has foreign student-athletes and they too have a foreign coach. Why doesn't Wisconsin receive the same amount of scrutiny? They have multiple foreign student-athletes and have multiple foreign coaches.

It seems to me that you're focus on foreigners simply isn't as broad as the country of their origin. The tone of these conversations always sinks to a place that makes me really question the intentions of people posting and it makes me uncomfortable and sad. Do sprint/jump programs that have a lot of West African and Caribbean student-athletes receive this about of ire? Do throws/multi-event heavy programs with a lot of Eastern European programs? It seems to me that this is exclusively the culture of distance runners. The conversation is inherently racist and xenophobic in nature. We only tear each other down out of jealousy of another person's success.

The fact is, not every school is equal in resources and support. However, the thing that IS every school is expected to field the most competitive team they possibly can. For a program like UTEP to focus their recruiting on domestic student-athletes, when they have a Kenyan Olympic gold medalist as their head coach, is just silly. Those that generally are quickest to criticize, often have NO experience with foreign student-athletes. Most of these student-athletes have amazing personal life stories (Lopez Lomong & Wesley Korir are well advertised) and they are coming for more than just a free education... they are altering the trajectory of the quality of life for their families for generations to come.

Perhaps, if you just focused on you, you would be happier and more successful.

Further, to critique a coaches coaching ability based on the country of origin of their roster is short-sighted at best. Are you going to tell me that Jon Murray didn't coach Sally Kipyego? Did Chris Bucknam not coach Stanley Kebenei? Did Marcus O'Sullivan not coach Patrick Tiernan? Did Andy Powell not coach Ed Cheserek? Did Lance Harter not coach Dominique Scott? Your critique of foreign student-athletes and foreign coaches will leave no program unscathed... especially if you look at the entire history of each program.

The fact of the matter is, foreign student-athletes ENHANCE the quality and depth of competition in the NCAA. We are better for their presence and their lives are enhanced beyond the field of play.

Ol DII Chap wrote:

Is that so.... wrote:

Oh look, a cry baby posting about another cry baby. F*ggot

Love how this touches a chord and brings out the true colors w/ your language. The truth still stands that ASU almost always has an older foreign athlete running for them who has an extensive racing history post secondary school before arriving there. Then they magically are granted 3-4 years of NCAA eligibility and maybe even an extra for a medical waiver from an "injury" they had whilst running for their club back home. Good times... Level playing field? I think not. Play on ol chaps.

This. I know Adams isn't the only guilty school, but they get more attention because they win.

If only the NCAA bureaucracy actually cared to write clear rules and enforce them...

Guilty of what? Attaining success in D2 under the NCAA D2 rule structure? NCAA D2 is NOT NCAA D1. 10 semester D2 attendance rule vs the 5 yr continuous D1 attendance clock creates opportunities for an older student to look at D2.

Time to quit crying over older D2 students. Do ya crybabies get it yet?

If my sources are correct, the past 4 XC National championship teams Adams has fielded have had a grand total of 2 foreigners. Kevin Batt 2012, 2013, 2014. Kale Adams 2015.

Ya you guys are racist as F*CK! Only targeting schools recruiting Africans... maybe you guys need a reality check

Villanova has been heavily recruiting aussies & Europeans lately, what about them? Ville Lampinen, Tiernan, Williamz, Slade? Need I dive into Womens program?

Iona has historically outsourced everybody. Africans, Europeans, Aussies. Don't matter to them, they just want fast. Iona should be #1 on the list in this thread. I think more than half of their top 7 were from Europe (Except Kirui), why dont we hear about them?

Wb Adams state? seems like half their roster are all from f*king England!

& to whoever said "they only just started recruiting lately" as an excuse, Im sure the argument can be made for lots of schools recruiting Africans as well. Goes to show the racism in this thread

Ya you guys are racist as F*CK! Only targeting schools recruiting Africans... maybe you guys need a reality check

Villanova has been heavily recruiting aussies & Europeans lately, what about them? Ville Lampinen, Tiernan, Williamz, Slade? Need I dive into Womens program?

Iona has historically outsourced everybody. Africans, Europeans, Aussies. Don't matter to them, they just want fast. Iona should be #1 on the list in this thread. I think more than half of their top 7 were from Europe (Except Kirui), why dont we hear about them?

Wb Adams state? seems like half their roster are all from f*king England!

& to whoever said "they only just started recruiting lately" as an excuse, Im sure the argument can be made for lots of schools recruiting Africans as well. Goes to show the racism in this thread

New Mexico has 8 of 17 men and 7 of 17 women from their posted 2016 cross roster NOT from the US. I bet the allotment of granted money is even larger than the number ratio.

It's not that they can't coach, it's that it's hard to get national level highschool runners to come to there small school when those kids have power 5 conference schools coming at them with there flashy facilities and other state of the art equipment for athletes. Even though the ability to progress the athlete as a runner is the same 9/10 they will choose the bigger school. Also just putting it out there that recruiting foreigners is 100x harder than recruiting a kid in the US so I wouldn't say coaches are doing that because it's "easier". Btw from what I've see so far that EKU and Iona have picked up some pretty good national talent US runners.