Collegiate XC/TF Runners - What's your teams attrition rate?

Big South Pride wrote:

Must be a Big South thing to bring in smallish groups and have maybe half finish at best. I also ran at a Big South school and had the following results:

Before My Freshman Year - 4 guys, all 4 finished

Freshman Year - 4 guys, I was the only one to finish at that school (one was injured and transferred for his final year of eligibility)

Sophomore Year- 4 guys, none finished (one did stick around the program, he just got sick)

Junior Year - 2 guys, neither finished

Senior Year - 4 guys, I think one finished

We were a meat grinder - not in terms of volume but in intensity. Three quality days plus a long run per week, two days of easy doubles w/ballistic circuit, one easy OYO. If you could stay healthy you ran well, but it wasn't possible for three seasons and we usually peaked quite early. Wonder if you can guess where I went off that haha. What years did you attend?

I think this would make a good research topic for a Masters thesis. Why do collegiate runners quit the sport.

On my team we experienced similar drop off as others on here have reported. What I found interesting is that on my team few quit because of performance (or lack thereof). What I saw were young people struggling with making the transition from HS kid to young independent adults.

- 1 girl quit to run away with a bf and start a family

- 1 guy had his family leave for Alaska, he moved there after 1 year in school to follow them

- 1 guy couldn't keep up his grades.

- 1 girl quit to work a full time job, hated school, disliked running

- 1 girl quit after become seriously ill (nothing to do with running.)

- 1 guy transferred to a school closer to his gf

- 1 guy was kicked out of school for forgery of a check

Small D3 school:

As a freshman, I was among 12 cross country recruits, (8 men and 3 women). Only 3 of them made it all the way to senior year, and I was the only 12 season athlete.

One quit to join the drama club, after not running all summer and being wrought with injuries.

One broke his leg, and then dropped out of school.

Two were academically illegible.

One thought he was bullied by teammates who wanted him to work harder, and quit.

One got in progressively worse shape, and eventually quit when he was no longer competitive.

One transferred to community college and runs marathons.

One couldn't handle three jobs, a full courseload, and running.

And so on...

Nationally competitive DIII team, numbers based on TFRRS so I may be missing some-

Class of 2016- 4/8 Graduated on the team, but the four that dropped all quit during/after their freshman year.

Class of 2017- 2/9 Finishing on the team.

Class of 2018- 1/6 currently

Class of 2019- 7/9 currently

Class of 2020- 6/12 currently

I think the numbers may be a tiny deceiving, being that although the top runners stay and are relatively successful, we're pretty inclusive of walkons, who are a little more likely to drop (nothing against walkons, I did the same).

Attrition rate was high at my school. Our coach was willing to take chances on people who were scrubs/underperformers in high school but was pretty ruthless if you didn't prove yourself fast (or demonstrate the talent you had in HS if you were a star recruit).

Incoming 2009 - 2/2 female recruits, 2/6 male recruits

Incoming 2010 - 2/6 female recruits, 2/9 male recruits

Incoming 2011 - 0/5 female recruits, 1/4? male recruits.

On paper, most of these people quit/were let go because of injuries/health issues, "attitude problems" (partying/drugs), or desire to focus on academics. While these things played into the departures to some extent, I think all but a handful did actually want to continue on the team. When you weren't up to snuff, our coach would neglect/ignore you to point where you didn't feel like you were on the team and then most people would quit because they didn't feel putting up with that was worth it.

I found myself in this situation after being chronically injured in my first two years after being recruited as a potential "impact freshman." I just wanted to be on the team so badly that I refused to quit.

Midmajor D1, amount quit or left / amount in class during my time there:

HS class of 2010: 8/14 male recruits, 5/5 female recruits

Guys is a bit misleading, as some of those ran XC their senior years but did not run track. As for the girls, one fled because our girls coach ruined her, one had a medical condition, one was a walk on the coach wanted nothing to do with (only lasted a week), one was a flake, one was a partier.

HS class of 2011: 6/11 male, 1/5 female

Males were mostly due to drinking desires (one transferred), female had a non-running related medical issue and couldn't run anymore.

HS class of 2012: 3/7 male, 2/8 female

HS class of 2013: 1/9 male, 6/11 female

Comes in waves, really. Plus, my coach changed his recruiting philosophy a bit in the last couple of years in that he now looks for strong character guys rather than the most talented; we can't blow money on guys that do the bare minimum for four years, and people tend to not change and grow up.

My daughter ran at a “power 5” but middle-of-the-pack school for the ACC conference. According to her, most of the less talented who “quit” were passively/aggressively forced out by the coaching staff. From my memory, most of the top runners seemed to stick with it probably because of their scholarship, but I know many did want to quit based on conversations at meets with other parents.

I think scholarship track athletes (a tiny fraction of all college track athletes) are more likely to transfer, and everyone else is more likely to quit. This is for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to; coaches who do not care about you, minimal opportunities to compete, not feeling like a part of the team, practices are painful and much harder than high school, no time/too tired to do anything outside of track, general loss of enthusiasm for the sport, etc..

Probably better for everyone if the athlete can quit on their own terms instead of being kicked off the team.

DIII regularly appearing at xc nats. My class lost 2 of 9. Class below lost 2 of 5. Current freshman have yet to lose anybody of the 10.

I think the fact we are dIII plays into it. Nobody runs for money so the can afford school. We run because we enjoy it. Those who quit are the chronically injured after 2 yeras or those who don't enjoy running and college.

Oh wow sorry, i flubbed a lot of words in there, but you get the idea...

This is a good thread. I wonder how much a coach could glean from it to cut down on the attrition rate, (or if that is something they even want to do?)

I've never coached in college but I would hate the idea of spending time to recruit, host, research, and invest time in a kid only to have him skip out on me and then I'd have to start all over with someone else.

Is there anything a coach can do to help screen this out, or is this just a risk of dealing with this age group? This is a time when kids are figuring this out, they are away from home for the first time, and they are often just being challenged as an athlete for the first time.

I ran at D1 southeast region CC college. We finished top 8 in the region every year, so a good but not great team. This was late 80s, early 90s when Title IX did not limit team sizes as it does now. So we had unlimited walk ons. Usually about 40-50 guys and 20 or so girls would start a CC season and about half would finish the season.

Our team didn't discriminate against walk ons, in fact our coach encouraged us to improve. That influenced my choice of school (I spoke with coaches who had zero interest in walk ons). The slower runners just never traveled and usually that discouraged them to the point of quitting. Some got injured, some just found other interests.

I didn't think it was all that unusual that there was a 50% attrition rate and based on comments here that seems to actually be pretty good.

quickndirty wrote:

Is there anything a coach can do to help screen this out, or is this just a risk of dealing with this age group?

This is just a risk of dealing with this age group.

quickndirty wrote:

Is there anything a coach can do to help screen this out, or is this just a risk of dealing with this age group? This is a time when kids are figuring this out, they are away from home for the first time, and they are often just being challenged as an athlete for the first time.

Most of the male athletes I know who quit clashed personally with the coach, while most of the women quit because they simply didn't want to run anymore or wanted to join a sorority.

Anyone else had this experience?

Our program has the opposite problem. The HC won't Briz runners who are under preforming. We've had too many runners in recent years who are into social life and not dedicated to earning their generous grant-in-aid.

Because the people we go after generally have great grades our recruiting hasn't been that hot in recent years (losing out to elite academic schools). We are hitting on roughly 20% of our top choices that we've put a lot of work on. Therefore we must consider some of these transfers that are unhappy at their current school.

This is the hard part. Kids quit that were big time in HS, kids quit when running was a huge passion, kids quit that you'd never expect. Also great HS leaders and students slip into bad habits. It's next to impossible to quit. I've had kids that have everything handed to them work really hard and kids that rose from nothing settle in and take it for granted when they get here. Again, impossible to predict.

quickndirty wrote:

This is a good thread. I wonder how much a coach could glean from it to cut down on the attrition rate, (or if that is something they even want to do?)

I've never coached in college but I would hate the idea of spending time to recruit, host, research, and invest time in a kid only to have him skip out on me and then I'd have to start all over with someone else.

Is there anything a coach can do to help screen this out, or is this just a risk of dealing with this age group? This is a time when kids are figuring this out, they are away from home for the first time, and they are often just being challenged as an athlete for the first time.

in the freshmen class I came into for the women (I'm now a senior), all of us are still on the team (some are injured but still intend to return) and for the men all 4 that joined quit. We are a smaller team but over the years we have had much better attrition than years before.

quickndirty wrote:

This is a good thread. I wonder how much a coach could glean from it to cut down on the attrition rate, (or if that is something they even want to do?)

I've never coached in college but I would hate the idea of spending time to recruit, host, research, and invest time in a kid only to have him skip out on me and then I'd have to start all over with someone else.

Is there anything a coach can do to help screen this out, or is this just a risk of dealing with this age group? This is a time when kids are figuring this out, they are away from home for the first time, and they are often just being challenged as an athlete for the first time.

Division 1 coach to the rescue to answer your question! Screening for these kind of behaviors (if that is what causes the "quitting") depends a lot on the stances of both the athletic department and coaching staff. Some coaches and departments are trying to go after "impact recruits" only and will care about results because that is what they are ultimately judged on. This can lead to some killer teams if done right, but the team culture will never be consistent because you are not recruiting off of character. Most high-level distance programs that go this route AND are still successful year in and year out is because they are the typical "powerhouse" programs that are steeped in rich tradition.

Then you have coaches and departments that screen for this behavior. Sometimes it is to build up a good team culture of people who are willing to be "all in." From the AD's perspective, they like to screen for good personalities so they don't have to deal with potential headaches in the future (low grades, trouble with the law, etc.). Our sport is supposed to be low stress for the department.

I try to do a combination of the two approaches. I look at results and bring lots of athletes on recruiting visits, however I really try to have a lot of dialogue with them to determine their personality. My department also has me do reference calls on all athletes we wish to give money too. This includes people who are NOT THEIR PARENTS. You would be surprised what coaches and counselors will say about a student-athlete. Some don't hold back.

However, you can do all of this and still not have it work out. Is it a risk with this age group? The Millennial generation? Probably not. At the end of the day, people do change a lot in college and most of the time, people try to "bring out their best" on recruiting visits too, so it can be hard to tell how they will end up. You just have to stick to your guns as a coaching staff and really try to seek out athletes who have personalities (and results) that will match your team. Wanna know how teams like Ole Miss, and Harvard/USF Women's team are rising so quickly? They got good recruiters and you bet they screen for this kind of stuff as best as possible as well as knowing all the risks associated with high-level recruiting

P.S. I have seen plenty of people "come back to the sport." It only takes a little effort on the coach's part to make sure to support their athletes during their journeys. Sometimes they figure things out and come back to you later. We had a girl take over a year off from the sport and is now about to punch her ticket to NCAA's 1st round. How many people on here have those kinds of stories about teammates?

I'd estimate the attrition rate at about 75% over 4 years at my bad to mediocre D1 team.

Kids quit for all kinds of reasons, but the most common one was being unable to deal with not being the star like they were on their high school teams. That can be rough on the ego.

There was one kid, though, who told the coach he wanted to train on his own and still race with the team. (Given his rather ordinary talent and race results, he was NOT in a position to negotiate!). Coach told him to get lost, and we never saw or heard from him again.

Top 10 d1 team:

Our team dropped a ton of people, usually the average class from my 4 years would finish with only 25% of the people they started with.