D1 and shoes

Get some shoes off ebay if you need them.

Every D1 school is required to allocate the same amount of shoes to each athlete.

This is false, my team gave shoes based off of mileage. Why should someone running 50 mpw get the same number of trainers as a kid running 110 mpw?

At my school it depends on who you are. If you're just a walk on you may get 1 pair of trainers and spikes a year.

If you're going to nationals you get treated like royalty and you can get a pair of trainers every week for all they care. Other gear works the same way too, but there is no minimal distribution.

Other schools work on a system where everybody gets the same thing. It depends on the program

Be friendly with your local running store until they definitely would give you a team/ student discount. Talk to you coach and athletic director about getting shoe stipends for the team to shop at local businesses. That's what all the D3 colleges have around us. They get a $200 stipend to spend at the store on shoes per season. There are a lot of ways to get people on board with it because college towns like having local businesses.

Come Onn wrote:

Every D1 school is required to allocate the same amount of shoes to each athlete.

Nope. Not true at all.

We get new trainers (all Nike - mostly Pegs and Structures) in mid-August. Then, around early- to mid-October we get new trainers, and then again in early December. Overall, I'd say we each get about 6 pair/year, but it does depend on mileage. Also, most of us are VERY picky about our shoes, and prefer to train in Asics, NBs, etc., and we just buy our own shoes (thanks Mom!). Many guys rotate thru 2-3 different shoes during a typical week depending on the workout, and depending if shoes are dry from the previous day, etc. Our coaches let us train in whatever works well for us - but we all race in Nike spikes.

College fan wrote:

At my school it depends on who you are. If you're just a walk on you may get 1 pair of trainers and spikes a year.

If you're going to nationals you get treated like royalty and you can get a pair of trainers every week for all they care. Other gear works the same way too, but there is no minimal distribution.

Other schools work on a system where everybody gets the same thing. It depends on the program

This is how it was at my college. Scrubs got about two pairs of trainers and 1 pair of spikes per year. Stars got frequent trainer replacements, several pairs of spikes, and flats. Most of the apparel went to everybody, but sometimes you would only get it if you were a bigshot, or if you were running at the conference/regional/national meet.

Its been detailed in other threads, but I got 4 pairs of trainers a year, 1 flat, 1 XC Spike, 1 Track Spike.

If we wanted more or needed more we just asked.

My daughter ran D1 and I've coached athletes who went on to D1- it varies widely from school to school.

Some kids told me when they needed shoes they got them. My daughter's school got one pair (of Nike) each season- three seasons.

I think it depends on the schools athletic budget/conference as well. I had a friend run in the ACC, then transfer to the SEC and he said the program got 3x the number of shoes, shirts, etc.

Definitely depends on the school. My coach disliked gear grubs so he'd make you work for new pairs and make it seem like you may not getting them. Yet I'd walk out of his office and they were in my equipment locker before I even got down there. As long as we could show a need, we had as much as we needed. Equipment room looked like a shoe store with shoe racks for all the different sports. This was at an ACC school.

I went to a small D1 school and anyone on the team (including walk-ons) would get shoes whenever we needed them. Our coach had a closet full of replacements for everyone and when you needed them (generally 400-600 miles logged) you could ask for your replacement. Naturally, higher mileage guys tend to get more shoes per year. After you get your replacement my coach would order the next round so they would arrive when you needed them again.

Our school contract was with Adidas but you could get an exemption if you didn't like their trainers. I was running in Asics. All of our racing spikes were Adidas though.

My school was (and still is) somewhat hostile toward giving shoes to distance runners. The coaches in charge at the top and of equipment are field event people and I have heard the phrase "the throwers only get two pairs of shoes" as a reason for distance runners getting fewer pairs of shoes. This is at a sponsored school that doesn't really need to ration shoes.

Major conference D1 school.

At my pretty well-funded D1 school I get new trainers as soon as I put 400-450 miles on a pair.

university of portland represent!

OK, so here's why this thread caught my eye. Let's say your at a 'Nike school'. I'm not sure if there are 'NB schools' or Mizuno, etc. but from what I read on this thread it seems Nike is THE sponsor of these sort of things. That's sort of a sub-question. Are NCAA D1 athletes exclusively in Nike as far as T+F and XC?

Here's the real question I have always wondered about:

Let's say it's a Nike school, whatever that means. Someone in the administration must have signed some contract with Nike, right? AD, coaches, maybe someone had higher like university president. Someone, though, agreed to something. Nike agreed to give free shoes and maybe apparel but what did the school agree to? To accept the gift? That's not really a contract, so they must have agreed to something. Do they promise that everyone on their team will only wear that brand?

But here I am at the school and I personally never signed anything and am not, as far as I can tell, contractually obligated to Nike, so I'm wearing asics, let's say. Of course there will be pro-Nike peer pressure, but there is also on HS teams. I mean, if you're on your HS track team and not in Nike you're getting laughed at and for sure at a D1 'Nike school' it will be even more true. But let's just say, here I am every day in those asics . Does the coach say something? Well, that's not really a question. Of course the coach says 'this is a team!' and 'get with the program!' etc. But does the AD drag you into an office and lecture you about 'breach of contract ' and 'possible legal action' and 'jeopardizing not just myself but the whole university'?

I'm hoping someone who actually knows the deal will weigh in here. A bunch of you current and ex-team player type guys saying 'I've never heard of Not wearing Nike' and ' why wouldn't you just go along?' doesn't help. That doesn't answer my question or further the discussion. We all know you all wear the free Nikes. My question is: 'What if you don't?' and really: 'Am I legally obligated to?'

I'm hoping you college coaches on the Board reply and say 'OK, here's how the contract works....'. Does it matter if you're scholarship or not? Could a walk-on line up at the Conference meet in Mizunos without the team being DQ'd or something? Please you guys, fill me in on what the deal is!

Thanks!

This isn't as complicated or nefarious as you seem to think. You can wear whatever you want at practice, but you better wear the team-issued, sponsor-supplied gear at meets. Lots of D1 guys buy their own running shoes to train in.

Here's an article with a database of the apparel contracts for all the big schools.

This really is going to vary the equipment/gear sponsorship deal, how visible the school is, the team's budget, the coach's attitude, etc. When I was a freshman at a small DI, my university didn't have a athletic department wide deal with one brand--we had Brooks uniforms and our other gear was a mix of Asics and Brooks (honestly probably because it was cheap), men's soccer wore Adidas but women's soccer wore Nike, our lacrosse team was in Under Armour. In theory, we were supposed to get whatever trainers we were comfortable wearing but Brooks/Asics were preferred. I need to wear a narrow shoe and my coach told me the trainers I requested didn't exist and tried to give me a pair of Brooks that had been ordered for a girl who had quit the team.

Later we had a new coach who had no issue with getting people the trainers they requested (except for a few girls who wanted like gel kayanos but she'd at least make a suggestion before forcing them to change). The athletic department also eventually signed a deal with Under Armour but it included clauses about the school not having to use gear that they either didn't manufacture or only manufacture in a limited range. So it had no impact on footwear for the track team, I think our swim team was still able to buy caps and goggles from Speedo, etc.

Also FWIW, not all of the athletic department apparel deals lead to buckets of free gear for student-athletes. Our uniforms and the like still came out of the team's budget even though we were obligated to buy them from Under Armour. This is probably not the same for a Big 10 school.