Cross Country Only Programs in NCAA

Richmond, Dayton Men.

Many SUNY and CUNY schools in the northeast but they're division 3. New Paltz and Baruch college quickly come to mind, there are many others

Vanderbilt

George Washington used to only sponsor cross country. They added a track team a few years ago but because the school doesn't really have a track, it still is basically just a distance/middle distance program.

I searched the internet for statistics on schools who dropped men's cc and track & field. The last reports were for 2010-2011. They also masked the loss of DII and DIII programs by grouping them with DI. There have been many schools who have dropped multiple men's minor sports programs since 2013. Wrestling, swimming, and athletics are among the biggest.

Football with their 110 man rosters + 24 man coaching staffs is the culprit.

How many LRCers know that often those teams house the entire team and staff in a hotel for HOME games? I guess they probably only take about 60 for away games. How many track & field teams would even one outing like the home games fund?

Wayne St (MI) men

What is Northwestern allowed to do during track seasons? Pay for some meets, but not go to big ten champs for example?

Elon

Elon Men

I am also curious what xc only programs are allowed to do? Scholarships? Pay for travel to track meets? Conference track? NCAA Regionals? Etc?

Terned wrote:

I am also curious what xc only programs are allowed to do? Scholarships? Pay for travel to track meets? Conference track? NCAA Regionals? Etc?

They are allowed to do all of those things plus they can sponsor a track season of up to 5 competitions within 10 weeks. Those competitions cannot include championship meets and students are not allowed to miss classes for them.

In D1, the MAAC used to have most of it's schools be XC only, that has recently changed (last 5 years) but there are still 3 programs without track for men and 1 for women.

Every school that has XC only is different. They can have up to 5 full scholarships. I can’t think of any that actually have that much. Usually between 1-3 scholarships. The university can fund up to 5 total track meets per year for the team but you cannot fly. You could do more unattached and that you pay for. Obviously no conference, regional, or NCAA track meets. You can run in regional area track meets during the regular indoor or outdoor season. Most of the XC only schools are located on the east coast and many of them private. The majority of these schools have women’s track but no men’s. I’ll be honest, although kids at these programs have good college experiences it is very obvious the men are treated differently and it’s pretty depressing at times. Dayton, Vanderbilt, Wayne State, Elon, College of Charleston, Temple, Richmond, Hofstra, Creighton,

Terned wrote:

I am also curious what xc only programs are allowed to do? Scholarships? Pay for travel to track meets? Conference track? NCAA Regionals? Etc?

Each year Hobart sponsors the CCOC Championship. -The Cross Country Only conference. D3 is a different animal than D1. Small private schools have to be in the NCAA to be considered legitimate by applicants. You need to be in 7 sports to be eligible to be in the NCAA. Cross-country ( and women’s tennis) are by far the cheapest to put on to make your seven. Pay somebody at the college a couple thousand bucks to run with the kids and drive a van to 3 or 4 invitationals, run the league championship and get clobbered at regionals and one sport down for less than $5,000.00.

Lane train #rollowls

Yeah the MAC definitely has gotten the shorter end of the stick. Bowling Green, Toledo, and Ohio U are all without track programs on the Men’s side. I think the Hirozon Leauge might also have a few schools without Track programs as well. Kind of a bummer because it certainly does have an impact on the recruits you can get, but they still seem to make the most of what they have (minus Toledo because they suck). Best example of a program making the most of not having a track program is Dayton. They were really solid this year. But yeah, I feel like recruiting kids out of high school to a program without a track program would be pretty tough to sell without a history of prior success in XC.

University of Tennessee - Chattanooga

Fort Lewis College - Durango, CO. NCAA Div. II.

Colorado - not technically, but often seems that way.

NCAA Div. I Runner-ups University of Portland is a Cross Country-only program. They have no official track program, but run in Invites and advance on time to Regionals and Nationals. And they have about 12 full ride scholarships to hand out in XC.