Attention Small School State Champ, YOURE NOT ALL D1 STUFF

This is too harsh and too wrong.

Only 9 junior boys ran under 9:00 for 3200 meters last year. D1 teams aren't stocked with these guys. There are a lot of 4:20 guys who develop in college and become decent D1 runners. Doesn't mean 4:20 will get a scholarship at most D1 schools (some will though), but 4:20 for a 17 or 18 year old is pretty good and shows potential.

What's got you so worked up about this?

Anyway. I was state champ in the smallest of the small school division. 4:26. I went to a large D1 and walked on. I had no delusions about where I was on the pecking order. The times are there in black and white so it's hard not to know. Any runner who has a big head with a 4:26 would have a big head in any division.

Why did I choose to walk on at a d1?

1) The large state schools in my area have the best engineering programs (not everything is about track).

2) People tend to train to the level of the competition. There was no summer running, no winter running, 35mpw in season, and played other sports. I wanted to run against the best and see what talent I had, or didn't have.

3) The resources at D1 made things pretty fun. Facilities, travel, gear, trainers, massage therapist, nutritionist, etc. Walk-on or not.

Turns out I was mediocre. 3:50 for 1500m. I got my butt kicked in most races, but I don't regret my decision one bit. If I were a d1 coach I would welcome the raw 4:20 walk-on that's hungry for improvement.

Some other points:

-Most d1s are not spectacular at xc, and a 4:20 guy can contribute if developed, so you aren't cast aside.

-Most xc rosters are filled with walk-ons, from all sized divisions. Nobody is getting much of a scholarship outside the best guys.

-Sometimes those well trained 9:15 guys on 20-30% don't improve much, and you can take their scholarship.

-If only top 20 across all divisions went D1 then only two schools from each state could field a team.

Not all 9:15 guys are d1 stuff. wrote:

What's got you so worked up about this?

ya wtf

You obviously have a certain individual in mind, so why don't you tell them directly?

Also, you used the word "wicked". Obviously a New England-er. I only know because I moved from the Midwest to New England and found it strange. In a lower division, to run 4:20, that's likely Massachusetts or Connecticut (without looking at the state championship results).

You could also be a frustrated coach who lost a few recruits. I say this because this is the time of year where financial aid packages come out and some students are making their decisions or narrowing down their list. Coming from a "good" high school runner with partial D1 scholarships who went NAIA, kids don't actually care what division you are (unless they're completely full of themselves). If you can build value in the education your school provides and show that you go to bigger meets, those kids will come. If you have a slew of 4:30-4:40 milers who aren't seeing much improvement, they made the right decision to not go to your school.

What's the backstory here?

I'm a 4:22/9:37 small school state XC champ from a few years ago. Went to a top-25 (XC) D1 school and contributed immediately, running beside - and in front of - guys who sponged their way to 9:10 or 9:15 6th place finishes in their states and their big divisions.

Every kid, every situation is different. I'm certainly not an anomaly though. One kid I beat all throughout high school ended up being better than me - 24:20ish for 8k, while I was more in the 24:40 range. His PR? Like 9:43...

Why are you so bent out of shape by this? Tired of getting thumped by a kid who went to a smaller school?

I knew a guy who won a record amount of state and section titles from a small school. 3 months after high school he was no longer but he didn’t have a big head. He understand 4:20 and 15:40 was good but not good enough for college and he didn’t bother running in college.

The op’s statement is just plain wrong. Many of the top collegiate athletes didn’t break 4:20 in high school or ran right around that time. Grant Fischer of Colorado state was over 4:20, Tyler day of Nau was over 4:20, Dillon maggard of Utah state was 4:19. Josh Thompson, who currently trains with bowerman, ran 4:27.

I fit your profile pretty well, ran a 4:16 as a senior (large division school though), and ended up going D2 and it turned out ok.

Hindsight I wish I would have gone to a different school, not because of it being D2, but because the coaching wasn't that great.

Here is my advice to the 4:20 guys, taking the academics out of the equation and only looking at track/cc:

1. Talk to your prospective coaches and leave your options open D1-D3

2. If you want to run and contribute, it would probably be best to go to a competitive D2 or D3 school. You could go to a mediocre or below average D1 school and be a pretty good runner on your team but you probably won't get to run in any big time meets

3. If you really want to make it reach you fastest potential, try to walk on at a good D1 school that you feel you won't get totally ignored by the staff but understand that for every kid that was "fast" (~4:20) in HS and end up with NCAA All-American credentials, there are dozens who get chewed up by the programs and never really get much faster and end up dropping out from the sport. If you choose to go down this path, be ready to not have success for the first few years, try to enjoy the process but find other endeavors that you can work on if running doesn't pan out for you.

I had a great time in D2 and got to run at national meets, and several big meets around the country but if I could do it all over again I think I might have taken one of walk on or tiny scholarships offered to me by some of the bigger D1 schools. I did end up getting slightly faster in college but believe that while I most likely wouldn't have turned into a D1 all american, or even a sub-14 5k guy I do think my overall times would have been faster.

A note to the "small school state champions"-some of the kids from the larger schools will look down on you for being from a small division but I would argue that a 4:20 coming from that division is more impressive than from the larger divisions, especially if you high school coach really didn't know what he was doing.

If you're not D1 material, you should be more worried about school and a career.

Your math isn’t very good. If 20 guys go D1 from a state, that is 80 -100 in the pool of college runners from each state from frosh college to 5th year guys so the 20 estimate per year makes sense. Many sites only have 4-8 D1 colleges so that number may even be high at 20 hailing spots.

This worked for 4:20 HS miler Nick Symmonds.

Ohio had a small school kid who went 4:16/2:05 state meet as a junior. Senior year he went 4:11/1:56.

3 years later he won an OLYMPIC BRONZE!!!!!!!!!!

He ran 4:11 and got a d1 scholarship.

Someone Who Knows wrote:

4:20 for a 17 or 18 year old is pretty good and shows potential.

Not if you have to run 70 mpw to do it

Hmm I won division 3 state and ran a 4:25 and got multiple d1 offers to major universities

I ran 4:34 and 9:52 in high school. I ended up being one of the top 2 guys on a D1 team.

Not so fast my little friend...... wrote:

Ohio had a small school kid who went 4:16/2:05 state meet as a junior. Senior year he went 4:11/1:56.

3 years later he won an OLYMPIC BRONZE!!!!!!!!!!

yeh cuz he ran a 4:16 and 4:11. Doesn't fit the profile.

Im saying when every kid who wins small state in 4:2x's and 9:3x's thinks there a D1 calibre runner, and theres a good deal of dillusion there. I am not wrong. You can find exceptions til the cows come home, but any collegiate coach will tell you there are too many kids who were a big fish in a small pond in hs who think theyre autoatically a d1 recruit cause they have a state title. They run D1 for the flash of it when they would be much better suited running d2 or d3.

Being honest about this is not too harsh. It doesn't mean I have some beef. These kids are being told by their parent's and friends "oh you're d1 stuff, you can get a full ride" and it ends up harming their long term success and happiness as a runner. For every exception you can find, I bet I can name 2-3 sssc who went d1 and quit

Meh... wrote:

I ran 4:34 and 9:52 in high school. I ended up being one of the top 2 guys on a D1 team.

on what team tho. We arn't talking Mississippi valley state or Green Bay type "D1" schools. We're talking PAC 12, Big 10, etc.

Ldldlfkfjdhhd wrote:

Hmm I won division 3 state and ran a 4:25 and got multiple d1 offers to major universities

Name one