Are there still better recruiting offers?

I suspect the teams have already been filled, thus no more money. The junior year is the most important year for recruitment. Bust-out senior year performances is just too late in the game for track and any other spring sport.

Your best bet now is to pick a university, kill it freshman year, and then negotiate with schools. It may require a transfer.

Your situation is not uncommon. Stanovsek at Oregon wasn’t even allowed on the team his freshman year. Other guys running 4:05 get a small scholarship to start there. Stanford is similar. Some schools aren’t as good at distance but put all money into sprints so guys are surprised that they aren’t getting more even though are one of the top distance guys. Look at the roster of the school that you are talking about. They probably have guys faster than your guy so they just can’t give much to start. There are probably 55 guys on the team and many of the guys score at the conference meet. Look at the conference meet results from the past few years to see where your guy would score. Assume 10% scholarship for every point. I focus on track times when determining where guys fall more than xc. If he wants to go to that school, he will alienate the coach if he tries to negotiate now after committing. If he has his nil, the clock is ticking on accepting it so he needs to make those other last minute calls or even his book offer might be pulled. Good luck.

Jericho Cleveland

Moab wrote:

Is this situation as typical for women’s distance running as it is to men’s??

Say a HS girls is top 20 or better at NXN and also a Foot Locker runner. She may be offered 25% for first year at somewhere like Stanford or other top school that has many top recruits every year. Stanford may offer 25% more each year. She may get a full offer from another school each year for 4 years. One key it that in negotiation the coaches must really want the athlete and they must think the athlete is seriously considering going elsewhere. If the other school is in the same conference that is even better because not only will one school loose the recruit but another direct competitor in the conference will gain a top recruit. The coaches are going to offer as little as possible to sign a recruit so they have more money to sign other recruits. If a recruit says to one school that they are their top choice then the coaches has reason to believe they may offer less and still sign the recruit.

How many kids or their coaches consider themselves “top 5” nationally? 1,000?

Your story makes no sense. At all. I bet you have a good runner who is a bad student and never thought to prepare for college.

There are 50% more scholarships for women so this situation would probably not happen. A top woman will get a large scholarship while a guy might just get a stipend. Men improve more through college also while women may be close to the level of the rest of the team from the start.

I am assuming that he was a top 10 guy at FL or NXN. If really only top 1000, take the books and run toward that college.

Brody Hasty and Oregon??

Scholar Expert wrote:

There are 50% more scholarships for women so this situation would probably not happen. A top woman will get a large scholarship while a guy might just get a stipend. Men improve more through college also while women may be close to the level of the rest of the team from the start.

sour grapes

Scholar Expert wrote:

There are 50% more scholarships for women so this situation would probably not happen. A top woman will get a large scholarship while a guy might just get a stipend. Men improve more through college also while women may be close to the level of the rest of the team from the start.

My observation of the women over the past 3 years or so of one particular team is that 1 out of 4 or 5 top recruits may be able to help in scoring (top 5) for the cross country team during their first year. One or two may be the 6th or 7th runner. Two may be able to help with scoring their 2nd year. A few more by their 3rd year may be in the top 5. The women who are among the top 5 may be different every year due to injuries that set them back. The injuries seem to set them back 1 to 5 seasons or more of XC, indoor track, and outdoor track. One of out of 5 top recruits may be significantly faster their first year than they were in high school. The others may be slower for the first 2 or 3 years. Two out of 5 women who qualified for NXN or Foot Locker or could have qualified if not injured helped with team scoring their freshman year. The other two may take 2 to 3 years if not longer to get to the point that they can help. Some of the women who were state champions in the 800 to 3200 in high school may only run similar times at best a few times in college. A few that were not state champions and thus not among the top recruits may be able to stay injury free long enough to improve to much faster times than they ran in college and may be among the top athletes on the team by their 2nd or 3rd years on the team. It is not only the women that suffer from stress fractures, but the men also have their share of stress fractures or other injuries that take them out for up to a year.

Yes. He's getting screwed. I was a top 20 miler (female) in the nation and received a full ride from Villanova 12 years ago. Granted, things are different for women than men, but someone of his caliber should be able to go wherever he wants. If the money is dried up, have him email coaches at all of the schools he is interested in to ask what they have available. He can't go to schools like Stanford anymore, most likely, but why not go to a second tier program and then transfer after a year if he isn't happy/improving? Check schools like Iona and American University - not sure how they are performing now, but Centrowitz is a great coach and they were solid when I was running. Had a friend run there on a 3/4 scholarship and he was a 4:18 miler in HS! He improved a ton and had a great time at a good school.

Whether Hoey or Hasty, maybe this will convince the majority here that there are no secret incentives. The best guys going to a top school don’t get anything because it is already going to guys who are even better who are juniors and seniors.

You should go to either a school with a program you dreamed of. For me that would be Oregon or Arkansas or Colorado. If that doesn’t pan out choose a school for non running exclusively. Ie for academics, close to home, cost etc.

Up late at night wrote:

Why would I lie? I'm trying to get some information/advice from a bunch of unidentified blog readers, hopefully some coaches, recruited runners, parents.

...

I have been trying to ask around. Local coaches say it's crazy not to get anything. I've been reading this blog. Some have said big schools have no money. That's why I'm asking.

What blog are you talking about?

Centro is not coaching at American anymore.

Iona almost exclusively recruits international athletes.

However I'd agree that this kid is probably getting screwed. I ran for a program that wasn't fully funded---like not even close. When I was a senior/fifth year I had insight into what my coach was doing with scholarships and recruiting and the only prospective athletes she offered significant money coming in were athletes that would have been able to score at conference as freshmen. There was a blue-chip recruit who was offered full scholarship and backed out last minute and my coach just distributed the money to the rising juniors and seniors who had scored at conference.

Ok not blog, forum. No offense to LRC

Thanks for all the comments. I don’t feel better but at least now I know. I don’t know if anything would have changed if we hadn’t been so ignorant/naive. Like I said, now he should be a more attractive candidate but it’s too late And he doesn’t want a “2nd tier” school. He will have to be happy Where he’s going, do well next year and hope to earn something more. This is his choice so he’ll have to pay for it. He may regret going into debt but sometimes we have to learn the hard way.

For future recruits, I’d love to see the times for various events that people think will draw the big money at each level. This was something we had no idea about and looked for online.

I suggest staying close to home, not running for a college, hiring Tinman as a coach, then turning pro. I question the judgement of these uber-talented kids who feel a need to put themselves through the meat grinder of a major D1 program, or any university program. If he doesn't want to run professionally he should chose a program with well connected alumni who can opens doors for him after graduation.

Many colleges have those posted. I pulled up a few. Averages appear to be 1:50-4:05-8:55. So those are the numbers required to get a large scholarship. That doesn’t mean you will definitely get a large scholarship because the current team strength and academics matter also. But those are essentially the minimum requirements.