Is the NCAA trying to kill off distance-only schools?

Doesn't this same proposal come up every year or two?

Seems I've been hearing about this for at least 10 years.

I am a current NCAA Division 1 Cross Country and Distance Track coach at a mid-major university in the mid-west. I currently on the fence on this one. There are so many questions from every size of university. First, I do believe that we need to better legitimize the sports of Cross Country and Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field. All of which are considered separate sports for NCAA purposes, but at most universities are lumped into one budget line and per the NCAA are lumped into one scholarship line. Many coaches across all of the divisions would love to have split budgets, added staff, scholarship dollars for each separate sport, etc. However, most administrators don't see the need or feasibility for those changes to happen and see very little difference from running XC to running track. It's all the same to administrators and honestly the general public. Also, the budget discrepancies in Division 1 are astronomical in our sport. Most schools at the Power 5 level are fully funded per gender in scholarships, have a budget that allows for the full allotment of coach and support staff and the operating budget to purchase equipment and travel to any destination that they may to obtain marks and compete against the best. There are many more institutions at the mid-major level that fund less than half of the allowable 12.6 and 18 scholarships available, have a budget that is typically significantly less than their Power 5 counterparts and have an operating and staff budget that is insufficiently funded. The universities proposing and typically voting in favor of the addition of scholarships are the Power 5 universities. Also, with our combined sports being funded jointly, each institution is allowed to disperse their funding the best way they see fit. There are a number of schools that only invest their money in distance, just as there are universities that invest in sprints and jumps only, or a high percentage in throws, or mid-distance, etc. That is a choice by that institution. However, I do understand that some of the Power 5 institutions have gotten pressure to go after national championships in XC without sacrificing their prowess on the national level in track and in order to do that, you must spread the money around to get points from other areas. Those schools are the ones that are truly proposing the "increase" in XC scholarships. The rich get richer, or better yet, the rich buy out the rich in another area. I am all for giving more scholarship opportunities to our student athletes. However, I think that if we were sincere in doing that, we would unite, regardless of our economic standing and promote that our sports be treated the same as top tier sports and any university that offers scholarships should be required to offer the full 12.6 and 18 scholarships to its teams. Or push legislation with the other underfunded programs in our universities and regions in other sports to mandate a higher level of minimum funding for our "tier 2 sports". I do understand that would be a bold move that could force administrators to make a call on keeping programs or not. But in my opinion, that is the only way you will get everyone on board for a common goal of better our sport as a whole. As track coaches we all feel disrespected that all of the other programs have XYZ and we do get the shaft on facilities or funding or scholarships, etc. We need to stand up and start doing something about it and the way you sway votes for a scholarship increase is by fixing what's going on at the bottom first. There are a lot more mid-major schools than there are Power 5 schools. Lets work together to make the sport better and more relevant.

LetsRun.com wrote:

The proposal is to make XC and track & field scholarships separate. So each school would get 5 men's XC scholarships and 12.6 men's track & field scholarships and 6 women's XC scholarships and 18 women's track & field scholarships.

Putting a cap on the number of XC scholarships would hurt the distance-only schools. One of the reasons why schools like NAU, Portland, and Syracuse are successful is that they put most of their scholarship $$$ into distance runners. By capping them at only 5 XC scholarships, you'd be giving a lot more schools a chance to compete.

How is this any different than it is currently? Those "distance only" schools aren't "XC only". They still have track teams that compete in order to get the full number of scholarships.

This rule HELPS distance runners because now they can get their own scholarship for XC and not have it sucked up by the 6th 400 man at Kentucky.

Maybe I’m not following your explanation of how this would work. So I give out my 5 XC scholarships, and then I still have my 12.6 track scholarships that I can give to anyone I want, including distance runners, right? So if I want to be a distance-heavy program, now I can give 17.6 scholarships to distance runners. That sounds like a good thing.

seemslikeagoodthing wrote:

This rule HELPS distance runners because now they can get their own scholarship for XC and not have it sucked up by the 6th 400 man at Kentucky.

I think it would hurt them at at a lot of the top "distance only" schools. UNM women are all distance. They'd be screwed. Same with Ionna, Portland, NAU. Syracuse has to have more than 5 in distance. Maybe even Colorado.

It's my understanding that the proposal came about because the SEC ADs were trying to to figure out why they sucked in xc. A coach told them, "Hey we can't be good in track and xc as some schools go all in on xc.. Since we can be incredible in track, that's what we focus on." So this is a rule designed to hurt the "distance only" schools.

I don't think many schools have the budget to go full funded in xc and track. So what would happen is the proposal would hurt schools like Iona or Furman as they benefit from having way more kids on scholarship and help schools that could afford to fully fund both like the SEC powers.

17.6 is more than 12.6 wrote:

Maybe I’m not following your explanation of how this would work. So I give out my 5 XC scholarships, and then I still have my 12.6 track scholarships that I can give to anyone I want, including distance runners, right? So if I want to be a distance-heavy program, now I can give 17.6 scholarships to distance runners. That sounds like a good thing.

This is the debate. Some people think that the 5 XC scholarships is a limit -- that you cannot have more than five athletes on full scholarship on the XC roster at one time, even if some of the other athletes' scholarships were technically "track scholarships."

Basically, there are a couple of possible interpretations.

Interpretation A

5 XC scholarships

12.6 track scholarships

17.6 total scholarships

In this interpretation, the NCAA adds five scholarships. 5 are for distance runners only and you can choose how many of the remaining 12.6 go to distance athletes.

Interpretation B

5 XC scholarships

12.6 track scholarships

12.6 total scholarships

In this interpretation, anyone on an athletic scholarship is counted toward the limit for that sport. So if you have five athletes on XC scholarships, they would also count toward your limit of 12.6 track scholarships as they're also participating in track.

Interpretation A could hurt distance-only schools as it gives full-funded Power 5 schools more scholarships to spend on distance runners (but it also allows distance-only schools to double down and offer even more distance scholarships). But I agree, overall it's a good thing as it gives more scholarships to the sport overall.

Interpretation B really hurts the distance-only schools though as they wouldn't be allowed to have more than five distance runners on full scholarships.

This is a great proposal if you're a power 5 school that can afford the extra money. Terrible news for mid-major folk.

Interpretation C

5 XC scholarships

12.6 track scholarships

17.6 total scholarships

In this interpretation, the NCAA adds five scholarships. You can only have a total of 5 scholarships divided however you want among the athletes on the XC roster. The others are for non-XC track athletes.

running commenter wrote:

This is a great proposal if you're a power 5 school that can afford the extra money. Terrible news for mid-major folk.

What mid-major can fund 24 women's TF/XC scholarships.

Most can't even fulfill the current allotment of 18.

This was definitely proposed by P-5 schools with their unlimited funds

The answer to your question is no the NCAA is not trying to kill off this is only schools. Power five schools are trying to kill off mid majors who only use their scholarships and distance athletes.

Can you still give Track scholarships to distance runners? Seems like a win.

Distance-only schools could still give all or most of their track scholarships to distance runners.

As you said, the school will use track scholarships for XC.

For instance, you could have your top distance guys receive track scholarships and then they “walk on” the XC team and then give the XC scholarships to other athletes. If anything this proposal opens the door for more scholarships for XC. Now teams can effectively have 17.6 XC scholarships. The distance only schools have a far greater advantage than real schools.

The sport is called Track and Field for a reason!!! Not Running! Jiminey Crickets! Of course they should go to 5 Xc only! Need to field all events.

So tired of these schools that put all their resources into distance and then are lauded as being great programs with great coaches, when really all they are doing is dumping more resources and scholarship into cross country that was never intended for cross country alone. It's overkill.

Here is what the NCAA should do, keep the scholarships at 12.6 and 18, but only allow schools to have a certain amount of scholarship invested into their cross country roster each fall. Let's say those figures are no more than 50% of the track & field scholarships, so that would be 6.3 and 9 in cross country. Figuring out what those exact figures should be is a little tricky, but 50% of the scholarship intended for track & field seems more than fair. If you can't get it done with 6.3 and 9, then you're just not a good coach, because you're still investing far more than other schools who actually invest in the sport of track & field.

Thoughts?

"Distance only" is a term created primarily because of scholarships. Ivy Leagues aren't "distance only." Division 3 aren't "distance only," high schools aren't "distance only."

We are the only sport that allows you to ignore entire events, and praise you for it. "Distance only," "Sprint only," "Field events only." Can you imagine a "Point guard only" basketball team? An "offense only scholarship" football team? Too which people argue, "we aren't a team sport." OK. But here is the thing:

If you are a school that ONLY sponsors cross country, so the university and coach knows YOU ARE DISTANCE ONLY, then you are ONLY ALLOWED 5 men's and 6 women's scholarships, for your cross county team. The NCAA has already set the cap.

So I have NO problem if you want to be a distance only school with your track and field scholarships and then your track and field results are measured that way. I DO have a problem that if you put 75+% of your track and field scholarships in distance runners to gain an advantage in the separate championship of cross country. At least Colorado has sprinters and jumpers and throwers on their roster and has coaches for those events. But you have also have schools going so far as to ONLY have distance coaches, and nothing but distance runners on their track roster. They only "sponsor" track and field in order to gain an advantage in cross country. I don't support that philosophy.

I have a radical proposal.

1. Align NCAA cross country with the international cross country calendar. Therefore cross country season and indoor track season are at the same time. (Because BOTH cross country and indoor track were invented as preparation for outdoor track.)

2. Give cross country their own 5/6 scholarships, and ONLY cross country scholarships can run cross country.

3. Move the xc distance to 8k for both genders so that the sport is for DISTANCE runners and not middle distance runners.

4. Cross country scholarships can run outdoor track (2 sport athletes). Track scholarship run indoor track and outdoor track (2 sport athletes)

5. Likely eliminate the 5k from conference and ncaa championships indoors. (can still run in invitationals for international championship qualifying)

Benefits:

Distance runners are no longer "in season" for 9+ months of the year. This is a positive for student-athlete welfare. The fall becomes the preparation period for cross country and track and field athletes. Coaches get to coach, instead of the current model where the cross country results are 80+% decided by the athletes without coaches in the summer.

Nobody is being "dictated to" about how to spend their scholarships. Cross country scholarships determine cross country results, and track scholarships determine track results. You can still spend all of your track and field scholarships on distance runners, but they just can't run cross country.

Cons:

This is a change. People fight change because they are accustomed to doing it a certain way. Special interest groups will fight change, not because it isn't the best thing to do or the right thing to do overall, they fight change because it isn't BEST FOR THEM specifically. So if you live in a place where the weather isn't as good for outdoor running from December-February, you will probably be opposed. If you are accustomed to being good in cross country primarily because you are willing to sabotage your track team scholarships and spend more than 5/6 on distance runners, you will probably be opposed.

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Interpretation C

5 XC scholarships

12.6 track scholarships

17.6 total scholarships

In this interpretation, the NCAA adds five scholarships. You can only have a total of 5 scholarships divided however you want among the athletes on the XC roster. The others are for non-XC track athletes

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This is the only interpretation that makes sense to me. The goal limits the distance team--to 5 with your CC group-- while perhaps encouraging a school to add some sprinters and weight/jumpers where they were not inclined to do so.

I don't think U's would. The schools would just have 5 ships spread out over the 3 sports unless of course their conference requires that you spend some money on indoor and outdoor if you are going to compete in Conf' meet.

Does anyone know the minimum numbre of athletes whether on ship or not

that a school has to have in order to be considered a "team?" Eg: Could your Indoor team be one high jumper?

running commenter wrote:

This is a great proposal if you're a power 5 school that can afford the extra money. Terrible news for mid-major folk.

I think that unintended consequence of this passing would be the death of track & field (at many levels other than the power 5 schools).

As smaller schools cold not keep up in the greater arms race, they would fully fund XC and eliminate track (and its associated costs, Title IX numbers, etc).

The only people who would truly benefit would be the shoe company employees.

+100000000000