Maximizing $cholar$hip Funds: Do You Take 40th At NXN Or 5th At Footlocker?

Footlocker is worth tons more because only losers run the other thing.

Just qualifying for FL is more prestigious than finishing 40th at NxN. Finishing 5th at FL puts you in the absolute elite status of recruits. 5th place finishers are almost always 8:48 3200 guys while 40th place guys at NXN may be 9:10-9:15 guys.

I know someone who never ran FL, was 27th at NXN last year and is going back this year- full ride (turned down 4 other full rides).

I know someone else who was 28th in his only NXN- full ride (turned down 4 other full rides).

So the answer is- if you're fast you're getting money.

If your'e a senior you SHOULD have your college picked out by then anyway (it's the only way you can take all the merchandise Nike gives you.

Do you understand math? Schools don’t give full rides unless you are going to the actual national meet in track, it’s called the NCAA, or you can immediately win the conference meet which means you have to run 8:40 in HS. Is Stokes the runner? He is getting 25% athletic at GTown.

All of these Nike employees trying to sway the naive 17 year olds any way they can. There are limited scholarships for distance runners. Check the reputable Power 5 websites because many publish their standards for the world to see. No muster there. It takes sub 9 3200 to get any real cash. Nike is trying to profit off of NXN while Footlocker does it for the kids.

I vote for Kevin Ramos to scratch his NXN invitation and head to Footlocker instead. If he really wants to be known, Rocky Balboa Park in San Diego is the place to do it.

If you can qualify for footlocker, you should go there, unless your team can qualify for nxn. San Diego vs the northeast in December. No brainer to me. There are enough full ride scholarships from top schools that the 40th nxn finisher and the 40th footlocker finisher can get one if they aren't deadset on one or two particular schools.

There are no full rides for HS distance runners. Some work their way into one when they become a conference champion and national qualifier. 9:10 HS runners are only 8:30 3k guys which every respectable team already has 5-10 of. The elite teams have 5-10 guys who can break 8:10. Add to that the 3 guys running the 800 in 1:49 and the 3 guys running the 400 in 46 and the throwers and the jumpers and the …..Wait, that's already like 20 scholarships but we only have 12.6 and we like to hold one for the real stud who runs 8:42. Yes, every 9 minute HS guy and every 1:52 Hs guy and every 23 foot long jumper and every 200 ft discus thrower and every 10.6 100 meter runner thinks that they will get a full ride but only a limited number will ever improve to the point of scoring real points so they have to first earn it.

I know of two athletes who were told if they qualified for FLCCN, their scholarship offer would be boosted up to a full ride. Both are going to competitive D1 programs.

Coaches lie and athletes lie more. If a runner is getting what they think is a full ride is is a partial tuition scholarship for running and a partial for academics. Many people call it a full ride because they view room and board as a normal living expense. Look at the teams that they are joining and the probably have 55 guys on the track team. Then look at the level of some of the guys who are juniors and seniors who are going to nationals. Then try to calculate how an incoming freshmen gets a full ride and the rest of the 55 guys split the remaining 11 scholarships when people claimed last year that some of those Sophomores were full ride guys out of HS.

Knower of the knowns and clowner of the clones wrote:

Which is worth more scholarship money, 40th at NXN or 5th at Footlocker?

A better question would be 25th at Footlocker or 10th at NXN. Which is worth more? In that case, probably still Footlocker I would guess depending on the overlap.

Coaches can’t be trusted wrote:

Coaches lie and athletes lie more. If a runner is getting what they think is a full ride is is a partial tuition scholarship for running and a partial for academics. Many people call it a full ride because they view room and board as a normal living expense. Look at the teams that they are joining and the probably have 55 guys on the track team. Then look at the level of some of the guys who are juniors and seniors who are going to nationals. Then try to calculate how an incoming freshmen gets a full ride and the rest of the 55 guys split the remaining 11 scholarships when people claimed last year that some of those Sophomores were full ride guys out of HS.

This makes the most sense. Is there a limit on the ‘academic’ scholarships they give out? Could they split one athletic scholarship full ride to 5 different freshmen, and cover the rest of tuition with academic scholarships? Only paying room and board for college is a pretty sweet deal

Coaches can’t be trusted wrote:

Coaches lie and athletes lie more. If a runner is getting what they think is a full ride is is a partial tuition scholarship for running and a partial for academics. Many people call it a full ride because they view room and board as a normal living expense. Look at the teams that they are joining and the probably have 55 guys on the track team. Then look at the level of some of the guys who are juniors and seniors who are going to nationals. Then try to calculate how an incoming freshmen gets a full ride and the rest of the 55 guys split the remaining 11 scholarships when people claimed last year that some of those Sophomores were full ride guys out of HS.

I saw the old NLI, which was a monetary amount that more than covered tuition. The updated one is also monetary but over 10k more. It'll be enough to cover everything.

I coach at the D1 level. My team is fully funded, which is rare for a men’s team nowadays. So we have the limit of 12.6, plus a little more money in the form of tuition waivers that we manipulate. “Coaches can’t be trusted” is 100% correct. Most athletes telling you they are getting a full ride are A) ignorant of how much the school is paying for OR B) going to a bad program that needs to pay athletes that much.

My AD gives me a goal every year of winning conference in track and putting as many people into the post season as possible. Because of the pressure to perform on the track, I allocate only 3.6 scholarships towards distance out of the 12.6. The other poster asked about chunking scholarships out to spread the money around. That is what every program has to do. To give an athlete tuition + books, it is right around 40-45% of a full. So I got two options. Blow 2 scholarships or something on only two runners, or pay 5 guys off for tuition and books spread across 2 fulls. Sometimes we go more. Sometimes financial aid offsets the costs so they become “full ride” but the program doesn’t actually cover everything.

If a kid says he isn’t paying a dime it’s probably because something is offsetting the costs. A bad program in a bad location might offer a full just to get someone and get the ball rolling for them. However, most of the time those teams aren’t funded to begin with. It is really, really rare to see programs with full funding that aren’t P5. In fact, some power 5 schools aren’t even fully funded (ASU, Cal, etc). Shocking, but it’s true. You got a way better shot at getting a full if you are a girl. Even rarer are fully funded programs who are basically distance only. That’s another story though.

Our standard offers:

Male: tuition + books

Female: tuition + books + 1/4 housing paid

If they are a stud:

Male: tuition + books + 1/4 housing ($3000)

Female: tuition + books + 1/2-3/4 housing ($6000-9000)

If they are developement people and I want to lock them down:

Male: 1/2 tuition + books

Female: tuition + books

We are a conference championship program in track on the men’s side and an NCAA bubble team for XC. Much better programs than ours are even tighter on offers.

Good stuff, thanks for chiming in coach!

Even with 3.6 to distance, many guys must be walk-ons if you have 18 guys on the roster and 7 guys get a 1/2 scholarship equivalent, that leaves 11 guys with nothing. Please provide rough times for the scholarships and walk-ons. Me recent experience is 9:18 walk-on, 9:15 books, 9:10, 1/4, 9:00 1/2, and 8:50 3/4. Most people here seem to thin 9:20 guys get money at legit schools but the math doesn’t add up.

Knower of the knowns and clowner of the clones wrote:

Which is worth more scholarship money, 40th at NXN or 5th at Footlocker?

Both? Neither? More of a trick question.

If you qualify for either meet, you're already proving you're good enough and you are going to be getting all the notice you need. Race well in track will do more to boost your stock than picking one meet over the other. Finishing 5th at FLN (a field of 40) is in general more impressive than finishing 40th at NXN (field of 50 individual qualifiers and 204 total runners as of this year), but it's not a perfect comparison due to relative depth of the field (some years maybe Top 10 at FLN is more impressive than Top 5 at NXN, some years maybe Top 20 at NXN is more impressive than Top 10 at FLN) and it's not a huge deal in terms of recruiting. You already made the national meet, which is the biggest thing you can do to get noticed in cross country.

More info please wrote:

Even with 3.6 to distance, many guys must be walk-ons if you have 18 guys on the roster and 7 guys get a 1/2 scholarship equivalent, that leaves 11 guys with nothing. Please provide rough times for the scholarships and walk-ons. Me recent experience is 9:18 walk-on, 9:15 books, 9:10, 1/4, 9:00 1/2, and 8:50 3/4. Most people here seem to thin 9:20 guys get money at legit schools but the math doesn’t add up.

Time don't tell the whole story when recruiting, but I can give you an estimate. My standard offer usually goes to guys who have ran under 1:55/4:20/9:20. My "stud" offer is usually for guys who are under 1:54/4:15/9:10. The lesser of the 3 offers I listed goes to guys who are usually low 4:20s or 9:20s who show a lot of potential. I don't consider anything 1:55 or above as scholarship worthy if the person is only good at the 800m.

Again, these aren't set in stone. I take in to account a lot of other factors when giving out scholarship. What was their training like? Was it bad, low volume etc.? What size program do they come from? Is the program historically successful? How does the program's alumni do? What kind of character does the athlete have? How are their grades? It goes on and on. Lots of variables. The biggest one I look at is character and training history. If I see a kid from a crap program run low 9:20s being under trained and is also a very coachable person, I will come in with a good offer. On the flip side, if a kid has bad grades, comes from a program that "burns out" athletes, and has an ego (but is fast!).....I stay away. Most coaches will also give you scholarship standards that are above what they actually get out of recruiting. This is done to discourage being bombarded by walk-on emails and to also make the program seem better than it actually is. All to attract recruits. Athletes that they actually want they will approach themselves. The scholarship standards on my website aren't typically that accurate. Especially the walk-on standards.

That leads me back to the walk-on question. Yes, a lot of programs have walk-ons. Some have different standards for what walking-on means. Any HS kid who emails me about walking-on I will create a summer plan for them and they will have to do well in the time trial at the end of the summer. If they don't do well, they won't be added to the roster but are free to try again next year. I personally set aside a little money for walk-ons to eventually work their way up to earn as goal setting. It keeps them motivated. Often times a walk-on will do well early on and by the end will have their tuiton + books paid for. By that point they are already on their way out of the program and it wasn't a wasted investment on my part at all as they came in for "free" for a couple years before they got good. Sometimes recruiting goes really well and I don't have money for really solid guys, but they want to be a part of the program so much that they come anyways.

Examples of fast walk-ons recently: 4:13 1600m runner and 9:30s HS 3k steepler (still weird to see this in HS)

last year: 9:18 3200m runner

There just wasn't enough money available for these guys but they will perform well and eventually get money. Some examples of truly "bad" walk-ons who eventually earned money? 9:38 3200m kid that become 8:50s steepler by 5th year and a 4:30 1600m guy that went 9:00s in steeple by sophomore year. Slapped some money on those guys. The rest of my roster does have quite a few walk-ons who will never get money unfortunately, but that doesn't mean they won't ever develop or contribute. Many, many rosters out there like that.