Excluding D1, how much (if any) talent is needed to compete at the college level? Can most people pull it off?

Hypothetical average guy would have a tough time. I went to a small D1 school. For a couple of years our coach (pre Title IX) would let a few athletes try out. Basically, they had the opportunity to be on the team/practice with the team. Most of these guys were mediocre in HS. I dont recall any of them sticking it out more than a few months. Sometimes, even the guys who were only above average in HS, struggled in college. I'm talking about the guys who maybe never won a race or won a heat, but were in the top 25% of their races. Sometimes these guys struggled. There might be some undiscovered/untapped talent out there, but the odds are really, really low.

Fallacy wrote:

EZ10Miler wrote:

The average person would have no chance. Just like the average person couldn't play on a bad college basketball team even if they tried real hard. You would have to have shown SOME ability in order to run.

There are a lot more people on an average college track team than there are on an average basketball team. I'm pretty sure that if each college had 15 or even 10 basketball teams, an average guy would be able to play in one of them.

LOL...nope! maybe of there were 50-100 teams. 10 teams would mean the best 100 players out of 5,000-15,000 students. If by 'average' player you mean a guy who is at least 6'4" and can dunk 2 handed with ease, or else is lightning quick and can hit 50% from three-point range in practice, then maybe.

Realistically, an 'average' basketball player is more like 5'11" , can maybe touch the rim on a good day, and if he has ever hit three 3 pointers in a row playing B-U-M-P at open gym, celebrates like he just won an NBA championship and then knocked out Joe Frazier.

It's like a 6:30 miler trying to make the track team.

Times you would see ran by the average college aged runner (not the star runner) on mediocre D3 team:

800m: 2:15 - 2:30 for men, 2:40 - 2:50 for women

Mile: 5:15 - 5:40 for men, 5:50 - 6:30 for women

5k: 17:45 - 21:00 for men, 20:00 - 23:30 for women

8k: 30:00 - 35:00 for men, 33:00 - 38:00 for women

These are attainable for somewhere between 60% and 80% of the able bodied population (depending on where yo live) with 5 years of good diet and appropriate conditioning. If the person smokes/has smoked this could take longer.

These times may seem dismally slow to some of you dedicated and talented folk but I have seen people train consistently and struggle to put up some of the above times, engine size matters and if I’m honest, the times I have listed above probably line up pretty well with the average person’s genetic potential. A LOT of people would max out slower than these times, humans in general have poor connditioning and athletic ability compared to pretty much every other species and even the fittest among us is in laughable condition compared to the average mammal.

D1 is out of the question for 99% of people reguardless of what they do.

CoachWag wrote:

I would wager that few of us have spent time analyzing the bottom 10% of D2 track and field performances. Nevertheless, for the answer to your question (realistic chance of pulling it off) to be "yes", the talent level and work ethic of the bottom 10% of D2 track and field athletes would have to be more or less the same as the talent level and work ethic of the middle 20% (40th to 60th percentile) of all high school track and field athletes. Highly unlikely.

Some D2 schools have competed in meets that had D3, NAIA, and junior colleges participating. It's not that hard to finish higher than the bottom 10% in those meets.

CoachWag wrote:

I would wager that few of us have spent time analyzing the bottom 10% of D2 track and field performances. Nevertheless, for the answer to your question (realistic chance of pulling it off) to be "yes", the talent level and work ethic of the bottom 10% of D2 track and field athletes would have to be more or less the same as the talent level and work ethic of the middle 20% (40th to 60th percentile) of all high school track and field athletes. Highly unlikely.

And with that, this is officially a typical Letsrun thread, applying all manner of deep thought to the prospects of the least common denominator.

1600m506pr:-/ wrote:

I went to D1 college in the 80s at a school with a good xc program. I was invited too, but afraid to join the team.

They let me race in their home invitational each year and the jv guys crushed me, I placed near last, running sub 30 for a 8k; maybe I did place last a few times.

I'd I'm asked about the highlights of my college years, it would be given the opportunity to compete in a legit college meet.

I went to a D1 college talked about a lot here in the 80s with a good XC program. I was encouraged to join the team, so I did.

I had to run a time trial to be allowed to stick around, and I ran a 26 flat 8K about a week after we began practices. We had a VERY good team, though, so I was nowhere near the best. Redshirt.

Next year, pretty much the same situation. I was fast, but not fast as a lot of others. After another year or so, I figured it was just as easy to run on my own, so I did. Guys even slower than me stuck around, and by the time they were seniors they were running at the big meets. I was running road races, but mostly just running because I was fast and it was fun to run fast. For no particular reason.

If I'm asked about the highlights of my college years, I'd mention I found that being fast was good enough.

Not a delusional sub elite wrote:

Times you would see ran by the average college aged runner (not the star runner) on mediocre D3 team:

800m: 2:15 - 2:30 for men, 2:40 - 2:50 for women

Mile: 5:15 - 5:40 for men, 5:50 - 6:30 for women

5k: 17:45 - 21:00 for men, 20:00 - 23:30 for women

8k: 30:00 - 35:00 for men, 33:00 - 38:00 for women

.

This is one of the most hilariously incorrect posts I’ve ever seen.

The average man on an average d3 track team runs 5:15-5:40?! 2:30 800?! Those are average D3 women’s times.

That would easily be the worst person on a d3 team. In my four years, every single individual broke 5. I was one of the slower individuals on my team with a 4:40 - and my specialty was the 4/8.

Macdaddy wrote:

Not a delusional sub elite wrote:

Times you would see ran by the average college aged runner (not the star runner) on mediocre D3 team:

800m: 2:15 - 2:30 for men, 2:40 - 2:50 for women

Mile: 5:15 - 5:40 for men, 5:50 - 6:30 for women

5k: 17:45 - 21:00 for men, 20:00 - 23:30 for women

8k: 30:00 - 35:00 for men, 33:00 - 38:00 for women

.

This is one of the most hilariously incorrect posts I’ve ever seen.

The average man on an average d3 track team runs 5:15-5:40?! 2:30 800?! Those are average D3 women’s times.

That would easily be the worst person on a d3 team. In my four years, every single individual broke 5. I was one of the slower individuals on my team with a 4:40 - and my specialty was the 4/8.

It depends on which school you go to. I ran D3, and the slowest 800/1500 guy ran 2:20/4:55. Mid pack was more like 2:10/4:30.

Macdaddy wrote:

Not a delusional sub elite wrote:

Times you would see ran by the average college aged runner (not the star runner) on mediocre D3 team:

800m: 2:15 - 2:30 for men, 2:40 - 2:50 for women

Mile: 5:15 - 5:40 for men, 5:50 - 6:30 for women

5k: 17:45 - 21:00 for men, 20:00 - 23:30 for women

8k: 30:00 - 35:00 for men, 33:00 - 38:00 for women

.

This is one of the most hilariously incorrect posts I’ve ever seen.

The average man on an average d3 track team runs 5:15-5:40?! 2:30 800?! Those are average D3 women’s times.

That would easily be the worst person on a d3 team. In my four years, every single individual broke 5. I was one of the slower individuals on my team with a 4:40 - and my specialty was the 4/8.

I disagree. Those times he posted are about right, especially on a mediocre to bad d3 or naia team (and there are plenty of these teams but obviously no one pays attention to them).

There are even 33-35min 8k men who technically run d1, they are just on a very very very bad d1 XC team that is like intramurals.

There’s a school that’s naia and I saw a male who ran either 17s or low 18s for 5k in high school & signed a letter of intent to run there- I couldn’t believe it but i guess it turns out there are even some scholarship options for less talented people

The question asked is what it takes to “compete at the college level.”

If you cherry pick enough schools (including NCAA d1), you can technically be on the team as an NCAA athlete and be very very slow.

Look on direct athletics at the back pack at meet results. I do this as an open athlete to see if I can hop in against a d1 field even though I’m a hobbyjogger. If I see some d3 kid ran the 5000m in 19min, then I know that probably the meet director won’t mind having my butt in there if I’m willing to pay an entry fee and not holding up the meet

AbcdefghijkLo wrote:

The question asked is what it takes to “compete at the college level.”

If you cherry pick enough schools (including NCAA d1), you can technically be on the team as an NCAA athlete and be very very slow.

True, but you need to place in the top 90% in meets, AND your team needs to attend those meets. Not getting cut from the team despite being extremely slow might be a challenge as well.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to luck. I could see a 5 flat 1500 guy (not mile!) succeeding in this if he's in the right school in the right meets in the right years.

OldPARunrrr wrote:

The good thing about running (in college) is 80-90% talent. Hard work is only like ~10-20%.

It isn't just training hard, it's training smart. A good program/coach is key to success.

Your post came across garbled with your percentages. I corrected it. Please check your keyboard.

Wish I ran in college wrote:

Let's say you have a young male who would like to achieve all of the following objectives:

- Walk on to a D2 school

- Compete in at least 4 track meets at the college level without finishing in the bottom 10%

- Not get cut from the team

How hard would it be for him to pull it off? Is it realistic for an average person who's willing to train hard, or do you need a significant amount of talent to do it?

Can anyone do it? no. Could a fairly significant percentage of high schoolers have the ability to if they trained hard and were dedicated and their parents were willing to pay for them to attend a D2 school where they could be on the team? Yes. I honestly don't know the bottom half of D2 that well. But I'd say on my high school team at a minimum of a third of the guys out of about 50 had the ability run D2 if they were dedicated. About 10% did run D1. We were a very good program at the time but crazy talented? We were a public school with a good coach who got athletes to perform. D2 is a huge step down from D1 in distance running as a whole, not saying anyone can run for Adams State, and a huge portion of the population could run at some program IF they focused on running. Obviously that IF is a big disclaimer.

I very much enjoyed these times. They are hilarious and despite my limited D3 knowledge I assume them to be dramaticaly slower than reality. A man in this range wouldn't make my D1's schools girls team.

I thought they seemed in the right ballpark for a slowest half of a very bad D3 team to be honest.

I agree with you that about 1/3rd of the 30-50 on the GOOD high school XC/track programs could run D2 or D3 competitively if they wanted to. However, this is usually the GOOD high school xc/track programs with a history - often the public schools in upper-middle class neighborhoods that often do pretty well in states every year (or private HS with good coach who knows what's up).

I think there's the need to be used to some training volume as well. Even if the kid has decent times, if the kid barely ran more than 20 mpw in high school, he needs to know how to train over summer on his own or he may have trouble walking onto even a bad NCAA team just because he'll get injured trying to do the 40-60 or mpw most coaches expect (minimum) with the team in August trying to get ready for 8K races in XC.

JaiLon wrote:

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

I very much enjoyed these times. They are hilarious and despite my limited D3 knowledge I assume them to be dramaticaly slower than reality. A man in this range wouldn't make my D1's schools girls team.

I thought they seemed in the right ballpark for a slowest half of a very bad D3 team to be honest.

+1. agree-it's true that these times are terrible for top d1 women's teams (and pretty crappy for men too) but there are a lot of men's teams that have guys that are worse than the women on the top d1 women's teams

JaiLon wrote:

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

I very much enjoyed these times. They are hilarious and despite my limited D3 knowledge I assume them to be dramaticaly slower than reality. A man in this range wouldn't make my D1's schools girls team.

I thought they seemed in the right ballpark for a slowest half of a very bad D3 team to be honest.

Damn, if only I knew this ten years ago. I would have loved to have run in college, but I was garbage with 62-2:12-5:29-18:30. In my (s*****) defense, I never ran over the winter. For reference, I only started running again January 2018, I'm 25 pounds heavier than my old HS running weight, and I'm pretty close to my old PRs. I wish I could go back and not be a total moron

So I ran 54/2:04/4:40 as a junior in HS off 30 mpw then quit because I didn’t think I was very good and I was 3rd board when our chess team won state. I should have run D1?