Which DI Program Ruins The Most Talent?

I'm pretty sure the data exists to do a truly thorough study on this topic. Take a list of say the top 100 high school runners for each year. Track their college times. And then see which school squanders the most talent. You can even do a follow up survey to see who gets jobs and add a salary variable.

commissioned officer wrote:

military academies.

One of the three D1 academies, and many times more than one, are perennially represented at the NCAA cross country meet. They are one of the only teams at the meet with no foreigners running on their roster. Their candidate pool is even smaller than just American athletes because their recruits have to pass a medical exam to be admitted.

So, as another poster said, definitely not a fair evaluation of programs whose athletes are under some of the most demands as any college students in the country. I'd say the academies hold their own.

PlebeRunner wrote:

commissioned officer wrote:

military academies.

One of the three D1 academies, and many times more than one, are perennially represented at the NCAA cross country meet. They are one of the only teams at the meet with no foreigners running on their roster. Their candidate pool is even smaller than just American athletes because their recruits have to pass a medical exam to be admitted.

So, as another poster said, definitely not a fair evaluation of programs whose athletes are under some of the most demands as any college students in the country. I'd say the academies hold their own.

Do they even recruit? I would have thought the team would just consist of the best runners who happened to choose the career of a military officer and got into the academies to make it happen. Do they give running scholarships or recruit beyond the pool of admitted academy students?

In high school you also have natural progression that creates a confidence momentum all of its own. For example 14 yearold 5"3 middle-distance runner might do 400m in 61s, the next year they're 5"7 and running 56s, the next year 5"10 and running 53s, this positve feed back loop sends the lady the message that he is a running talent and improvements reinforced this so by 17 he's 5"11 and doing 51s and each year this helped him run 800m, 1500m and 3k faster but by University he's the same size and needs to get any improvement out of his body through training. Throw in living away from home, studying, partying, shagging and an inferior diet compared with mother's cooking and it is easy to see why so many burn out.

Who is the coach of these girls?? I would fire him/her and hope no one else hires them again!

Agree with your post, but want to clarify what we mean by squandering talent.

For the past few years I have coached several elite high school athletes who went to college track powerhouses. The ones who were nearest their limits before going to college tended to improve very little, if at all, while those who still had a lot of room to improve tended to do so, as one might expect. Most college coaches didn't seem to do their homework about this- they looked only at performance, not potential. (Texas Tech was a notable exception)

In the case of Cal and the University of Florida, the athletes they got from us were very near their limit coming out of high school, so I can't blame the college for their failure to improve. By contrast, one of our athletes with a world of potential went to the University of Oklahoma and made continuous, substantial progress.

One of the best athletes I coached, however, who still had huge upside coming out of high school, went to the University of Texas, started poorly and got worse every year. That's my only personal experience with a college truly squandering the talent of an elite high school athlete.

I pointed out on another message board at that time that this was the third year in a row that Texas' #1 recruit in this event group (horizontal jumps) had flamed out, and another poster retorted: "It's hard to recruit female jumpers."

(In fairness it should be pointed out that this occurred before Coach Floreal was hired. Texas did a decent job this year of not squandering the talent of our #1 all-time best athlete, although she was a bit tired out by outdoor Nationals.)

Supertramp wrote:

why so sad wrote:

what's the deal with Letsrun always focusing on the negative and cynical?

It seems there are 5 times more threads looking to tear people down than celebrate our sport.

I'm not saying to ignore the negative things like they don't exist but where are there so many posts like this seeking out the worst instead of accentuating the positive?

That's probably more of a human nature thing than a strictly LetsRun.com thing.

Truth. Just log onto Twitter. Or see how some pasty, doughy, sports journalist write about the athletes they cover in the NFL or NBA.

The athlete in your example apparently had a sex change at some point in high school too.

Oregon. and define ruin

My problem with so many college coaches is that they simply don’t see themselves as developmental. Some of the absolute best I know, across all events, still manage to TRY to develop kids. This can mean a lot of things, but chief among those things means that you, the coach, adapt (a bit) and try to meet the athlete where he/she is at. But so many simply burn through kids and fail to get to know them. Often, kids feel a little intimidated and they’ll run through a brick wall for you (especially girls) without reporting injuries simply because they want to please the coach and coaches are rarely pleased when kids say they aren’t doing well under the plan. A good coach doesn’t see kids as replaceable (good high school coaches know that your talent pool can always run dry.)

But beyond the emotional/psychological aspects, I just think too many college coaches don’t assess where an incoming athlete is and then build it up from there. Kids come in all the time with various deficits in fundamentals that high school coaches just don’t have the time or knowledge to address (or sometimes the kid needs to grow up and isn’t ready to address those issues...the high school coach might have been pounding their head against the wall for four years on an issue.) But rather than viewing the kid on a developmental continuum, crappy coaches just throw them in the fire rather than slow cooking them.

But that’s just me...and I won’t get into programs that are the worst because it’s not always program wide.

Runningart2004 wrote:

I think you will find the majority of top runners don't improve beyond HS or don't improve much. It's really all related to how hard they had to train in HS to get good. A top HSer only putting in 30mina week is going to improve greatly in college. Then there's obviously the injury cycle.

Take the top 50 at Footlocker and plot their improvement 4 yrs later.

"Burnout" is normal because there's no such thing. It's called diminishing returns, and not all runners will have the same level of improvement over time.

Alan

On the other hand, we have examples like malmo. Ran a lot in HS, got fairly fast. Ran a lot in college, got faster. Ran a lot as a pro, got faster.

Mental talent is part of it, and luck, I suppose.

NC State--its ridiculous that they recruit top runners. IDK how they do it every dang year. Good for Engels for speaking out about this.

Washington--they had arguably the best women's team ever in 2008, and where did they all go? Which Washington superstar translates long term?

Duke--I will not elaborate.

Stanford ruins men.

Cal ruins women.

George mason ruins everything.

commissioned officer wrote:

military academies.

Yes.

A friend of mine was hospitalized for malnutrition during his plebe year in Annapolis.

Between cross country, mandatory drilling, enforced minimal sleep, and stupid rules (e.g. not allowed to look at your food while eating and not given sufficient time to eat) they wrecked him physically.

Who knows, maybe it made him tough as nails though.

Positive Contribution wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

In high school you also have natural progression that creates a confidence momentum all of its own. For example 14 yearold 5"3 middle-distance runner might do 400m in 61s, the next year they're 5"7 and running 56s, the next year 5"10 and running 53s, this positve feed back loop sends the lady the message that he is a running talent and improvements reinforced this so by 17 he's 5"11 and doing 51s and each year this helped him run 800m, 1500m and 3k faster but by University he's the same size and needs to get any improvement out of his body through training. Throw in living away from home, studying, partying, shagging and an inferior diet compared with mother's cooking and it is easy to see why so many burn out.

The athlete in your example apparently had a sex change at some point in high school too.

Ha, good spotting I meant lad,

What about Stephanie Jenks? 4:40 in high school and hasn't run one race in 3 years at Cal.

I would say BYU.

Dozens of phenomenal NCAA talents that just aren't inspired and motivated to make running part of their Mormon lifestyle upon graduation. For every Jared Ward, there are probably 50 Cougars that leave the sport in life.

Michigan had 35 guys on the XC roster last year. Just by the shear number, they ruin more guys by having multiple former 9 flat guys sitting at home on conference weekend.

Division 1 talent pool wrote:

Of course there are many factors here outside of a running program: Adjusting to college social life, academics, mental health, diets etc.

Among notable blue chip recruits, and many other solid talents- which program squanders it’s runners who otherwise had a promising future?

A career as a distance runner is not a promising future in America. Even the supposed best-ever US distance runner - Galen Rupp - probably only makes $500k, and lives a shitty life of being a hermit who runs around in circles, on treadmills, and in water for 363 days of the year, and on the other 2 days runs a marathon in front of a few spectators - most of whom don't even know who the hell he is, and then it's back to the grind. And his 'career' will be over by the time he's 40, and because $500k / year isn't enough to set you for life, he'll have to get a 'regular' job, which - given his lack of experience - will pay what... $40k / year?

And this is the fate of the most successful US Distance runner ever?

I thank my lucky stars every day that I was 'only' a 15:35 5k guy, because if I had any real 'talent' then I would have been tempted to try to have a dead-end 'career' as a professional runner.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hobby jogging and I love watching professional running and supporting them, but I'd never want to 'be' them, nor would I want that for either of my two children.

And for the record, I made $730k last year and I'm in my early 40s, and have a regular (albeit high-paying) job that I enjoy, and that allows me time to 'hobby job' and spend time with my kids.