Bonkers wrote:
joedirt wrote:
The point being that NAU's top ten is closer to representing the New Zealand national team than it is the US national team. Kind of like how New Mexico's top men's and women's teams are closer to the UK national team than the US national team. The irony is that some of the top athletes to ever come out of New Mexico and Arizona have gone on to run for CU (including last year's national champion Dani Jones). When you dedicate your program to bringing in older foreign talent and neglect developing the talent in your own back yard that others do wonderful things with, you deserve some criticism.
That doesn't seem fair, NAU has developed a ton of American talent over the years.
Including Ryan Raff who flashed big potential last year and looks primed for a massive breakout.
I get it, you're one of those people that see someone else doing well but doing it differently than you would, so you want to poo poo everything. That seems to be pretty common.
But, let's talk about development for a second. Let's take CU's big two, Dressel and Klecker and compare them to say, Tyler Day, since all three graduated in 2015. Day is done in XC, but has track eligibility left, Dressel and Klecker both have XC and track eligibility left, I believe.
Here is a breakdown of how all three "developed" at their respective schools:
Klecker
HS PR's: 4:04 mile, 8:50 for 3200, 15:12 for 5k in XC
College PR's: 3:41 for 1500, 13:35 for 5000 and 29:15 10k in XC with 0 NCAA team titles
Dressel
HS: 4:10 for 1600, 8:57 for 3200, 14:46.7 5K in XC
College: 3:45.4 for 1500, 13:41 for 5000, 29:00 for 10k, 29:16 for 10k XC with 0 NCAA team titles
Day
HS: 4:20 for 1600, 9:28 for 3200, 14:59 for 5K in XC
College: 3:46 for 1500, 13:25 for 5K, 28:04 for 10K, 29:04 for 10K in XC with 3 NCAA team titles
I would say all three developed nicely, but it's pretty obvious that both Klecker and Dressel entered CU with much better credentials than Day and I would say up to now, Day's development would be considered greater than those two in their specialties, which are the 5k and 10k.
So, to say NAU neglects to develop talent in its own back yard is ludicrous. NAU will develop anyone from anywhere. And Colorado's philosophy on not bringing in international runners is laudable, but if the men's program doesn't find some replacements for Dressel and Klecker and Herrera after this year, the Buffs are going to find themselves out of the championship conversation.