Kid rolls up to college club track team, claims to have a 49. 400 PR

A girl I went to grad school with introduced herself on the first day as a "6xNCAA National Champion Hurdler" who was "training for the Olympics". I actually believed her for the first day (I like to believe that people wouldn't lie about that stuff), until I realized that our first week of classes was during the USA track championships (and she obviously was not running in them). I asked her why she wasn't running at USA's to which she replied "Oh I was injured this year".

At that point the BS alarm was going off in my head and a quick TFRRS check revealed that her best performance was barely making the final for 100mH in an average mid-major conference. At that point I realized that I, being a painfully average mid major distance runner, actually had a better finish than her in the same conference. Why do people feel the need to lie about this stuff when it's so easy to find the actual race results?

Also, if you're going to lie about being a stud athlete, why say that you're a runner? I mean the sport is great but it's the last thing I would lie about to people to get some clout.

You must have made the same mistake that I made. Check Iowa's roster at the end of last season. They had 7 guys with bests under 48 and this is the first school that I checked so I am pretty sure that some of the schools that you listed will have even more. The mistake that I made was to list the current team which is at the start of the season instead of the team from the end of the season. You also may not have listed their best but instead just listed that season's indoor or outdoor best. Harris, for example, ran 44.94 in 2018 but only 45.58 in 2019. Unfair not to list the best of each kid on the roster if trying to show how hard it would be for a kid to get on the team.

Harris 44.94

Lawrence 45.33

Bartley 45.8

Frye 46.17

Hofacker 46.5

Thompson 47.15

West 47.9 Multi

Fair enough. I listed just the season bests, to illustrate how fast their team actually was in 2019 outdoors. Some guys were likely faster in other years.

I can name 8 guys off the top of my head who attend my university and went sub 4:20 in high school and never came out for the team. I'm pretty sure most of them just go out for a 5 mile jog once or twice a week nowadays.

If you surveyed an entire college's student population on their high school track prs, I think you would be surprised how many fast kids haven't ran a step since they graduated.

ijfuigiugi wrote:

I can name 8 guys off the top of my head who attend my university and went sub 4:20 in high school and never came out for the team. I'm pretty sure most of them just go out for a 5 mile jog once or twice a week nowadays.

If you surveyed an entire college's student population on their high school track prs, I think you would be surprised how many fast kids haven't ran a step since they graduated.

Yeah, people on this thread are starting from the assumption that the 49 second guy wants to run for his college team and arguing about what teams are likely to allow him to run. In reality, he might just not run for the team because he chooses not to.

The question isn't whether a 49 second guy can run for a college team if he wants to. The question is simply whether it is possible that there exists a guy with a 49 second PR who attends a DI school but doesn't run for the team. The answer to this is obviously "yes."

Well, those are really both questions here. Yes, there are some really bad D1 teams where a 49.8 guy can compete but chooses not to. But there are not schools that have club teams where a 49.8 guy could make a team. It was obvious that the lay fan really does not realize that roster spots are limited and that some P5 teams have 20 guys faster than 49.8.