Here’s Why There Are So Many Top Kenyan Runners in the NCAA This Year — Scholarbook & the New NCAA Math

The 2024 NCAA cross country season has been a very successful one for Kenyan athletes. The biggest meet of the regular season, October’s Pre-Nationals in Madison, featured a 1-2-3 Kenyan sweep on the women’s side and a total of eight Kenyan runners in the top 10 across both races — that’s more Kenyans in the top 10 than at every Nuttycombe Invitational from 2013-23, combined (during that period, there were only seven total — less than one per year).

Looking at conference results, Kenyan men took five of the top six places at both the Big 12 and SEC championships (Kenyan women took three of the top four spots at Big 12s and four of the top five at SECs). Of the 18 regional races held around the country last week to qualify for NCAAs, half were won by Kenyan athletes.

2023 wasn’t bad, either. Last year, nine Kenyan men earned All-American honors (top 40) at the NCAA championships, including three in the top 10. Those numbers were high compared to recent years but hardly the highest in NCAA history; from 2005-09, the NCAA meet averaged 10 Kenyan men per year in the top 40. Kenyan women, however, were historically succesful in 2023, with seven finishers in the top 40 and four in the top 10, both of which were the highest in the 43-year history of the women’s NCAA meet. There could be even more at this year’s NCAA championships, which will be held on Saturday in Madison, Wis., where New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei, Alabama’s Doris Lemngole, and Florida’s Hilda Olememoi are the three leading contenders for the women’s individual title.

Kenyan runners finding success in the NCAA is nothing new, of course. Top athletes from the Rift Valley have been coming to American colleges for decades, even before Washington State’s Henry Rono and Samson Kimobwa made waves in the 1970s. But in 2024, those athletes aren’t just heading to the traditional hotbeds for Kenyan talent such as Iowa State, Alabama, and Texas Tech. There are Bernard Cheruiyot and Caroline Jeptanui, this year’s American Athletic Conference champions for Tulane. Nicholas Kipchirchir won two races this fall for Virginia Tech. Collins Kiprop Kipngok was 4th at the Southeast regional for Kentucky. How about Joy Naukot, 3rd at the Big 12 meet for West Virginia? All are in their first year in the NCAA. So too is Judy Chepkoech, who finished one spot behind Naukot at Big 12s and is one of four Kenyan freshmen on Arizona State’s roster.

“[Schools] that have not historically had Kenyans are now spending big money on really good guys,” said Lipscomb coach Nick Polk.

Which brings a natural question: why?

Visas and financial math

One of the reasons the abundance of Kenyan athletes has become so apparent in 2024 is that just a couple of years ago, the number of top Kenyans in the NCAA had dwindled significantly. The 2022 NCAA championships in Stillwater did not feature a single Kenyan man in the top 10, the first time that had happened since 2003.

“For a period there, there was kind of a lull in being able to get visas from the US Embassy in Nairobi,” says Iowa State coach Jeremy Sudbury. “There has always been an appetite or coaches recruiting, but they’ve struggled to get visas through for various reasons.”

It can be a frustrating process for athletes, some of whom are denied multiple times and never told why. But some athletes and their handlers have found a creative solution: instead of applying at the US Embassy in Kenya, they will fly overseas and apply for a US visa from a different country. In his most recent recruiting class, Sudbury secured the commitment of two Kenyans, Robin Kwemoi Bera and Joash Ruto. He was hoping to have them on campus in June, but neither could secure a visa in Nairobi, delaying the process. Both ultimately made it over by traveling overseas; Bera got his visa from the US Embassy in Mauritius, Ruto from South Africa.

In addition, the NCAA has relaxed its rules to make it easier than ever for schools to cover expenses during the recruiting process, whether that is the cost of sending transcripts or paying for the initial flight over from Kenya to the United States. Sudbury says he has even heard of schools that have paid for athletes’ flights to acquire a US visa overseas.

“Their compliance has determined that that is a necessary and required expense to get them to the US to go to school,” Sudbury says. “Which is a game-changer. That’s crazy. That never used to be able to happen.”

Academically, it certainly helps that many schools dropped standardized testing requirements during COVID.

The financial ecosystem once Kenyan prospects arrive in the NCAA has also become far more appealing. In 2015, the NCAA ruled that schools can offer athletic scholarships that cover an athlete’s entire cost of attendance — a number that is typically several thousand dollars higher than the traditional full ride of room, board, tuitition, books, and fees. And as a result of the 2021 NCAA v. Alston case, schools are also able to offer up to $5,980 per athlete per year in academic award money. Athletes who were previously forced to turn professional to provide for their families can come to the NCAA instead and send some of that money back home to help out.

Kiptoo (center) helped Iowa State finish as NCAA XC runners-up in 2021 (Photo by Julia Caterson)

“There are athletes where they could go to [an agency like] Rosa, they’re maybe only getting a $7,000 or $8,000 professional contract, which is tiny,” says New Mexico coach Darren Gauson. “Or you can come here, get a degree, get your full cost of attendance plus your $12,000-$13,000 in room and board, you’re going to the training table and getting all your food paid for.”

And while not every Kenyan athlete who comes over will end up turning pro, the very best ones can become more valuable by succeeding in the NCAA. Sudbury estimates that Wesley Kiptoo, the former Iowa State star who turned pro in 2022, is likely making twice as much from his shoe contract with HOKA One One than what he would be making had he stayed in Kenya. New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei, the 2023 World XC U20 bronze medalist and one of the favorites at this week’s NCAA championships, is another athlete who could benefit.

“Pamela 10 years ago would have just gone pro and signed a deal with someone,” Gauson says. “But if you can come here and put yourself in the NCAA and run really well, I think you’re going to be more marketable for the shoe companies.”

The rise of recruiting services

Recruiting in Kenya presents challenges. In the United States, it’s easy to find results and get in contact with prospective recruits. In Kenya, it’s much harder. Some prospects will not have any formal results at all, only time trials with a local coach.

“We all get solicited nonstop by Kenyan athletes who write to us and say hey, I’m so and so and I’ve run this and I’ve run that and there’s no way to verify it,” says Oklahoma State coach Dave Smith. “I think many of us, me included, had been burned.”

Coaches or their assistants can fly to Kenya to create relationships with athletes and coaches on the ground, but that takes a lot of time and money. That’s where a recruiting service like Scholarbook Premier comes in.

Scholarbook was founded in 2009 by Simon Stützel, a German who was a Division II All-American in the 2000s under coach Scott Simmons at Queens University in North Carolina. Initially, the aim was to find US scholarship opportunities for international athletes. An athlete would pay a fee to Scholarbook, who would then reach out to American universities on behalf of the athlete. The company experienced moderate success.

Alabama’s Lemngole is a Scholarbook athlete who experienced immediate success in the NCAA in 2023-24

Then in 2019, Stützel, who owns a personal best of 13:41 for 5,000m, traveled to Kenya for a training camp. He saw a plethora of talented Kenyan athletes but realized they would never be able to afford Scholarbook’s fees. So he decided to flip Scholarbook’s model. Rather than charge those athletes to be part of Scholarbook, he would charge the schools.

Essentially, Scholarbook offers schools a chance to outsource their international recruiting. By paying a fee, schools get access to an exclusive group of athletes whose performances have been vetted. Scholarbook also takes care of everything an athlete needs to be eligible to compete in the NCAA, like making sure they have the proper grades and test scores. Most importantly, Scholarbook handles the visa process, which can include scheduling appointments at US Embassies outside of Kenya.

Schools still have to recruit against other schools paying for the service, but Scholarbook’s head of track & field, Philipp Baar, says their Division I subscribers are typically able to bring in two to three athletes a year.

“It’s about knowing our partner schools, what they’re looking for, budgetarily do they have aid available in January or for fall,” says Joe Walker, who oversees Kenya for Scholarbook. “It’s working through that. We typically try to make the athlete available to three or four partners that have scholarship availability.”

Scholarbook operates across a number of sports and countries. In track & field, Germany is its most popular country, followed by Nigeria (Alabama’s Samuel Ogazi, an Olympic 400m finalist for Nigeria this year, is a Scholarbook athlete). Stützel had hoped to make a push in Kenya in 2021, which included hiring Walker, who had deep connections in the country dating to his time as coach at Alabama and Louisville in the 2000s and 2010s. But with COVID, visa appointments became almost impossible to secure and in 2022, Baar decided to shut down Scholarbook’s Kenyan operation.

“If you look at the results during that period, especially 2021 and 2022, there’s really not many Kenyan freshmen in the NCAA, not even in juco,” Baar says.

Visa approval rates eventually began ticking upwards and Scholarbook started up again in Kenya in 2023. Lemngole, the reigning NCAA steeplechase champion for Alabama, was one of the recruits to come over in that class.

Since then, the service has exploded. Baar says Scholarbook went from sending 48 athletes to the US in 2022 (from all countries) to 150 in 2023. Roughly 60 US schools (around 20 in Power 5 conferences) subscribe to Scholarbook’s track & field program, which is double the number from three years ago. That includes schools like Alabama, Texas Tech, West Virginia, and Tulane.

“I think we had seven employees in the track department in 2021 and now we have 23,” Walker says.

Scholarbook offers packages in three regions: East Africa, West Africa (mainly sprint/power event athletes from Nigeria), and Developed (aka Europe). For East Africa, it offers three tiers of service — pay more and get access to higher quality prospects. The lowest tier costs $6,000 per year and is for developmental athletes. The highest costs $25,000 and includes athletes who are expected to make a significant impact right away in the NCAA.

Currently, Walker says, Scholarbook works with a group of 20-25 Kenyan athletes in each recruiting class, but he’d like to expand that number to 40 next year. And Scholarbook is not the only game in town: California-based William Ngetich, who works with a service called Scholarship Pipeline, has also sent a number of Kenyans to the NCAA in recent years, working with schools including New Mexico and Iowa State.

“We’re just trying to find athletes that can compete and be at the highest level”

Kenyans Denis Kipngetich (second from left) and Brian Musau (second from right) led OK State to the NCAA XC title in 2023 (Photo courtesy NCAA/James B Daves)

Dave Smith has heard the critics. His 2023 NCAA XC championship team at OK State featured three Kenyan men among its five scorers, and Smith knows there are armchair running fans who view that as unfair and state they are taking away opportunities that could have gone to American athletes.

Those same criticisms could be vocalized about the men’s 100 meters — where just two of this year’s NCAA finalists were American — or the women’s triple jump, where 14 of the 16 competitors at this year’s NCAA indoor championships were international. But they weren’t.

“My thing is this: people focus on Kenyans because maybe they’re pretty good but also, I’m afraid, because they’re easily identifiable,” Smith says. “…No one screamed, Oh my god, the triple jump has been ruined by all these internationals! But if you’re an American kid and you want to be a triple jumper at a Power 5 school, you’ve got a long row to hoe.”

North Carolina coach Chris Miltenberg likes to say there are three “faucets” when it comes to recruiting: American high schoolers, international athletes, and transfers. In 2024, Miltenberg says, the NCAA has become so competitive that good coaches must at least try to turn on all three if they are to be successful.

“You cannot just close any one of those completely and say we’re going to compete with the best teams in America,” Miltenberg says.

But not all the faucets flow the same for each school. What do you do if you want to be competitive but your school can’t offer the same academics as Stanford or Notre Dame or the elevation of Colorado or NAU? You work with what you’ve got.

“We’d love to be able to pick the top American kids and go from there, that type of thing,” says Jon Murray, who has coached Kenyan stars such as Kennedy Kithuka and Sally Kipyego during his 19 years as coach at Texas Tech. “That would be a solid thing to start with, but most of them won’t even return my call. It is where we are, where we’re located. International kids, especially Kenyan athletes, they like where we’re located. It is a rural area, they like that. They like the terrain we have. They like those things, so why wouldn’t you go with a group of people that want to be here?

“…As coaches, we’re just trying to find athletes that can compete and be at the highest level. That’s what my bosses want us to do, so that’s where that support is given.”

Does the NCAA need an age limit?

Some Kenyan athletes enter the NCAA much older than their American counterparts. Oklahoma freshman Leah Jeruto is 24. Alabama freshman Dismus Lokira is 26. West Virginia’s Tecla Lokrale and Eastern Kentucky’s Justine Kipkoech are both 26-year-old sophomores. Texas Tech’s Solomon Kipchoge is a 28-year-old freshman. Not every coach is okay with this.

“If you’re filling your team with 26, 27, 28, 29, 30+ year old ‘freshmen’ you are the problem,” Furman women’s coach Rita Gary posted on X in September.

In NCAA Division I, there is no age limit in track & field and cross country; your eligibility clock only starts when you enroll in college for the first time. There is a caveat, however — if you continue to participate in the sport more than one year after graduating from high school, you can start to lose eligibility.

“That rule was always meant for somebody that was a [minor league] baseball player, they quit baseball and okay now you can go play football and be a freshman because baseball didn’t help you become a football player,” says former Florida State coach Bob Braman.

However, Braman says the current system has a loophole: if you train but never compete, your eligibility clock never starts.

“These kids are in training camps and running until they’re good enough to come over and get a scholarship, which is life-changing for them,” Braman says. “…I’m not against opportunity, I’m not against Kenyans…But if we want to preserve our sport to the US side, we’ve got to have [an age limit]. And it’s not age discrimination. Because what’s happening is, these people supposedly are not competing in the sport yet they’re doing time trials in 13:10 or 28:30. How is that fair to a 17, 18, 19-year-old kid? It’s not.”

In addition, the NCAA’s eligibility guidelines can be hard to parse. A number of coaches were confused when Kipchoge, whose World Athletics profile lists five overseas road races from 2020 to 2024 in countries like Thailand and Latvia, was granted freshman eligibility for this fall.

NCAA rule 12.8.3.2.1 states, however, that athletes can be charged partial seasons of eligibility based on the number of competitions they participated in before enrolling (there are also exceptions for events in which athletes compete for their national team or in national team trials). Because Kipchoge never competed in more than two races per year, the NCAA determined he had to sit out the same number of races as he participated in: five. After Texas Tech added a few low-key juco invitationals to its 2024 schedule, Kipchoge returned in time to take 2nd at Big 12s and win the Mountain regional.

Even if it is allowed by the rules, Braman believes it is a problem to have someone as good as old and as fast as Kipchoge — his half marathon personal best of 59:37 is faster than the American record — entering the NCAA with freshman eligibility.

“It’s not a crack on Jon Murray,” Braman says. “It’s not a crack on Scholarbook. But it is a bit of a crack on the NCAA.”

A number of coaches told LetsRun.com they would like the NCAA to clarify its eligibility rules or to tweak them — one suggestion was that an athlete’s eligibility clock begins ticking at age 20, whether they have entered the NCAA or not. Baar, from Scholarbook, understands the reasoning behind that. But he also believes it is wrong to depict Kenyan athletes as heartless mercenaries. Baar says that those who criticize athletes like Kipchoge online sometimes forget there is a human being at the center.

“Every one of them wants to get an education,” Baar says. “Every one of them has a family to feed. Every one of them had their own dreams…Their life changes so dramatically [when they come to the US], not just for themselves, but for their whole family.”

And sometimes, a person’s athletic journey is delayed because of forces beyond their control.

“[What if] they didn’t graduate high school at the right age because they come from a single mother and they had to work?” Sudbury says. “And so when they finally went back to school and were running and were a little bit older and they had a chance to come to the US and they hadn’t run any professional races and they kind of protected their eligibility there. There’s examples you can go either way. It’s a hard direct answer. Should there be more restrictions? Probably, I would say, based on if we’re trying to protect the amateurism as much as we can.”

Gary’s concern moving forward is that more scholarships going to older international athletes means fewer opportunities for young American runners to develop. That is something that could be exacerbated in the coming years as roster sizes are expected to shrink (to as few as 10 for SEC men’s cross country) in the wake of the House v. NCAA settlement.

“While I think it’s a frustrating situation, ultimately it is 100% legal and these programs are truly doing nothing wrong,” Gary wrote in an email to LetsRun.com. “I’ve spoken to my compliance department and there is just no appetite at the NCAA level to regulate our sport…we are bottom of the priority list and they’ve got bigger battles tbh.

“So – while I have an opinion, it’s just that, an opinion and if I can’t offer a solution it just sounds like bitching and sour grapes.

“But I do think how people run their programs and how they engage their constituents (prospects, fans, alumni, etc) is going to impact opportunities down the road.”

The flip side? Top-tier international talent in the NCAA can push the very best Americans to an even higher level. Harvard’s Graham Blanks had to overcome an Eritrean (Habtom Samuel), an Australian (Ky Robinson), and a Kenyan (Denis Kipngetich) to win the NCAA cross country title last year. When it came time to compete at the US Olympic Trials in June, Blanks was battle-tested: he made the team and went on to place 9th in the Olympic 5,000-meter final in Paris.

“I do know this: we are better at Iowa State because of the blend of athletes we have,” Sudbury says. “Gable Sieperda doesn’t get 3rd at NCAAs outdoors last season and run 8:25 for the steeplechase if he’s not getting pushed by Said Mechaal or Rodgers Kiplimo or Sanele Masondo.”

For now, the Kenya-to-USA pipeline is flowing strongly. And Baar only expects the flow to increase in the years to come.

“I think in two to three years at the NCAA DI championship, at least half of the All-American honors are going to go to Kenyan runners,” Baar says. “Because for the Kenyans, it is such a good opportunity.”