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Runner ineligible because of changing high schools
toledo
Registered User Posts: 4,970 Senior Member
My son decided to change high schools this year, his junior year. Part of the decison was because he wanted to go from a small school to a large school. According to our state's rules, it looks like he's ineligble. He is o.k with it and is still allowed to practice with the team. I'm worried that college coaches won't see any times for him during his junior year, but his high school coach claims that senior year times are more important. That could be true for cross country, but track times will be too late for college coaches. Any words of wisdom? Has anyone sat out a year? Should he enter every community 5K race he can find?
Post edited by toledo on
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Replies to: Runner ineligible because of changing high schools
In my opinion, junior year times are important. This is especially the case for boys, as their slower physical development schedule means that many of them are still pretty scrawny the first two years of high school. Unlike many girls who get slower as they mature, boys are almost always faster when they're juniors and seniors. Sophomore times, if very good, are certainly helpful for recruiting and could be used if no junior times were available. But races run too far in the past can't give the college coach the assurance he wants that the athlete is still healthy, still motivated to train hard, and that his/her body has adjusted to the maturation process without a loss of speed.
My x-c and track runner took all but one of her official visits in Sept. and Oct. of senior year before any important races had been run yet. These visits were set up after the July 1 date when coaches starting calling. So her recruiting was based entirely on junior year times. However, she mostly looked at Ivies who recruit early. While the other Div. 1 schools were also calling in July and August, the earliest NLI signing day for track is in February of senior year, so that will give your son the chance to have run his entire senior x-c season as well as a few good indoor track meets before that. So your coach is correct that his senior times can be used, but the wait could put him at a disadvantage compared to others.
The good news for your son is that at least in our area, we are seeing more and more high school runners abandoning their school teams in order to run for clubs. This has been going on for a while for sports like soccer, but is a relatively new phenomenon here for track. While this means the athletes are ineligible to run any conference or state-sanctioned meets, they can still run some college invitationals and meets like Footlocker Regionals and Nationals, and New Balance Nationals. Your son could enter meets like these in junior year as an "unattached" competitor. They are high level and high profile meets and will have the respect and attention of college coaches.
Good luck!
In college, some coaches will allow red-shirted athletes (usually freshman) to compete unattached just to get some experience of racing, even though their times don't count. I don't know if that phenomenon occurs in high school. It might be worth asking the coach at your new school.
Our system has the same rule about being ineligible if you transfer from one school to another within the school district - it's to avoid having all the good athletes cluster together to form one powerhouse team. However, there are some loopholes in our system - for example, if you transfer for an academic reason (e.g. to take an unusual foreign language or to participate in an IB program not available at your original school) - so you might see if your athlete would qualify for those exceptions?
I agree that junior year times are important for recruiting, so I would try to help your son compete as much as possible. Good luck to you and to him!
I really don't know how to get a high school athlete into a college race other than by contacting the meet director. However, I can tell you that Stanford has x-c and track invitationals that are excellent and that bring in some of the best high school runners. Go to the Stanford team webpage for meet info. The same would likely hold true for colleges in your area. Just go to the team site for links to their invitationals webpages.
Your new high school coach has probably dealt with this before and will know exactly what is permitted in your area.
http://rise.espn.go.com/track-and-xc/index.aspx
You or your son can submit his times if he runs faster than the minimums for the Dyestat performance lists. They don't care what race it was in as long as the distances and times are reported accurately. I don't know what your community's high school races are like, but in many places, smaller races blend the JV and Varsity so he would get to run against the top talent, just not score for varsity. Again, asking the coach would be the way to go.
I AM a fan of club running for high schoolers, and your son should be able to do a bit of both over the next two years.
Most distance coaches really do have the athlete's best interest at heart. The HS coach won't necessarily want to keep your son on JV and away from club races. It shouldn't be too hard to pick a mix of appropriate high school and club/college/open races for him. I'm sure the coach is hoping to bring him along this year so he can join varsity as a senior and be the wild card surprise!
Still no luck on finding a club in our area. Would clubs allow you to join if you didn't practice much with them?
We'll follow up with our new high school school coach, as riverrunner suggested.
Thanks, everyone!