My son runs XC and track (both indoor and outdoor) and wants to run in college. He loves mid-distance races because they’re “gutsy.” When I look over the times of current athletes running for colleges that we’re interested in, my son’s times in the 800 and 1000 are competitive, but his times in XC and longer distances aren’t so much.
But it seems like there’s a big jump between the longer distance times and the mid distance; the longer distance times that the college athletes are posting are excellent, but the mid distances? Surprisingly slow, it seems to me. So are there really that few mid distance runners trying to get on college teams, or maybe is it that coaches don’t recruit mid distance runners and instead have their long distance specialists fill in the middle distance races? Or am I just imagining things?
BTW, we’re looking mostly at DII schools, if that means anything.
There are some college track programs that essentially only have athletes who can also run cross country, and in non-distance events either don’t enter anybody, or just enter whoever happens to walk on to the team. So that’s one possible explanation, depending on which schools you looked at.
It could also just be that your son is a lot more competitive in the mid-distance races.
You might want to look specifically at what times it takes to score in meets, especially the conference meet. If your son is at or close to those times, that’s definitely a good sign.
In college Track and XC some programs are balanced and try to have good athletes across the board while some tend to specialize. This is expecially prevalent with some programs deciding to be “distance” programs and having very strong XC and long distance runners while being virtually non-existant in sprints and field events.
I say that because maybe the programs you have looked at are more focused on XC and long distance. Or maybe not and they just aren’t very strong in the other events. To get a guage of where your son might fit you really need to look at these school’s Conference Championship meets and see how he stacks up in the conference. It might also tell you a lot about the schools you are looking at. Being the best on a given team will not always translate into scholarship dollars.
There is no 1,000 in competitive college meets so throw that out. It gets runs occasionally, but not much, so any published results you see for it are pretty meaningless. An 800 runner is going to be expected to run longer distances in college so you might as well start comparing to the mile, 3k, etc and he will be expected to run XC. Sure 800 might always be his best event, but a roster spot for this event is going to come with expectations of competing in the longer distances.
A question about meeting coaches; up until this year, we have been able to get application fee waivers b/c we’ve been on reduced lunch. But now that my two older kids are making bank doing food service at their college (LOL) we’ve been pushed barely over the cutoff, so no automatic waivers anymore. Yet, if we want to cast a wide net for DS '17, the application fees will be hard to pull off.
Is it ever possible for a coach to set up a fee waiver? Is it bad form to ask? Should we just narrow our search down to a small handful of colleges and hope for the best?
I don’t think coaches can do that. They are not allowed to give out something that isn’t available to all students except the specific things allowed in the NCAA rules for recruiting - 3 tickets to an athletic event, room and meals and travel expenses. Daughter’s coach gave them sunglasses as those were available to anyone who visited the campus. At another school got a t-shirt, but not an athletic department t-shirt just the general one given to everyone.
But some schools will give waivers just for asking. So ask the admissions dept. It might not be a bad idea to narrow that list down
@mdcmom - Our son is considering running in college (he’s just a sophomore now) and something we have found useful is to take a look at the roster of the college you are thinking about and then check Athletic.net for what those kids were running in high school. It gives you a chance to see not only if your son is right with where the other kids were in terms of times at different ages (freshman year, junior year, etc), but also to see what that particular coach might be looking for in terms of times. That’s the great thing about track races - you can really compare one to another (yes, there could be sun or rain, heat, etc, but generally speaking, they’re all pretty much the same). It’s a lot harder for kids in soccer or lacrosse or something to guess what a coach might be looking for or what they can do to impress. For track - you just run fast times consistently and by looking at what current athletes ran in high school it gives you an idea of what a coach thinks is “good enough”.
Do you have a freshman, sophomore, or junior? Have they started filling out the online recruiting forms on the websites at the colleges they are interested in? Once his times are competitive enough, go ahead and do that. He can always go in and update his form and then send an email to the coach saying that he updated his times because they have improved and he is very interested in the school.
Our son wants to go to school on a different side of the country and is not one of the top athletes in the country so when his times improve, we will have him contact the coaches of the colleges he is interested in via the online recruitment tool. This will be his first year running track and we don’t have indoor track. They just did a “trial mile” at practice and he ran a 4:50, which isn’t bad, but it’s nothing fantastic, so we’re hopeful that with some training, he will be able to improve to closer to 4:35-4:40 and then he will be closer to “interesting” to a coach at least at a D3 and maybe D2 level. He is still far from D1 material (I think he would have to be at least under 4:25 to be on the edge of interesting for D1).
What times is your son running? Keep in mind that track times are more meaningful for collegiate coaches than XC because it is so much easier to compare kids’ track times. XC courses vary so much in terms of conditions, hills, trails/grass/road, etc that unless you are at the top of the high school field and running under 15min for a 5k, it’s hard to compare all those times in the 15s and 16s.
This is a very helpful suggestion; thank you! DS is a junior; he’ll run at Indoor States this weekend in the 1000m. His PR is 2:37 which is decent, but still puts him 2/3 of the way down in the state championship race seeding. His current 1600 is 4:41; as you say, this may be interesting to DII and DIII but not at the level of DI, for the most part.
mdcmom and RoonilWazlib99 – My son filled out all of the on line questionnaires only to learn later that most coaches don’t look at them at all. The coach of the university my son went to his freshman year contacted him initially via Facebook and wasn’t aware that my son had filled out a questionnaire for the school until my son told him. He actually said “no one has time to look at them”. So save your time and email the coaches, both the head coach and the event specific coach.
If you receive one of those letters in the mail requesting him to fill out a questionnaire, go ahead, but make sure you follow up with a personal email. It seems some schools send those letters to all athletes, once the athlete hits a given mark, whether or not they are a good fit for the team.
I was watching my daughter play last night (online) and thinking how happy I was that she picked a D2 school. She could have played D1, but not at a top ranked school. By top, I mean in the top 25 (out of 120 or so) because after that the level really drops off. She also could have gone to a D3 program, but academically the schools weren’t as attractive to her. D2 is reallyperfect for her academically and for her sport.
A teammate did go to a bit D1 school as a freshman, was doing fine academically and got some playing time, but there were other factors that made sense to transfer. One of the biggest was she just wanted to be closer to home. She likes her parents at her games, she likes to be only an hour away. She is a superstar on our team, plays 100% of the time, plays against some of her old high school teammates who are on other team in our conference.
D1 teams in our sport tend to be bigger, carrying 30 to 40 players, so only the top 20 see field time. In track,I guess it would be different if many people from the same team could compete in the same event.
Just a plug for D2. It’s really been the right choice for my daughter.
I have a lot of D2 and D3 teams on the list; so far DS hasn’t narrowed it down at all but that needs to happen soon. I don’t think his times are fast enough for most D1 schools anyway and I’d be happy to see him at a school where he’d have a little more time for classes.
OnTrack, that’s an interesting observation about the online questionnaires. DS received a letter from a college last week asking him to fill out a questionnaire, and based on your comments, I’ll make sure he emails too.
Good advice on this thread. Daughter was recruited and competed in D1 track and I would only add one caveat about looking at team rosters to determine what a coach thinks is ‘recruitable’.
Every coach, D1, D2 or D3 wants the fastest kids they can get and every coach wants his athletes to score points at the conference meet. So if you see a team is relatively weak in an event, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to bring on more athletes at that level. I think for a more accurate idea of the times/heights/distances that are going to interest a coach, look at the conference meet results and see what it took to score points.
Great advise from Varska. Look at her times relative to those times scoring points the target schools conference meets. Don’t compare to the schools current roster. My D’s program has virtually no one who throws the javelin, its just not a focus. If a great prospect who could compete for a conference title showed interest in the school the coach would probably recruit them. But he is just as happy using that scholarship elsewhere to find someone in another event that can score points.
Scholarships per team:
D1 Men 12.6; Women 18
D2 Men 12.6; Women 12.6
NAIA Men 12; Women 12
Indoor Events: 17
Outdoor Events: 21
There are limits to the number of participants teams can take to conference meets. Not sure if these are NCAA rules or individual conference rules, but I have heard 25 for Indoor and 28 for Outdoor.
Do the math, not enough scholarships to cover each event and it takes multiple athletes for the relays. Coaches get paid to beat their peers at Conference meets. They are going to recruit athletes that can help them do this and if that means passing on a Jav thrower only (Outdoor only) for a distance runner who can run XC along with 2/3 events Indoor and Outdoor plus a relay or 2 and score point in each - its an easy decision.
This has all been incredibly helpful…thank you! DS got his first letter from a college. It appears that they want to improve their mid distance times, so we’ll see. Edit: I take it back; two letters have come. One is from a D1, on from a D3 LAC. Life is getting busy.