Yeah, I agree there’s good reason to think he had a faster 800 in him this season.
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Thanks, he started the season 54.low and worked down, last 2 meets were in the 51s.
Being very conscious about injury - he does a ton of bodyweight exercises because it’s something he’s into and I’m constantly nagging about eating, sleeping and recovery.
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Will look into the clubs for sure. There are 2 colleges within 45 minutes with a track. Played basketball in the past so we didn’t really investigate but stepping away from that.
That speaks to latent speed you might want to investigate, as I mentioned earlier. Totally different energy systems which XC doesn’t help with, but I’m not his Dad or Coach. Coach may have different reasons for keeping him in middle distances. Is he the fastest quarter-miler?
On the nagging thing, being a parent trying to make suggestions to a track kid with potential in their best interests is it’s own level of hell. Don’t envy you. Where I’m at now is it’s gotta come from the coach, who they’ll listen to much more than you. Good luck.
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I would strongly caution against pushing this athlete into sprints based on the info I’ve seen in this thread.
The info on playing hoops in the winter just adds confirmation that this is likely a mid-d athlete, perhaps even a distance athlete, with a lot of room for aerobic development but with the basic speed to be recruited as a middle distance runner.
I’m always hesitant to make judgments based on limited info and without seeing athletes in person, but what I’ve seen quite a bit with good HS distance runners is the speed-based ones will always be able to move down and compete. Most of the speed-oriented 800 HS guys I saw who went on to D1 level were running 50 or better. This makes the sprint coaches think they’re sprinters when they’re younger. But they’re not. Running XC, a 4:30, etc. makes it pretty clear to me this isn’t a fast twitch athlete.
That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t run some 400s and the 4x4, etc., because those are good indicators and good training. But they’re secondary to his natural events I think. Maybe we’re saying similar things in different ways I just think it’d be a mistake to move away from distance unless that’s what he prefers
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Our son is in a similar spot (good sophomore year, thinking high academic, high athletic DIII/lower athletic DI) though his jump happened during sophomore year XC and he is more a pure distance recruit (9:26 3200). So far he is looking mostly at UAA and NCAC (maybe a Patriot league or Ivy eventually, but no bites so far) schools at this point. He took a lot of the excellent advice from this forum and had good responses from coaches when he emailed about visiting schools this summer (using the subject lines suggested by @LurkerJoe above, though also adding academic info to the subject line too). He was able to meet with the coaches at all the DIII schools he visited. One piece of advice is if you don’t hear from a coach, get admission involved when you there in person–we ultimately had a very good visit with one of the coaches we hadn’t heard back from (busy summer travelling), but it was evident he was quite interested once we were there in person, wanting to talk to him. I do think getting an early SAT in June of sophomore year helped our son - he got in the mid 1400s, and while I think he ultimately hopes to do better, he can show that he is a reasonable match for the higher academic schools he is looking at. We were already planning a college tour to look at different types of schools, so he emailed before those visits asking if he could meet while on campus. He did hear back from even a Big 10 school, but it was more a “let me know when you hit 9:08” but I thought it was really nice that he got back to us. I would also recommend asking to see his email once a week–mine isn’t good about checking things, and he had some important emails that I had to point out (and some of them went straight into the promotions tab), and he wasn’t checking them!
Good luck to you and your son–it is definitely an exciting but stressful time! What I need to get mine on now is the more scattershot sending of emails before planning a visit (since other schools he might be interested in are much more broadly dispersed). He did do a great job (on his own) sending follow up thank you notes to coaches after meeting with them and has gotten handwritten follow-up notes/post cards from some of them.
Just a follow up on this comment–my son (once just a skinny, tall runner) does tons of those bodyweight exercises too, but he is also enrolled in his school’s “Strength and Speed” course with real barbells and even he (as a pure distance runner) has benefitted tremendously from it and is a lot more powerful. I’d imagine something like that would be even more helpful for a middle-distance guy! Two pictures below are from freshman and junior year (almost no difference in height). I admit I was skeptical taking away an academic course for this (and his overall weighted class ranking dropped a bit too) but the strength has helped him a lot!
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This is gold. Matters little if the coach has no pull, and the places they do will be competitive for that coach’s endorsement. Delicate balance. Obviously the best scenario is one where they can get in without it, but the kinds of schools you’re looking at are highly rejective, so every little bit helps. Second the idea of looking up the conference best times, though the conference meet times aren’t a bad idea in my opinion, tactical implications notwithstanding.
We’ve got some good rising Juniors on this board! Good luck.
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I’m not a recruiting expert, but would being able to include a good SAT/ACT score in emails help? Academic index is two thirds test scores, isn’t it?
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Yes, he’ll want to have a score he can share, ideally by next spring when things start to get more serious. For now the academic info shared above is probably enough to get conversations going. He can mention in the emails when he’s planning to test.
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Does mentioning unofficial practice scores matter?
the recruiting landscape has changed significantly following the house settlement and imposition of roster limits for those schools that opted in for the rev share agreement. Good news is that Ivy, Patriot, and Nescac weren’t directly impacted, but there is a cascading effect down from the Power 4 schools that reverberate throughout collegiate T&F. Here is how you should think about recruitment based on junior year track times. Sub 4:10/9:00 = Ivy; Sub 4:20/9:20 Nescac or Patriot. And closer to 4:10/9:10 for Williams Amherst or BU Lehigh etc
It might at a school like Hopkins or MIT where athletes have to reach a high score threshold (1500+) to receive support. Scores in the right direction can indicate to the coach that it wouldn’t be a waste of time to engage with the athlete. Just know that if the score doesn’t materialize, the offer will not come.
Nescacs are all test optional, and staying that way
Strong test scores still help. They’re not test-blind.
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I mean…
I get that there will be folks cascading down due to the NCAA ruling, but a 4:10 Junior year to be recruited for Amherst or Williams is a stretch. It’s a 3:51 equivalent. That would be a strong recruit at Patriot League.
there are 9:00 kids that were in the mix for nescacs this cycle - the landscape is indeed changing
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Yeah, but they weren’t Juniors in High School with Senior year to go. And he’s a 1500 kid in 400/800 sheep’s clothing.
I feel like kids on top of Emerging Elite at Nike are still a good benchmark for that cadre. In fact, I’m thinking if you qualify for Championship there or NBNO, you’ll stand in good stead. Track kids tend to be smart, but there’s not THAT many that can pass the Ivy or NESCAC screens either in performance or academic stats.
It will definitely be interesting to see how this all shakes out. I’ll certainly be watching.
to clarify my comment - kids who were 9:00 3200 juniors last year are currently in the mix for nescacs
One explanation for the wild cascade could be the transfer portal/roster limits at D1 level- apparently this is a factor now and D3 coaches said they received a lot of D1 transfer interest this spring. Not sure how that worked out but could explain another strain on overall recruiting spots. I agree that I don’t think many are backing off the academic standards though but maybe they don’t have to. Maybe there are enough kids this fast with these grades/score. Not sure- still in the middle of the process and figuring it out.
I have no doubt this is the reason. There are plenty of D1 smart kids that would rather go to a high academic D3 than a lower academic D1. Recruiting standards have gotten faster at Ivies, and in turn, faster at NESCACs.
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