Runner ineligible because of changing high schools

TheGFG
Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:20:47 +0000

I feel your pain! Our state has this rule as well, and frankly it was what kept us from moving our student to another school with a better running program.

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!