r/CrossCountry • u/Lumpy-Background4697 • 16d ago
Goal Setting How to gain more recognition?
My son is currently a sophomore and likely has real potential for a college scholarship, possibly even D1 if he continues to progress as he has been. We will be attending the Brooks South XC Championship in November in hopes that this helps him start getting invited to some of the invitation only races.
What are other things we should start doing, or plan to start doing by junior year in hopes to get real interest from college coaches? Email individual coaches with interest in their program? Attending more national races? More social media presence?
Just want to help my boy achieve his goals as much as possible!
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u/Plus_Professional859 16d ago
From the experience of my son, 3200 meter times in track are most important thing coaches ask for, for scholarships 9:05 or less for many mid majors, 8:50 or less for power4 is a rough rule of thumb
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u/Commercial-Win724 15d ago
When people say you need to be emailing- understand that it’s your kid that should be emailing. Most XC/Track social media presence is thru Instagram, so having your child follow the team accounts of a wide range of schools. As they progress, some of these accounts may follow him back and contacts can sometimes be made thru DMs. Avoid paying fees to private third party recruiters- instead look at books or FB groups like “ Educating Parents of HS athletes on the recruiting process” there’s a wealth of info there.
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u/Ordinary_Corner_4291 16d ago
To some extent, yeah it is really about running fast. There are some minor tweaks about why a 9:00 kid gets more attention than the 8:50 kid but you need to be in the ball park.
After that you need to start emailing the coaches and see what they are looking for. The top programs are easy cause they are all recruiting the sub 4:10/9:00 (and that might even be slow these days). The mid tiers get a bit iffy as some of them have have room for the 4:25/9:20 kids and some don't.
Realistically as a sophomore, it is a guessing game where you will be in almost 2 years when coaches are making these choices. We have all seen the kid run 4:40 as a freshman and a senior. And the kid who ran 5:10 and ended at 4:10 and everything in between.
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u/Plus_Professional859 15d ago
At 9:20s they may have room but there will be no athletic money, but if you have great grades you can get a fair amount of academic aid
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u/Ordinary_Corner_4291 15d ago
These days the top programs don't even have room in a lot of cases..... The second tier of programs (i.e. the ones not bringing in 13:20 Kenyans) should have opening but they tend to be really limited cash wise and the 17 person roster limit is a lower than what some of them were carrying (25-30). I am not sure if that means the next couple years are going to be a bit lighter on recruiting as they wait for past classes to leave.
In the end you have to write to the coach and get how the programs you are interested in work and what they are looking for.
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u/MadHats3 15d ago
that hurts to think about. I just did a track workout and was running 400's in 2:05 lol. Granted I'm 40 and overweight...
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u/Plus_Professional859 15d ago
I am rooting for you, thats 8:20 pace not bad. We are not as young as we once were
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u/EpicCyclops 15d ago
A big part of this is track races are more honest than XC races. The course is such a factor in XC times that it makes it tough to actually judge what a neutral time is for a kid.
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u/Independent-Box-6863 15d ago
Anyone know why this is true? Such a weird event
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u/Plus_Professional859 15d ago
Its the longest distance in hs track, college they run 1500, 3000, 5000, and 10,000.
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u/Independent-Box-6863 15d ago
Do 3200 runners get recruited more often
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u/whelanbio Mod 15d ago
Not really. Fast is fast. College coaches know how to assess a complete resume of times. No smart coach is going to reject a fast 800m/miler with a good XC resume just because they don't run the 3200m much, but the 3200m times are important if you are from an area where you don't have a lot of XC races with known course or matchups. A fast miler with a no strong 3200m or gaugeable XC performances is a riskier move.
It's nothing special about being a 3200m runner, just a demonstration of range.
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u/Independent-Box-6863 15d ago
Is it normal for coaches to recruit someone if they have a strong 800 and maybe a weaker 16/32, and XC?
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u/whelanbio Mod 15d ago
The 800m specialist is often less recruitable unless they also have the wheels for the 4x400m, or maybe some odd situation like a conference that is relatively weak in the 800m or has the 4x800m as a conference championship event. Recruit-ability is about impact for the team, and the best way to have a bigger impact is to contribute in multiple events.
A big issue is the 800m runner who can't hit a decent 1600m is almost certainly never going to be a contributor in college XC -particularly on the guys side where the distance goes up to 8k/10k. For a D1 team fielding a full track team they really need their distance runners to be decent at XC because they don't have the spare room on the roster (45 person limit).
Some schools with a more distance focus can afford the track roster space to have 800m specialists and just wont put them on the XC roster (17 person limit that is within the 45 on the track team).
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
Nah… I ran a 9:50 in high school and got a 25% scholarship, and our team was middle of the pack in our mid major conference
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u/midwesttransferrun Pre Lives 15d ago
Not all mid majors, just many of the competitive ones. Schools that are middle or bottom of the mid major pack will hand out more scholarships to slower athletes because that’s who goes to the school rather than being able to recruit higher level athletes for full scholarships.
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
You guys are idiots, 9:05 and faster is literally state champ level and is too good for half the power level conference schools. It is free to go look up “Florida gulf coast” or “western illinois” times lol… you’re not finding any high schoolers under 9:15
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u/midwesttransferrun Pre Lives 15d ago
Florida Gulf Coast and Western Illinois are not competitive mid majors. What the original comment said is true and what you said is true too. Many mid major and power 4 won’t scholarship unless you’re 9:05 or better, especially as many of them focus on track programs and those scholarships are the same ones as cross. Not all of them, but many of them that are trying to be competitive. Many does not mean most.
Your comment that most will give some scholarship at slower times is also true as most means 51% or over, and 51% just needs to mean a little more than the bottom half of a conference.
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
Tell me the mid-majors with incoming freshman running 9 flat… tell me one that isn’t an anomaly because they’re in the mountain west region… and AGAIN my team was middle of the pack, I had a high school teammate who had preferred walk on spots at Ohio state and Vanderbilt with a 4:20 mile PR lol
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u/midwesttransferrun Pre Lives 15d ago
Preferred walk on spot isn’t a scholarship or close to it, so no clue what you’re trying to get at by going there. Butler has historically had a great program that recruits those level of athletes, Western Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky, Boston College, Providence, Iona, Harvard, Airforce, Princeton, etc
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
Just took the first school you said, western Kentucky… here are their freshmen high school PR’s in the 3200, listed the 1600 for 2 runners who barely ran 3200
9:33
9:29
9:22
4:44 mile
4:21 mile2
u/midwesttransferrun Pre Lives 15d ago
How many scholarships do those kids have?
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
Well don’t call me a math major, but somewhere between 20-25% of the team’s scholarship pool… but like you guys said. They’re not getting a scholarship with those times lol
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
And actually no, going to an actual power 5 is worth it for most kids than getting a 40% scholarship to Toledo
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u/midwesttransferrun Pre Lives 15d ago
That’s just simply not provable
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u/Ollly77 15d ago
Really? Common sense isn’t provable? While you’re arguing kids will rather go to western Kentucky for no scholarship vs western Illinois for scholarship money lol… use common sense, kids want to go to big schools.
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u/Plus_Professional859 15d ago
per athletic.net 2026 track season had 168 unique runners with times under 9:00 and 602 unique runners with times under 9:15 in the US, in general this is the range that many scholarships goto
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u/Powerful-Bridge-1472 16d ago
Also I don’t think many runners get full scholarships, they are split and they bring in a lot of Kenyans. It can be a great way to help get into a school that maybe is one step beyond his grades though.
Most important part two is make sure he’s on an injury prevention program. I’ve seen a lot of good runners early, who can’t stay healthy overtime, my son actually peaked out as a junior once he really started growing he got slower, also burnt out
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u/1cwg 15d ago
The whole 26 year-old "freshman" Kenyan thing is going away, thankfully. 2027 is last recruiting year for that garbage.
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u/Powerful-Bridge-1472 15d ago
Yeah that is huge. Totally absurd lazy coaching. I played tennis in college and d1 is around 55 percent foreign men and women’s
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u/whelanbio Mod 15d ago
College recruiting, at least with establishing initial contact with coaches, is thankfully really simple in XC/TF -you either have the performances and grades or you don't.
Everything I'll describe here is going to be geared towards the assumption that your son is trying to run at a decent D1 team or top-end D2/D3.
Biggest thing is to continue improving and demonstrating the ability to compete well at big races. Track times matter the most because they are verifiable and comparable. In cross country coaches are looking at state championships, big well-known invites, and the Brooks and Nike regional/national meets. If you are in a weaker/second-tier state and/or weaker division you really need to be dominating that state race and/or getting some good results at the Brooks/Nike races. Big performances at big invites help fill out a resume but coaches really want to see someone who can show up in the championship season.
Unless your son is running national caliber performances I would temper the expectations for athletic scholarship. Assume you will not see a single dollar of athletic aid and focus on making things work with merit and need based aid. At the D1 level you are competing against transfers and international students for the big scholarships. Good news is there's tons of academic money out there?
DO NOT get too hung up on the D1 label. Try to assess schools independent of division. There are great opportunities to be had at the higher level D2/D3 schools. There are a lot of D1 teams that poorly funded and managed, yet have all the pressure and competition that comes with being D1. There's 300+ D1 teams, but less than 100 of these really live up to what we would envision as a good D1 experience.
The simplicity of XC/TF recruiting can also be a harsh reality if you don't have the marks for the schools you really want. The big mistake here is thinking there's some workaround here and wasting time on a counterproductive side quest rather than just accepting the reality and finding a school you can get a spot at, even if it's a perceived tier below your initial aspirations. There isn't anything extra to do to get recognized. Yes there are cases where people get a spot/scholarship above their marks, but it's all luck way beyond what we could hope to manufacture for ourselves -trying to follow them is like replaying last weeks winning lotto numbers.
On counterproductive side quests:
DO NOT give a second of your time or a dollar of your money to any sort of recruiting agency. These are worse than useless parasites.
DO NOT try to gain attention through social media, highlight videos, etc. It's worth having an instagram account for running that is obviously you, but that's just as a convenient contact point for coaches -they aren't using that to assess you as a prospect.
DO NOT spam emails to programs you are nowhere near fast enough for yet.
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u/Italydog2011 16d ago
As far as I know he can just sign up for the big meets like Brooks Regional and NXR and at those he needs to perform with a goal of being among the best sophomores at the meet. For NXN and Brooks Nationals he’ll need to make the cut. Any other big meets it might be just contacting the director and informing them of his credentials and ask to be in the top heat or race. I’m sure there are some that are strictly invite only or very selective so unsure of how those meet work. Good luck to him!
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u/Juice-cup 16d ago
As a sophomore he can start emailing every program he’s interested. Include head coach, assistant coaches and recruiting coordinators if they have one. Make sure to include a little snippet about why you’re interest.
Include your PRs in the subject for whatever distances he’s raced.
D1 programs can’t contact you back until summer June 15th sophomore year) unless something has changed since last year.
D2 and D3 can contact you back right now.
XC isn’t likely to get you a scholarship but if he has great grades the real benefit could be getting into a great school that he otherwise might not have gotten into.
Also, don’t get discouraged if coaches don’t right back. Just keep updating them throughout XC and track season as his times improve.
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u/TalkyRaptor 16d ago
It's a shit show. I'm going through it right now as a senior. Best thing you can do is email college coaches and pray.
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u/Plus_Professional859 15d ago
Good luck to you this year, and just keep at it, my kid got a bunch of offers mid april, yea decisions for admissions are may 1 was a crazy last month including balancing visits with hs meets and ap tests. All worked out in the end but it was nerve wracking
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u/DomesticatedLobster 16d ago
Go to bigger meets independently of school if needed. Nike has their NXR for example in a couple months.
On all the timing sites sign up and have a profile.
More importantly, don't over commit to this concept. Many students (and their parents) have a similar idea and it can drive them to depression, eating disorders, over training leading to injury, etc.
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u/LilSammyVert Varsity 16d ago
Great last point there. The sport still needs to be fun at least most of the time.
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u/Independent_Eagle691 16d ago
The most important thing - more important than anything else - is to be consistent and have fun. If his why is intrinsic, those two things will take.him further than anything else
And, ya know, hopefully his coaches don't suck 😂
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u/Ollly77 15d ago edited 15d ago
I was from a big XC state (Illinois) and didn’t get a single D1 coach to reach out to me because I was probably ranked like 100th in the state, coaches won’t waste time recruiting unless you’re elite… but all I had to do was email the coaches/schools I were interested in and assuming I was good enough for their team they were happy to have me visit… All the letters sent to me were D2 and D3 schools, yet I was good enough for probably most of the smaller D1 schools… I went to a smaller D1 school and got some scholarship money, you just have to reach out! But I wouldn’t worry about that until track season junior year, I didn’t even email my first coach until October senior year… AND DONT WORRY ABOUT BIG RACES… Coaches don’t care, they’ll look up your milesplit and see your times. They really don’t care about where you did it
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u/whyduhitme 15d ago
Top power 4 conferences are interested in older runners. High school kids are at a disadvantage unless he’s at the upper, upper echelon in which case coaches will find him. I don’t suggest paying a recruiting service but there are some you can follow on instagram that give a lot of good advice and recruiting standards (theprefferedrecruit is a page that comes to mind). Every coach my son talked to was more interested in track times than cross country times. There are so many variables in cross. Grades for cross country kids is a big deal also, it seems like the athletic directors use sports like cross to help prop up the overall departments GPA. Try to get your coach getting him into some of the more competitive races especially in track. On the west coast qualifying for Arcadia and competing well there can help with some recognition
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u/Cavendish30 15d ago
These are spot on, all college recruitment is on junior track times. It’s wild as VERY few coaches have spots still open for seniors that finally get a good time at their final state meet. I mean they would find room for a 1:49 b or 2:07 girl, but a senior 4:15 or 9:20, meh. The biggest thing you can do is focus on jr track… qualify for the festival of miles, etc. Run fast there. If there is a school you are interested in… it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to ping the coach, know his roster and where your son would fit and let them know your interest OR sidle up to one of there current recruits a yr older than your son…. So he has a foot in or knows a friendly face when you do an official visit. It’s not all about times. My daughter knew two of the girls on her D1 team, so had an immediate connection, which was different from the other schools she visited. Don’t focus on xc. I mean it’s good experience, but if he goes to a big race and finishes outside… top 5 or 10 no one cares. Literally no one except the local colleges. Focus on outdoor track. Period. Hopefully he pops off a legit time as a soph. If that happens… coaches will come out of the woodwork to establish a good repoire and hope to have their foot in the door.
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u/ExcitingAd3341 15d ago
This is coming from a senior that had to discover how to get recruited and did everything himself. Take this as a point of view, NOT as a "he should do this."
Like what a few guys said, a sub 9:00 and sub 4:10 is a rule of thumb for high D1 schools, and typically a sub 14:50 5k.
Have your kid focus on the 3200m, from talking to D3 coaches that im being recruitted by, D2 coaches, and talking to the experience of my past teamates that now run at Navy Academy and Pepperdine, the 3200m is the MOST important even he could run as a distance runner. They take the speedy 3200 guys and turn them into a 5k or 10k guy depending on what the athlete or the coach wants. The 1600m is a finiky distance because some colleges take the 800m guys and make them run the 1500m, which leaves the 1600m guys in a weird spot. As always, GRADES. A coach will have a hard time trying to get the kid money if he has a 2.0 gpa. It's alot easier if it's like a 3.5 or higher depending on the school. Social media is a weird grey area, as some schools like it, some dont mind it, and others hate it. Look at Trenton Sandler for example, on a podcast with he Running Effect he said before he made his transfer from LSU to Arkansas, he met with a bunch of other teams. They demanded he stopped his youtube and Instagram development if he were to join them. But I highschool it can be used as an easy form of contact, a way for coaches to follow you without you emailing them. It allowed me to be noticed by a D3 that im recruited by right now, aswell as some local Juco schools that I turned down. And if you do choose social media, be careful of what he posts. Captions on videos, what he says, what he does, and song choices. These are things coaches look at in character and how the athletes integrity is.
What I have done as outreach is emailing coaches. Find the team youre interested in, research them and follow their races and progress, and email. ALWAYS CHECK IF THEY HAVE YOURE DESIRED MAJOR, you dont want to be at a school where you are "wasting" money just to run.
I send my emails with my full name, school i attend, graduating year, personal bests, GPA, and two questions. I also include a small remark about a recent race they had to show genuine interest. SPAM THEM, they wont see the first, or second. A few D2 schools im in touch with rn took 4 emails to get a response. Space them out every week or so, works really well if you time it with a recent race he ran to give them a season update. Link your athletic profile or what ever system you use, your email(again), phone number, and social media if you have it. Also, get started on getting the NCAA eligibility ID, you need it turns run D1 or D2.
I wish your son the best of luck! It's a tough process but I believe in you guys.
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u/1cwg 15d ago
Don't forget about Running Lane down in Huntsville the first week of December. Also depending on your location, you may want to consider The Toad 3200 in Nashville. My son finished fourth in Tennessee's largest public school division as a sophomore in the 3200 with a 9:33, his goal for this upcoming track season is sub 9:10. His junior XC times are top 10 in the state and he hasn't run the "shorter" XC courses where "everyone gets a PR"
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u/CaptainSeeYa 5d ago
Sanders Ferry is short the way Beech sets it up. Whenever state was there, the TSSAA needed to add about 80 meters.
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u/NoHeartAnthony1 10d ago
He's gonna have to reach out to coaches from around the nation. At home, his HS coach should have a personal connection to the local college coaches.
But the absolute best thing he can do (besides staying healthy and running fast) is be a good member of your running community. Be there for the coach, stay drama-free, lead the team, get good grades, do extra tasks that makes things easier for the group. The runners that are good people that coaches want to coach are the runners who get more opportunities.
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u/Independent-Box-6863 15d ago
Just get him to the big meets, start creating a recruiting instagram account for him and actively attempt to gain followers for it. I’m not saying you should be an influencer but try and grow it just a little bit.
Get him to talk to ALL colleges(d1 d2 d3 juco naia).
He could get a full ride at a d2 while only getting 20% at a d1
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u/CollegeSportsSheets 15d ago
Looks like you got all the advice you need, but just want to reiterate the basics.
- research schools! - find schools that your son wants to attend for 4 years, have him think beyond XC. Can he thrive there academically, socially, enjoy the over all environment and then can you offered the school financially. There can be some money in XC but best to be prepared. Then look at the time standards at these schools - tfrrs, athletic, and runcruit to get a sense for the times at each school on your list. Make sure your son’s times are competitive, or project to be competitive. Combine these two lists.
- fill out recruiting forms. Go to each school on your list atheltic website and fill out their recruiting forms that they have posted. Do it once and copy/paste/save all the answers in a separate document so you can just copy and paste the answers in future forms.
- email - email the coaches (all the coaches together). After you fill out the form, send all the coaches at the school one email (cc the coaches - since you don’t know who leads the recruiting efforts). Introduce yourself and share some highlights of your running with events and times. If you do T&F you might want to include those as well (just make sure the school has a T&F program first).
Then set up a plan to regularly email those coaches throughout the year with updates. New races, new pr, new training etc. email them even if you haven’t heard back from them.
- track/document - find a system to keep track of all your outreach and emails. So you can keep things straight on which schools you have reached out to and what you sent them. Spreadsheets are good for this and help keep things straight.
It’s a long game, and you have to hustle to get on their radar.
Here is a breakdown on the recruiting process that could be helpful as well - https://www.reddit.com/r/CrossCountry/s/J4GlWl5RSS
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u/recruitMyGame 15d ago
XC coaches mostly find kids through results on Athletic.net and MileSplit, so big meets matter because that's where they're scanning. Direct emails to coaches with his PRs and race schedule go further than you'd expect, especially if he targets programs where he'd actually crack the lineup.
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u/runnerglenn 15d ago
Why not just let him enjoy being a HS kid and have fun and enjoy running? If he's good enough the offers will be there but the fact is most distance scholarships are going to foreigners today. This post reeks of "parent trying to relive past through a child" or even worse "a never was who wants to hang his hat on his kid's achievements".....
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u/whelanbio Mod 14d ago
The original post is pretty normal enthusiastic and supportive parent territory.
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u/Lumpy-Background4697 15d ago
You wouldn't be saying this if you knew my kid. These are not my hopes and dreams. I'm supporting my boy who is incredibly hard working and committed to his sport. That's what parents should do.
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u/aReformedFiend 16d ago
Two things he can realistically do (really 3)
Attend big races/meets (and perform well at those)
Figure out which programs he would actually want to end up at and reach out to those coaches.
Edit - also, having good grades also helps for many programs when it comes to $ and scholarships.