Run

By DI caliber I mean the quality of runner they are coming out of high school. I agree that the trainning during college can drastically improve your times because of better coaches, competition, and more running. Coach Weis didn't recruit the 4:40 runner, he walked on at the righ time when several other runners were injured and got the roster position because it was open. So coming out of high school I don't believe he was at the level that most Big 12 athletes and probly a majority of DI are at comming in. He did give a great example of what correct trainning can do compared to most high school trainning. Coach Weis told me that story when I met him to encourage me right after he told me how great OSU was at academics and running.

Hey this is Garrett Sage from Pine Tree. I will be signing with DBU within the next week and am looking forward to running for them. I wanted to restate what jford200 said: It is not hard to get a track scholarship for girls. For guys it is much harder because they are much fewer. The reason is most schools have a football team that takes up the majority of the guys scholarships and the girls must have the same amout as the guys have so in the girls sports they are spread out more. There is not a girls sport that has near as many players as football has. Also football brings in much more revenue than any other sport, especially track and cross country. For DBU their baseball team is DI therefore it takes up a majority of the scholarships. One other thing... I would recomend not going DI if you are not DI caliber. Most DI schools like thier distance runners under 9:45 (3200) and under 4:30 (1600) for guy walk ons and even lower for most Big 12 schools. It will not help most people nor would I consider it to be much fun to get burnt every race against schools that are or should be the level as your school. From conversations with coach Cap from Baylor Andrew Stroman has either done an excellent job of improving or is being expected to improve by a lot because of the number of red shirts Baylor had this year. After talking to coach Cap I was invited to walk on but was not garenteed a place on the team even after running almost similar times as Andrew this year (no offense to Andrew, you must be doing great there and I look forward to running against you next season too). I did not want to take the chance of not running or having to compete against my own teammates. My advice is to look at a school at all levels... DI, DII, and DIII; look at the academics, campus, and the team itself... especially the coach. DBU is a small school but I believe that it fits my needs and from what I have seen so far has an excellent coach that is passionate about the sport. DI may sound good but it most likely will not help you imporve as a runner if you don't run sub 10's already. Look at Abeline Christian or Adams State... two of the best distance schools in the country that are DII, I would expect them to beat most DI schools. I believe the most important part is having fun while running. and from earlier posts... I was invited to walk on at Baylor and OSU; and was offered a spot on the team at TCU.