Can't remember when either were top half of the sec, let alone nationaly.you would think some foreign athletes could come here.
If I were a star long distance runner, the state of Florida is the last place I'd want to be training for long distance runs in the late summer early fall.
I agree with the 2 previous posts. This is something I have wondered about and will add a 3rd reason. 1) Went to high school near Jax. ran track. 2) Went to college near C. Springs @ 7200 feet. Running there was very different. Part was the hills (mountains). This is something not reproducible. I think these 3 Reasons (weather, altitude and terrain) are also why Ark. will dominate the Sec indefinitely and the best teams will be from the NE or mountain west. Think of the best international runners. Most are from high altitude hilly regions.
part of my point is why are we not going after foreign runners, is it a coaching thing, if they are better than what we have now, why not recruit some?
I know nothing about recruiting; however, I assume the problems would be be same: No one wants to run in that weather and everyone knows they cannot reach their potential by running around the UF golf course @ sea level.
I would also guess UF uses their limited scholarships in other disciplines to a large extent.....sprints and jumps
Yeah, it has been mentioned here in the past that this is the main issue. I believe it is 12.6 scholarships or thereabouts for the entire men's track program (including XC), so it's not like we're going to have 5 XC runners on full scholarship; I wouldn't be shocked if we weren't giving them any money at all. Would pretty much have to get lucky with a bunch of high-academic in-state kids. It's a but frustrating but probably a sensible approach considering the other factors mentioned here.
the womens team has signed top 10 ranked runners in the country the last 2 years. This year we are getting the top ranked girl in the NE out of NJ I believe. Our distance runners actually do pretty well in track season, CC is just a different beast all together. Some years back we signed a very highly rated young runner from NC and they went down to UF and just stopped training basically. Fell in love with going to the beach every weekend and barely made the group who would actually run meets most of their career.is a Co workers kid so wont say names, but they went from having basically 1/3 of a scholly when they started to being on aid and academic scholly by they time they left.
At the SEC CC Championships today the men finished 7th (essentially the same slot held the past several years) and the women 6th an improvement over 9th last year and 11th the year prior. Now the impressive stuff is the contribution of the freshmen (and sophomores) for both squads which provides hope for the future. For the women freshman Valby finished 4th overall at the meet making her the highest finishing freshman. Overall for the women's team freshmen constituted the top 3 Gators scorers and 4 of the top five for the team. Of the 10 runners that competed there were 5 freshmen, 4 sophomores and 1 junior. Essentially the whole team returns next year if they choose to do so. Of all the freshmen women that ran today representing the 14 schools competing the Gators had the 1st, 3rd, 9th, 11th and 26th placed finishers. The good news extends to the men's team as well. Of the 10 Gators men who ran today 7 were freshmen, 2 sophomores and 1 senior. The highest scorer for the Gators was a freshman as were 4 of the 5 top Gators scorers. The lone senior was the 8th highest Gators scorer. As for how the Gators freshmen stacked up against their fellow SEC freshmen competition they finished as the 7th, 8th, 10th, 16th, 20th, 26th and 33rd highest freshmen scorers at the meet. This program may never be elite as discussed above but they certainly should be very competitive in future years.
