<p>OK, so being the good mom that I am :-), I sent out some introductory emails to various coaches last week (with the approval/encouragement of a college coach/recruiter for a different sport) and I find the responses to be a bit interesting. I don't know if it is specific to my S or just the way things work in the norm.</p>
<p>Generally, their responses have been "It's too early, contact us in the spring (during/after track season."</p>
<p>I definitely get the feeling that a student is not recruited for XC, but instead, for track.</p>
<p>We did get one response that was a bit more enthusiastic however :-).</p>
<p>Does this seem to be the way things work for XC?</p>
<p>The only insight I have into this, as the parent of a college distance runner, is that high school cross country courses vary quite a bit in difficulty, and some are just plain inaccurately measured (think school courses as opposed to state championship courses). Therefore, college coaches will prefer a 1500, 1600, 3000, or 3200 track time for your athlete. Not that a track 5k time wouldn’t be very helpful too, but not many high schoolers have the chance to run that distance on the track.</p>
<p>From what we could tell, coaches have roster spots allotted for both xc and track. Obviously, there is an overlap with the distance runners since they do both. But since my D mostly ran the 800 and 1600, and was better at those than the 5K, it seemed that she was recruited under the track umbrella. Others were more longer distance kids, so were not.</p>
<p>That said, the coaches’ response could very well be code for: “You times are a little slower than what we typically look for. Get back to us in the spring and we’ll see if the improvement is enough.”</p>
<p>TheGFG makes some excellent points, especially regarding discrepencies between course lengths and conditions. The best thing for recruiting in XC is to place well in championship meets. Head to head competition (making All-State, All-Region, whatever) is the only “solid” marker for XC, because it isn’t at all dependent on course conditions. Then in track focus on putting up strong times (as well as strong competitive performances). I’d say you might be good to contact the coach again after November, assuming your athlete performs better in post season competition than they had before.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s also important to make sure you’re contacting teams that are a realistic fit for your athlete. For example, your son could place tenth in your state meet…chances are, Dave Smith at OSU isn’t going to get too excited about that, nor would Wetmore out at Colorado. They get dozens of those emails a day. Meanwhile the coach at State U or Random Private College are likely to be far more responsive. A good way to look at this is check the teams rosters. What sorts of performances were the athletes running in high school? If it’s a team full of NXN and Footlocker qualifiers and your son is struggling to make the state meet, that’s a red flag. But then again, your son might have a really strong 800m time, and could be recruited with a more track focus instead of a XC focus.</p>