How to Get Recruited for Cross Country

“If you are good enough, you will get recruited” it is a belief held by many recruits, but unfortunately it is not the reality. College coaches know what types of athletes they want, but their real problem, is where they can go to find them. The biggest misconception for most high school athletes bleeds into everything they do to get recruited. And with thousands of high school athletes in each sport, it is just not possible for coaches to find every athlete who might be a good fit for them.

The most competitive college programs throughout Division 1 have great resources to recruit but are looking for a specific type of athlete that is easily identifiable at all the top tournaments, camps, and competitions. Coaches of smaller programs “and there are a lot more smaller programs than bigger ones”, do not have the resources to find every athlete that might fit on their team. The recruiting game for most athletes will be about targeting the right schools and learning how to promote yourself to get offers you are happy with.

To get recruited for cross country you will likely need to promote yourself to the right coaches, and this is exactly how you should do it.

Scholarship Limits for Cross Country

NCAA D1 Men

2025-26 Season (PROPOSED LIMITS)

• 17 athlete roster limit (no cap on scholarship dollars)

  • Note this provision is intended to primarily increase scholarship spending in specific conferences (i.e. SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC

2024-25 Season

• 12.6 (equivalency) *includes Track and Field

NCAA D2 Men

• 12.6 (equivalency) *includes Track and Field

NCAA D3 Men

• Non-Scholarship

NAIA Men

• 12 (equivalency)

NCAA D1 Women

2025-26 Season (PROPOSED LIMITS)

• 17 athlete roster limit (no cap on scholarship dollars)

  • Note this provision is intended to primarily increase scholarship spending in specific conferences (i.e. SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC

2024-25 Season

• 18 (equivalency) *includes Track and Field

NCAA D2 Women

• 12.6 (equivalency) *includes Track and Field

NCAA D3 Men

• Non-Scholarship

NAIA Women

• 12 (equivalency)

1. Know how college cross country coaches recruit their team

College cross country recruiting does not start as early as many other sports, because it is a sport that is heavily rooted in an athlete’s physical development aside from their skill. It is also linked to track and field recruiting. There are some cross country only programs in college, but most will expect you run track and field as well. Coaches will look to identify top talent by sophomore year of high school, and continue adding recruits to their target list through junior year. Your performances, starting with your personal bests at each distance will likely be the first things that a coach notices. The programs at the top of Division 1 will look for recruits who have already recorded great performances and have great success either at the high school level, or club level. These athletes will effectively set the standard for recruiting since they will normally be ranked as the top recruits. From that point on recruiting becomes a comparative analysis of who is the best athlete to recruit in each event. Coaches will essentially look to see, who did you go up against, and who did you beat to determine how good a recruit is. The more dominant an athlete has proven against their peers, the more coaches will be looking to recruit them. The reality is that the more dominant you are in track as well, the more desirable you will become as a recruit. State Championship qualification is likely where a coach is most likely to see you in person. But many coaches know that they will not see many of their recruits compete initially. If you are not being approached by college coaches, you will likely need to reach out directly, gathering as much information as you can about your career to show coaches you have what it takes to help their team’s win.

2. Start your recruitment journey as soon as you begin high school!

Cross Country competition prior to high schools is supposed to prepare you for high school sports success. This means that accomplishments made before that point will hold little weight with college coaches. Coaches will often not consider a recruit until they are a contributor on the varsity level. In fact, most freshmen who are able to excel in varsity sports are typically on their way to consideration at the higher levels of college sports. If you are not yet on the varsity as a freshmen do not panic. It is still time to learn as much as you can about the recruiting process, and set goals for your training and performance. Most high schoolers don’t begin thinking about how to get recruited until at least their junior year. However, by that point, most college coaches have already identified many of the athletes they will be recruiting, and you will be playing catch up.

3. Approach your recruiting process with a business mindset

To get recruited you will essentially engage in a never-ending job interview. Coaches talk to recruits for almost two years prior to their commitment and follow them for even longer throughout their high school career. Consider that coaches do not just recruit talented athletes but rather someone who can fill a role on their team. Approach your sports career with a business-like intentionality behind your training, preparation, and self-presentation in order to gain and keep interest from college coaches. If you fail to plan, you will plan to fail. Sports scholarships are won during summer training, morning workouts, and evening weight sessions long before a coach offers them. In fact, the difference between recruits at the highest levels and those below, are they often have attended more camps, tournaments, and competitions maintaining a higher level of success.

4. Research athletes on college teams and see how they have performed to know if you might be a good fit

There are more than 1000 NCAA member institutions, not to mention many other NAIA, NJCAA, NCCAA, and USCAA college athletic departments. However, most high school recruits are looking to get recruited for teams that they have seen on television or have only a little knowledge about. College teams are not hiding the information on what types of athletes they recruit. On their athletic websites, you can research the high school statistics and other information about the athletes currently on their team. Look up athletes at your position and view the accomplishments those athletes had before they were recruited. If you research correctly, you will find teams that have athletes with similar high school profiles to yours.

5. Listen to coaches who do not offer you a full-ride scholarship

The harsh reality is that most college athletes do not receive any scholarship money for their sport. Cross Country is a sport where coaches do not have full-ride scholarships to give out to their entire team. Only some teams in Division 1, Division 2, and the NAIA will give any athletes a full-ride. A full-ride for track will likely go to an athlete that the coach believes will be a performer at the national championship level early in their college career. The majority of recruits will be receiving partial athletic scholarship, if any at all and that is normal for the sport. If you are a high school student with a great GPA and standardized test scores to match, you can put yourself in great position to receive academic aid. College coaches will often look for the best students because they know that if they can only offer a partial athletic scholarship, that money can be combined with other academic aid to pay for the student’s education. Always remember that the lower your grades are, the harder it will be for you to find a college coach that is willing and able to recruit you.

6. Learn how to promote yourself to get recruited

Once you are at least a contributor on your high school level sports team, you should be prepared to reach out to schools via e-mail and through filling out recruiting questionnaires on athletic websites, communicate with coaches that you want to be recruited. I recommend that you create a free recruiting webpage but it is a mistake to think that any app or website will “get you recruited”. The link to the information you upload can be sent in an email to college coaches to make it easier to see who you are and help you get recruited. If you only create a profile, or worse wait for coaches to find you on social media, you will more often than not go under recruited, or un-recruited at all.

Coach Rob’s Note: Don’t go under-recruited! I put in the hard work for you to know exactly which colleges already want to recruit you, which ones will view you as a top recruit, and how to get their attention. Let me coach you to GET THE COLLEGE CROSS COUNTRY OFFERS you deserve.

7. Take every opportunity to develop your skill and raise your mileage

In cross country your personal bests will be the first thing any coach sees to determine if they want to recruit you. And the best way to improve that is by developing your aerobic capacity. If you do not develop to train at higher mileages, you will be limited in how fast you can go at any cross country distance. The best cross country runners in college are easily above 50 and 70 miles a week for women and men. Likewise championship distances increase at the college level, so coaches will want to know that you can make the jump. Use your summers to be consistent, focus on recovery, and responsibly train your way to running higher mileage. The results will almost certainly pay off during your upcoming season.

8. Film your competitions

Although traveling to compete in front of college coaches is important, the reality is that coaches will not be able to see you play most of the time. In order to get recruited for college sports you will need to show coaches what you are capable of by any means necessary. Competition film is not as important in cross country recruiting, particularly if you do have some film of your track races. But either way with smart phones, it is has never been easier for high school recruits to film their own competitions. Do the best you can to film all of your competitions which will make it much easier to show coaches what you are capable of. Think of filming your competitions as giving college coaches a seat at your meets, so that even if they cannot travel to see you, which is hard to do in high school track, they can still evaluate you with an eye test.

9.  “Set up your social media account to represent you well as a recruit

College coaches typically don’t use social media to “discover” new talent. They identify athletes they like from watching competitions, emails, recruiting questionnaires, recruiting profiles, camps, and other more efficient sources. However, if a coach is interested in  you than social media is normally much easier to find and reach out through, compared to tracking down a phone number or e-mail. Coaches who follow an athlete or engage on social media are normally not trying to watch your latest highlights, they should be able to see who you are as an athlete elsewhere. But they do want to know what type of character you have. Your profile should use your real name, and in your bio give your physical stats like height, HS Grad date, your high school, and the sport and position you play. Profile pictures should be of you competing and recruits should only use social media accounts to post content they would feel represents them in a professional manner. Social media will rarely be the reason someone gains interest from a college coach. But it can become the reason they lose interest.

Get the Cross Country Offers you Deserve with Coach Rob’s Help!

Navigating the recruiting process is hard work, but you don’t have to do it alone. Don’t go under-recruited! I put in the hard work for you to know exactly which colleges already want to recruit you, which ones will view you as a top recruit, and how to get their attention. Let me coach you to GET THE COLLEGE CROSS COUNTRY OFFERS you deserve.

Coach Rob is a recruiting expert and the Founder of SCA Recruiting. He is also the author of the book Winning the Ship: How to Win the College Athlete Recruitment Game. Available now on Amazon.