If you want to run track and field in college and go D1 when you do it, you have a lot of company. Division 1 is the highest level of college competition, so high in fact that for track and field it is basically professional level. The number of college athletes competing in the World Championships are proof of it. However, many track recruits complain about how hard it is to get recruited. They say that coaches won’t email them back, or that nobody comes to scout them at their track meets. Some even believe that it is all their high school coaches fault for not promoting their name to various schools.

I’m here to help you get recruited and if D1 is what you want, I can help you get there. But there a lot of politics to getting recruited, especially at the D1 level. It may feel like the politics are out to keep you from getting to your dream. But I’m here to tell you that the politics of recruiting don’t actually matter, even if you want to go D1. Because you can still get recruited by a coach who really wants you on their team if you want to.

What are the goals of a college track coach in recruiting?

Before you can solve a problem, you have to know what the problem really is in the first place. When it comes to track and field recruiting, the politics are the following. College track and field comes down to two goals for any team. Each head coach has to set goals for their conference performance. Some of them want to win their conference outright every year, like Arkansas attempts to do in the SEC. They recruit the athletes who can help them do that. Others don’t even have that as a part of their plan, and I’m not saying any names, but you can figure out who they are pretty quickly, because they always finish near the bottom of their conference.

The second goal that college coaches have is to compete for national recognition. That means getting recruits to commit who can one day make the national championship events and score points when they get there. Simply put, college coaches really want recruits who are first team national elite on MileSplit in their events. Those athletes are the only ones who are a safe bet to get themselves into the national conversation. The politics of recruiting are set up so that only the athletes who can immediately help out with this second goal are likely to be found in recruiting. If you are first team national elite, like a girls sprinter who ran 11.5 seconds in the 100 meter dash as a junior, then college coaches will find you. The girl who loses to her running 12.1 seconds will likely not hear much from any coaches, at least not if she just waits around for a phone call.

How good do you have to be to get recruited?

On the bright side the faster you run or the better your perform, the better your chances of getting noticed. But everybody isn’t going to run first team national elite. That is why it is a big accomplishment. Even in a state like California which is really good at track and field, only about 20 boys qualified as first team national elite in the 200 meter dash. Four of them in 2023 were freshmen or sophomores in high school. That means that right now, there are only 4 sprinters in California who are juniors currently that D1 college coaches are likely going to notice.

The problem in recruiting is that it doesn’t matter whether you run AAU, USATF, or just for your high school team. It is pretty hard to catch the eye of a college track coach, unless you do what I’m about to share. The politics of recruiting only matter if you expect to be found through the recruiting meat market. That is when college coaches across all divisions will put in work to find talented kids, but that’s only to find the kids who are the very best. They will attend state championships and even AAU national events hoping to see a kid they can convince to join their team. The secret is that there are only a few kids in each meet that they actually want! Everyone else they don’t even notice. In fact there are a bunch of D1 track teams in California and right now, battling for only a few freshman, sophomores, and juniors that they consider to be prized recruits. Most of them will miss out on those kids, and you can use that to your advantage.

How to get recruited for college track and field

To get recruited for college track, all you have to do is be one of the athletes that I mentioned a while ago. Present yourself as an athlete who can help that college team achieve their conference level goals. If you can it is likely you will have a chance to get recruited. If your high school PRs would allow you right now to be ranked in the top 8 of any conference in D1, then you will likely be a serious recruit for schools in that conference. That is even if the coach doesn’t call you first. There are 400 meter runners in California who aren’t fast enough to run for Stanford in the ACC, or USC in the Big Ten, but they are good enough to help Bucknell in the Patriot League score points right now! For the record Bucknell is still Division 1. Bucknell is in Pennsylvania, and they can’t fly to California to recruit those kids, but they will take them seriously and offer them the best package they can if any of those 48 and 49 second 400 meter runners gave them a call.

What is the role of AAU in track and field recruiting?

AAU and USATF track for high schoolers are a thing. There is absolutely a benefit to training with a good coach and competing in those events if you can. But the benefit comes from having good coaching, and training, and improving your performances. In track and field, college coaches don’t really care where you are when you run fast times. They just want to know that you can do it, and that they can verify it. As a high school runner I didn’t run club track and field for long, but the brief moment that I did, a met another sprinter who attended the USATF Junior Olympics. He did not get offered a scholarship to run in college, and walked on at the low D1 level. I don’t know what happened to him, but what I do know is he didn’t stay on that team for long, and I am assuming he walked off. The reason he didn’t get a bunch of money thrown his way is because he wasn’t that fast. Getting to the Junior Olympics is not a big deal if you don’t run fast enough to impress anyone when you get there. He is proof that if you only run for your high school, that’s just fine. As long as you drop the times that a coach wants to see, and reach out to them to make sure that they actually see it, then it is likely they will take you seriously and recruit you.

The Bottom Line

College coaches do not care where the talent is when they go out and recruit. They just want to know how to find it, hopefully a lot of it. They know how to find national elite athletes, MileSplit lined them all up on a list with everything except their Instagram handles. But that’s not going to be most recruits, and they know that part to. If you are looking to get recruited into D1 then you know who you are, and what you are capable of. If you have the performances to suggest that you can compete for a team in any conference, then let the coach know that by filling out a questionnaire or even sending a proper e-mail. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making the first move. If you are not on that elite list, I highly doubt that anyone is coming to find you in recruiting. At least not any school that you are likely to be all that interested in.

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