College track and field doesn’t get on television much, but when it does we are almost always watching the final event. That’s where Britton Wilson broke the collegiate record in the 400 meter dash at the SEC championships, and where Grant Holloway just a few years before did the same thing in the 110 hurdles. The truth about track and field at the college level is that if you don’t make the finals, you might as well have never showed up to the meet in the first place. That is where points are scored, and those points are what determines which team wins and which ones lose. If you want to get recruited to run D1 and your dream is to do it at a top 10 national program then here is the harsh reality. If you are serious about getting a chance to compete when you actually get to college, make sure that under no circumstances you become a walk-on. They are at the bottom of the totem pole on any team that they join, and in all likelihood won’t be running in the finals, even if they do make the team. In fact, any walk-on would be lucky to even have a seat in the stands to simply travel with the team to the meet.

How hard is it to get a Division 1 track and field scholarship?

What life looks like on a Division 1 track team varies from program to program. Everyone will not become stars on their team like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone or Christian Coleman. College coaches don’t care what you did in high school. They care about what you can do for their team competing at the college level. It starts with their conference as they try to win a conference championship. Any athlete who shows themselves able to help them score points and do it, will become a priority. Beyond that the best teams want athletes who can help them at the national championship. Those are the athletes who won’t just win the conference, but perform well enough to score points with the best in the nation. Most of the scholarship dollars in D1 will go to the athletes whom coaches think can win at the national level. Keep in mind that you have to first make the NCAA regional meet to have a shot at getting to the nationals in the first place. If a coach doesn’t see your high school performances as good enough to get you that far, they likely won’t be breaking the bank to recruit you.

How hard is it to walk-on in D1 track and field?

Coaches still recruit a bunch of athletes who either get partial scholarships or no track scholarship at all. Unlike the sports football and basketball in D1, you don’t need a scholarship to still become a legitimate recruit. But if you are a walk-on here is the problem, the coach never recruited you in the first place, so they honestly don’t really want you on the team. Simply put, attempting to walk-on to a college team, especially at the D1 level is like trying to attend a job interview that you were not invited for. It doesn’t matter what you think you can do for that team, because they don’t want you there in the first place. Years ago I wanted to go to Syracuse and run in the ACC as a high school recruit. But their coach was honest with me that I would be a walk-on. I chose Lafayette a school that wanted me instead. But a high school rival of mine actually did go to Syracuse and walk-on. We were about the same level of talent and he spent most of his career there, watching the team bus ride off without him. But he did run at the conference meet in the prelims one time.

I later understood this from the college coach’s perspective. When I coached in D2 I had a team budget for travel, lodging, meals, team gear, and everything else that athletes need. A walk-on is an extra meal, extra uniform, pair of sneakers, hotel bed, and seat on the bus that I have to pay for, and give to someone who isn’t helping me win at all. In track and field, I can leave you back on campus and the results aren’t going to change, and that is exactly what happens to many walk-ons. Some track teams might let you walk-on particularly if you are a good student, but won’t let you travel to most competitions. That’s because they want to save money! If you do start to compete better than the athletes ahead of you, you might earn a seat on the bus. But how can you possibly do that if they barely let you compete to begin with. Eventually walk-ons quit because they figure it’s not worth the trouble, to push so hard in practice just to watch the bus drive off without you.

How to get recruited for college track and field

If you are serious about competing in college track and field, what you need to do is find a college coach who actually wants you. Fortunately it isn’t that hard to do, because college coaches want to find you. Gabby Thomas ran for Harvard University and won an NCAA Championship when she did it. Harvard is known for a lot of things, but winning national championships in track isn’t one of them. The reason she ended up there is likely because Stanford University never called her to run in the Pac-12 conference, or what is soon to be the ACC. She was good in high school but not as good as Stanford was looking for. Gabby wanted to go to Harvard and talked with their coaches who found that she was a good fit for their conference, the Ivy League. It all worked out for them because she won the Ivy League in her events as soon as she got there, and went on to become not just an NCAA champion, but an Olympic medalist and World champion.

To know if a coach might want requires a little bit of math. Simply search the school you were thinking about on the website tfrrs.org, and click to see the performance list for their conference. Remember, coaches want to score points at the conference meet at the very least. If your high school personal bests as a junior are within 5 percent of whoever was ranked 8th place for the conference, which is the last scoring spot at a conference meet, you have a shot at getting recruited. The 8th ranked runner in the men’s 400 meter dash in the SEC is 45.11 in 2023. So if you are a junior who is at least 5 % away from that time, or faster, which is 47.4, you might get recruited by a team in the SEC. But the team and the conference matters a whole lot. Because in the Patriot league which is still D1, runner number 8 is only 48.15. That means if you break 50.5 as a junior, somebody in the conference might want to recruit you.

The Bottom Line

If you want to get recruited for college track and field, know that you do not have to go it alone. if you are serious about it, there is almost always a coach somewhere, at a school that you would enjoy running for, that wants to recruit you. But if you are not first team national elite level on MileSplit (which is most of the recruits), you will probably have to make the first move and reach out to them first to show that you are interested. Fill out the questionnaires on their websites, if you think that a college could be a good fit for you. Know that everybody doesn’t want you on their team, but that’s fine because somebody does. One of my college teammates walked-on to the team, but he wasn’t there for long. He figured out pretty quickly that the coaching staff didn’t care that much about him. He didn’t quit, because in his words “I walked on to the team, and now I’m walking off.” So you don’t have to take my word for it, take it from a man who knows, that no matter what, you don’t want to become a walk-on. Unless you are fine with watching the team bus pull off almost every weekend without you on it.

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