What college coaches look for in a track and field recruit

NCAA track and field has never been more competitive than it is right now. At the national championship meets, in every division, some of the best performances in the world will go down on that weekend. In 2023 Julien Alfred never lost a race during her entire college season in the 100 meter dash. And then went onto the pro circuit and beat the American champion Sha’carri Richardson, just a few weeks later. Thanks to sprinters like Christian Coleman, the collegiate record in some events would have been the World Record 30 years ago. In fact, Ashton Eaton did not even wait until college was over to break his World Record in the heptathlon.

The competition to get a scholarship to run track in college is much harder now than it has ever been at any point in history. If you are hoping to get one, here is some advice to get help get you there. As a former college head coach, and D1 athlete, who helps athletes get recruited, I should know a thing or two about who gets money and why. So here is the truth about what every college coach is really looking for. Something that not every athlete is willing to do. It is also the reason why more track athletes quit in college, than perhaps any other sport, because they truly are not willing to do it.

How college coaches recruit for track and field

In the eyes of a college coach there’s really only two types of athletes they recruit. It’s true for every sport, but track and field has something going for it that almost no other sport can say. Track and field uses a clock or a measuring tape to assess your performance, every time you go out to compete. That means you can’t hide when you are out there on the track. It’s you versus everyone else. In theory that makes things very clear, for track coaches to see what they want to in recruiting. Coaches want to know, if you can help their team win, and if you can’t there’s no point in even continuing the recruiting conversation.

The only 2 types of recruits they actually want on their team are the following: either you really are that good at the events that you do, where you can help them win right now. Or you actually want to win that badly. I mean badly enough where you will put in the work to do whatever it takes to help their team win. However, the secret that almost nobody ever wants to tell you is that hardly any recruits are that good in the first place. That is why almost all of the scholarships go to athletes who are actually the second one. 

The ideal track and field recruit

Consider that there can only be 1 state champion. In a state like Florida or Texas there are a bunch of D1 teams, so everybody can’t get the state champion to commit to them. Coaches will have to keep recruiting after that, and very quickly they need to find a way to distinguish who is real and who is not. Kendal Williams was the world junior champion in the 100 meter dash as a high school runner. But even someone as great as him didn’t win any conference championships in Division 1 until his senior year of college!

The problem college coaches keep confronting is most track and field athletes don’t really want to be good at the college level. At least they don’t want it badly enough. They just want to look good rather than actually being good. This has nothing to do with your style on the track. Most athletes are way more concerned with perhaps being the fastest on their high school team, or even in their county, without considering how good everyone in the state or even the entire nation actually is.

Behind the desk of a college coach 

The truth without photoshop as a head coach in division 2, I didn’t really care at all if you were the fastest runner on your team when I was out recruiting. I actually recruited a bunch of kids who were. But the best runner on my team was actually the one who was only fifth best on his high school program, the same program that had won back to back state championships. He knew how good he wasn’t, at least not yet. So he worked harder than everyone else, even when he was more talented than all those other guys. Remember, not every coach is only recruiting state champions. Some of the colleges in my conference would even recruit international athletes who would dominate the NCAA as freshmen. But my scholarship budget wasn’t big enough to recruit that way.

I would even tell recruits the same speech over and over on the phone. I’d tell them that “I want my team to win at the highest levels in the NCAA, so your success is my success. So this really isn’t about you, this is about me. I don’t just want you to win, I need you to win. I will coach you every day with that goal in mind. If you don’t want to be on a team where we work hard enough to actually compete to be the best in our NCAA region, then don’t come here.” I was hoping to weed out the athletes who would eventually quit the team. For the most part, that speech worked.

What really happens to high school recruits in college track?

The evidence of what really happens to track recruits in college is all around us. Even the most talented track recruits won’t make it if they don’t want it that badly. T'mars McCallum was the fastest high school sprinter in the 100 meter dash in 2022. As a freshman in college, he didn’t even make the finals of the SEC conference, in any individual event indoors or outdoors. If that can happen to the best, what do you think is going to happen to the rest of the recruits? He can probably dominate the NCAA one day, but he’s going to have to run faster than he has ever run to do it. That also means he is going to have to learn how to work even harder. Melissa Jefferson on the other hand was nowhere near the fastest girls in the nation out of high school. But she became an NCAA and USA champion in the 60 meter dash and 100 meter dash. She did all that at Coastal Carolina University, which is not even ranked nationally. It worked out for her because she found a coach who saw her work ethic, and believed in her as much as she did.

The Bottom Line

To clarify, many high school track athletes like winning and getting accolades. However many of them tend to do it at the expense of seeing what their potential is. Every track and field recruit should answer this question: “would you rather win a meet but run far below your personal best? Or instead run a big PR even if you won’t win the meet?” If you answered with option 2 then you are what college coaches are looking for. That is the real reason why college track athletes are likely to quit. Any athlete who cannot handle losing, sometimes a lot of the time, on the path to working towards victory, will simply give up. College coaches know this, and they want recruits who can handle the grind. That, along with your talent is what gets a coach to believe in you.

College coaches aren’t recruiting who you were in high school anyway. Coaches recruit who you will become on their team. So if you really want to get recruited and get money to compete, all you have to do is actually focus your energy on being good. In other words you just have to actually want it that badly. Then find a coach who believes in you as much as you do. A bunch of NCAA champions, including Melissa Jefferson are proof of that.

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