NCAA Division 1 is one of the highest levels of track and field competition, and the World Championship event is proof of this. On the men’s and women’s sides nearly 100 active Division 1 athletes competed against the best in the World, just a couple of months after their college season ended. The Lady Longhorns of Texas were so dominant in 2023 that they could have held their own in the World Championship scoring table, right now. Matthew Boling even became a World Champion just weeks after finishing his collegiate season at Georgia. All of that is true but it is only telling half the story. Division 1 track and field is not exactly what most people think it is. In fact, there are so many lies about the sport that it is hard to determine what the truth actually is. But if you are a track and field recruit who wants to go Division 1 there is only one way to do it, and lies won’t help you on that journey. So here is the truth without photoshop about what Division 1 track and field is really like, and what it takes to get recruited there in the first place.

There is nothing wrong with a recruit wanting to go Division 1. In fact, I felt the same way about my recruiting. In my mind, it was Division 1 or bust. The reasons why I wanted to go D1 so badly are the same reasons why many other people do. I heard that is where most of the scholarship dollars are. After concluding my college running and coaching career, I help athletes get recruited to college in the first place. Unfortunately the only schools most people seem to know about are the ones that make it on tv, the few times college track actually gets on cable to begin with. Schools like Texas, Florida, LSU, and Oregon. But in order to go D1 you have to be talented enough to do it, and even if you do, it never occurs to anyone, that it might not be at all how you thought it would be.

D1 is not what you think it is athletically

Division 1 track and field is not what you think it is athletically. Thanks to ESPN plus you can now watch almost any D1 conference compete during their conference championship. But on cable tv, the only conferences that fans get to see competing are the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, and the SEC. That’s because they have national tv networks to broadcast the meets. The best schools in those conferences dominate college track recruiting all around the world to make sure they have the best talent. Of all the men and women who have won the Bowerman award since 2009 (track and field’s version of the Heisman trophy), only Cam Levins of Southern Utah was not from a school in one of those four conferences. To clarify there are 30 conferences in all of Division 1 track and field! If you still need more perspective just consider that Abby Steiner, Christian Coleman, Athing Mu, Grant Holloway, and even Sha’carri Richardson were all members of schools in the SEC conference. In many ways the SEC conference is the most well-funded professional sports league disguised as college athletics!

What it takes to go Division 1 changes a whole lot depending on what school, and what conference you are looking at. Schools like High Point, Samford, and Prairie View A&M are all D1 schools that take track very seriously. They were all good enough to win conference championships in 2023. But you wouldn’t know that watching the NCAA championships because you will hardly ever see any of their athletes on screen. The reason for this is because the talent level required to go D1 changes depending on the conference you are looking at. In the SEC you probably have to run at least 10.1 seconds to have a chance at making the conference final in the 100. But in the NEC conference, which is also in D1, you only have to break 10.8 seconds to give yourself a chance. Their conference winner ran 10.47 seconds. He likely wouldn’t even make the top 20 in the SEC if he ran his PR.

The truth is about half of the athletes in all of D1 could be swapped out with athletes from D2, NAIA, or even some in D3 and nobody would notice. Remember, the NCAA D3 champion ran 10.13 seconds in the 100 meter dash. He would have easily won a conference championship in quite a few places around D1! So assuming that going D1 means you will be competing against the best, isn’t telling the whole truth.

What most track coaches don’t want you to know is that college teams compete across all the divisions throughout the regular season anyway. That means regardless of the division you can show up to a meet like the Texas Relays and see teams from other divisions. That includes the junior college level. All of these teams compete against each other with no distinctions among them So the idea that D1 is where you have to go to compete against the best talent, is a lie no matter how you look at it.

D1 is not what you think it is financially

Division 1 track and field is also not what most people expect financially. Some D1 schools have way more money to spend than others, and it’s not even close. The University of Oregon has a track and field stadium that consistently hosts major championship events, including the 2022 World Championships. But the Penn Relays are run in a football stadium with an outdoor track running around its perimeter. If you travel all the way down to the other side of D1 there are many schools that don’t even have their own track to practice on, for indoors or outdoors. If you are serious about getting recruited, it is a legitimate question to ask any coach that is recruiting you, even in D1. Some schools use public tracks near their campus, others use high school tracks. I competed for Lafayette College which at one point used a high school track for practices. They only recently built their own facility shortly before the year 2010. The track itself is pretty fast to run on, but does not have bleachers for any fans to watch. On the other end, Moravian College is a D3 school with a pretty high quality outdoor track looped around its football field. Which means they did have grand stands for the fans to watch them. Remember this is a Division 3 school!

Some track teams in D1 don’t fly planes to attend any competitions. They ride buses, and vans that are sometimes driven by the coach to get wherever they need to go. If you don’t like your teammates, it can make for a vary awkward road trip. Hotel stays are often three to four people to a room, even with only 2 beds available. You don’t even get free gear at every D1 school. Many offer you a “discount” to buy your own, which could be considered a good thing depending on how you look at it.

D1 does not have as much scholarship money as you think

Above else D1 does not offer as much scholarship money as may other sports. Track and field is  not football and basketball. Even for the best schools in the country, track and field is an equivalency sport. That means there are fewer scholarships available than there are athletes on the team. They have 12.6 scholarships for the entire men’s team, and as much as 18 for the women. The best schools in the country, like the Arkansas Razorbacks have 55 men on their track team! It’s simple math that they aren’t all going to get full scholarships. Keep in mind, that is a team that is fully funded, because not everybody in D1 is. Some colleges may only have 4 full scholarships worth of money to give out. They give small partial scholarships to maybe 10 to 20 men who get the rest of their financial aid dollars from academic grants and financial aid.

How good do you have to be to get a Division 1 track and field scholarship?

If the goal is to get a full-ride track scholarship specifically then the short answer for any recruit is that you probably have to be First Team National Elite on MileSplit. Normally you should perform at that level in more than 1 event prior to your senior year to get any school in D1 to offer you that amount of money. Brandon Carnes ran 10.55 in the 100, and 21.37 in the 200 as a junior in high school. He was from the state of Florida, but the Florida Gators didn’t want to recruit him, and neither did the Florida State Seminoles. He did eventually accept a track scholarship at Northern Iowa University. That is a long ways away from Florida, but he ran fast when he was there. Depending on how you look at it, you could say that everything still worked out for him. There are many athletes who aren’t as good as what I just described on D1 college teams. But those athletes do not get full-ride scholarships.

The Bottom Line

If you really want to go D1 in track and field, and you have the talent to do it, you should pursue it. However, be aware that Division 1 track and field is not exactly what it seems. My advice is that you consider all of your options, even if they are not in D1. Some recruits, will likely have recruiting options that look just as good on the track, and even for their scholarship dollars, in other divisions. Division 1 track and field may be an option for you, and it might even be the most appealing one, but it is not always the best one. If it is any consolation, you should remember that there will be many non-D1 athletes competing against those who are, every year in college track meets.

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