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BLUE CARPET

LOUISVILLE — Recruiting in the NCAA system is often a difficult and sometimes controversial subject when it comes to cross country. International runners from many parts of the world are given opportunities to compete for American NCAA programs, and often find success in the system. Some agree with practice of international recruiting, while other coaches are critical of it. 

The subject was covered from many angles by Tim Sullivan of the Courier-Journal in yesterday’s article titled, “Running Coaches Find Shortcut in Kenya.” Sullivan interviewed Kenyan-born Edwin Kibichiy of NCAA host school Louisville who spoke of the value that running adds to his life. Kibichiy comes from Kapsabet, Kenya, a town that Sullivan notes has produced talented runners like Bernard Lagat, Pamela Jelimo, and Peter Rono. Kibichiy and his Louisville squad, which consists of several Kenyans, are currently ranked No. 15 heading into the NCAA Championships on Saturday. 

 

Louisville assistant coach Joe Walker III expanded on the program’s recruiting practices to Sullivan, “A lot of people in Kenya are pursuing that dream, to run at a high level. For us, it’s a matter of finding the ones that want to be students, which is always a challenge. The guys we have here were at the top of their class in Kenya…A lot of people were running faster than them, but they got the job done in the classroom and that provided the opportunity to come here.”

 

Sullivan expanded his article by interviewing other coaches such as Oklahoma State’s Dave Smith and Colorado’s Mark Wetmore. Smith noted, “They can’t afford to come here on anything other than a very large scholarship so you’re kind of selecting the cream of the crop.”

 

An openly big supporter of recruiting home-grown talent, Wetmore is looking to earn Colorado’s third consecutive NCAA title tomorrow. 

 

“I believe that I can have a self-respectable level of success while sticking to American teen age recruits. I guess other coaches don’t feel they can. When I was a teenager, the cool guys in town built their fast, sexy cars in their own garages; the dorks had their fathers buy them at the Camaro dealership,” Wetmore told Sullivan over email. 

 

In the NCAA Championship press conference, the subject of international recruiting came up once again among a line-up of coaches that included Wetmore, Lance Harter of Arkansas, and Joe Franklin of New Mexico. 

 

Harter has recruited both internationally and domestically, and currently coaches an NCAA title-contender in Dominique Scott, who was born in Cape Town, South Africa. 

 

“We didn’t recruit her [Scott] she recruited us and the good news is she’s going to become an American so we bring them here and convert them to be a U.S. citizen,” Harter said. 

 

“It’s our side mission besides running fast. I think a sprinkling of them is a good learning experience for the whole group but I wouldn’t want to be a total program recruiting the world,” Harter added. 

 

Franklin has been a large supporter of international recruiting. And the practice has paid off as he currently coaches the No. 1 ranked women’s team in the country. Out of his roster, nine women hail from outside of the United States. 

 

“We want to recruit the best kids in New Mexico first. After that, the door is open and we finally got the best kid in New Mexico in Natasha Bernal and it took us seven years to do that,” Franklin responded. “So our mission of our university is to be an internationally diverse university and that’s one of the things that we’re following and all of our students have been very good students. I personally don’t have a problem with it and I also don’t have a problem with what Mark said in his interview.”

 

Robert Johnson from LetsRun.com brought up Wetmore’s quote on building a car at the press conference, where he noted, “It’s not like you don’t get high end parts with [Dathan] Ritzenhein and [Ben] Saarel and stuff like that so….do you think that analogy is totally apt?”

 

“My own business is recruiting 18-year-old high school kids from America, the best I can get even if I have to take a Ritz or a Goucher [laughs], yeah, the best I can get,” Wetmore responded. 

 

“The point I want to make is, people say, ‘you don’t recruit internationally,” and I say, ‘we’ll that’s not true, I only don’t recruit from countries that don’t have a reciprocal system,’ and they say ‘oh ok well that makes sense and they say who are they?’ and I say, ‘none.’ Nobody else in the world will give away these resources,” Wetmore added. 

All coaches, ones that recruit internationally and domestically, will put their teams to the test tomorrow at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.