Athletes Looking For A Place To Develop Weighing New Options

A DyeStat Report By Oliver Hinson and Dave Devine

In two weeks, Judge Claudia Wilken will make a ruling on the landmark court case House vs. NCAA. The ruling stands to drastically change college track and field, as well as the lives of those in and around it.

Second of Two Parts | Part 1

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

“We're already seeing a lot of trickle down…”

The impending doom seems to have missed Juris Silenieks.

Silenieks is in his third year as the assistant cross country and track and field coach at Robert Morris University. The Colonials are part of the Horizon League, a solidly mid-major conference in Division I, and that’s not a bad place to be right now.

The trickle-down effect that high school coaches Eric Dettman and Mike Buslepp mentioned in Part 1 of this story will hit a program like Robert Morris first. High school athletes who would have committed to a Power 5 program a few years ago are going to have a much harder time finding spots at those schools if the roster limits are implemented, which means they’ll start looking at schools like RMU.

Even without the roster limits, Silenieks says, the transfer portal’s explosion in popularity coupled with the growth of international recruiting has created a similar effect. 

“We’re already seeing a lot of trickle-down,” Silenieks says. “Before, we could get a 9:30 2-miler, and now we have a lot more 9:20 kids reaching out to us because they’re getting turned down from walking on at bigger schools.”

The roster limits will only amplify this trend, he says, and it will continue far beyond his program. Division 2 will become much more competitive, as will Division 3. The latter, he says, may grow the most; it already contains some of the best programs in the country.

“Our program wouldn’t win Division 3 nationals,” Silenieks says.

On a sport-wide level, there could be major benefits to this arrangement. With smaller teams, fast recruits could get spread out to a larger number of schools, allowing for more competitive balance.

“I think there’s a world where (roster limits) help bring a lot of parity to the NCAA for distance running,” Silenieks says.

A smaller school like Robert Morris may even be at a slight advantage; whereas Power 5 schools will have to focus on finding the best talent available every year, and could suffer from low retention, mid-major programs will have more room to develop their athletes and keep a solid core together. After three or four years, they might have a team with greater cohesion than a school like Oregon or Stanford.

Notice Silenieks’ phrasing, though: “there’s a world.” All of these possibilities are conditional, not only because of the uncertainty of the settlement itself, but because of the lack of power vested in the teams themselves to determine how the situation is handled.

“I think the thing that’s gonna determine whether it’s a positive or negative,” Silenieks says, “is going to be how each athletic department values the sport.”

College athletic departments are, at the risk of painting with a broad brush, heavily concerned with financial standing, especially considering their struggle to turn profits. A 2020 NCAA report found that only 25 athletic departments across all three divisions (out of 1,102 total) recorded revenue exceeding expenses for the previous year.

Under the House settlement, it would be even more difficult for programs to be profitable, as the NCAA would pull approximately $700 million in funding to member schools in order to pay for the nearly $2.8 billion in damages to former athletes. With less money coming in, there’s less money to go around, and that means one thing: cutting expenses.

The major “revenue-generating” sports would likely go unbothered, but Silenieks’ program, along with many other cross country/track and field programs, could face major reductions. In the past, when departments have been forced to trim budgets, cross country and track and field have often been the first sports to go.

“A lot of athletic departments are looking at this as a reason to cut sports and resources,” Silenieks says.

Programs are going to have to keep “proving themselves,” he says, a notion that admittedly elicits a mix of reactions for him.

The first reaction is one of objection. For his program, specifically, the money shouldn’t even be an issue; in its current state, around half of his men’s roster are walk-on athletes, and those athletes pay (by his estimate) around $300,000 in total to the school every year, a figure that he says is more than enough to fund his entire program. Obviously, rosters will look different if the settlement is passed, but programs will still be allowed to have walk-ons if they don’t exceed the roster limit, and Silenieks’ program will likely continue to generate revenue in terms of enrollment.

“When people say we’re not revenue-generating or we’re not worth it,” Silenieks says, “that bothers me because it’s a really short-sighted way to think of things.”

However, his second reaction is one of acceptance. No matter how unfair he feels it is that the sport has to keep proving itself, he knows that they haven’t done the best job of that in the past. Some changes need to be made.

The most effective remedy, Silenieks believes, would be to “regionalize the sport.” In its current state, collegiate track and field is far from regional; teams travel the country to compete in the fastest invitationals they can find. Athletes obsess over qualifying marks for the NCAA regional meets, so much so that there is a whole genre of meet — the “last chance” invitational — dedicated, not to racing, but to producing those marks.

This is not the way it used to be — at least not entirely. In the previous qualifying model, if athletes won their event at their conference championship, they automatically earned a spot at the NCAA regional qualifying round. Now, those spots are determined entirely by time. Silenieks believes returning to the old system would be largely beneficial for the sport.

For one, it creates more marketing opportunities for smaller schools. The more they’re able to produce success on large stages, the more attention the program receives, both from prospective athletes and from administrators who might then think twice about cutting a successful program.

Additionally, a more regionalized model could take some of the emphasis off standard-chasing. Instead of flocking to the West Coast for high-competition, fair-weather invitationals, athletes could prioritize training and learning how to race at more local meets. Without mega-invitationals, more schools would be apt to host meets — another opportunity to bring in revenue.

Silenieks knows there will be obstacles to implementing these changes — among them, a resistance to change from many in the sport — but he believes they are worth it.

“We’re going to be asked to show our worth, and I think we are worth it,” Silenieks says. “I just don’t think we’ve been asked to show why we’re worth it in a long time. We get really short-sighted and just want to run fast and run a lot, and we don’t want to do the hard thing.”

By doing the hard thing, Silenieks says, coaches, athletes, and everyone else in the sport could sidestep the impending doom that many are feeling due to the proposed roster limits. It could even be an opportunity.

That said, there is one group of people that, according to Silenieks, will likely get the shaft if the settlement goes through: kids like him.

As mentioned before, high school athletes would face challenges in their recruitment with smaller rosters, and they would be the victims of the trickle-down effect. The worst place to be, arguably, is on the verge of being elite — precisely where Silenieks stood coming out of high school. 

In the spring of 2012, Silenieks had PBs of 4:31 in the 1,600 and 9:15 in the 3,200. That was enough to land him a spot at Syracuse, a Big East program (they joined the ACC in 2013) with historical success. He was part of a large recruiting class that steadily developed over four years and won the NCAA Cross Country Championships in 2015. 

If the House settlement goes through, Silenieks won’t be able to recruit kids who fit his profile. Even on his current roster, he says, there are some athletes he recruited, not because of their times, but because of other impressive things he noticed in their training or personalities. 

That’s a bet he won’t be able to take anymore.

“Those kids that are walking on for us… sometimes they’re developing into our best athletes, but it’s taking one, two, three years,” Silenieks says. “It’s hard to justify that when you have a 9:15 kid that’s interested, that’s (also) getting turned down from other schools.” 

In many cases, if the settlement goes through, the only people betting on talented high schoolers will be the athletes themselves.

 

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

“They don't want to waste it on an injured guy…”

By the spring of his junior year, Carson Hedlund was ready to see coaches bet on him. He had just given them every reason to, finishing fourth in the 1,600 meters at the Arcadia Invitational with a new personal best of 4:07.36.

And then the next day, he started to feel pain in his foot.

He was able to run through it for a few races, but it eventually became a stress fracture. Season over.

Before the injury, Hedlund had been talking to coaches from several high-level programs, including BYU, but nearly all of them stopped communicating with him after his injury. This was the first major hiccup in what had been a largely productive career for Hedlund; until this point, his dream of running at a high-level program had gone uninterrupted.

“It’s always been a thing that, I don’t want to say I assumed I would do, but I just kind of figured that’s the natural progression of things for me to do,” Hedlund said.

Hedlund didn’t compete in cross country last fall. He needed more time to heal, and track was more important. Until November, that choice seemed like a no-brainer. Then the world changed.

When Hedlund first heard about the proposed roster limits, he thought it was good news. “Oh, that sounds great,” he thought. “More scholarships means more people running in college.” But then he read further.

What was already a bad spot for Hedlund, became much worse. In a typical recruiting cycle, Hedlund’s past marks would likely have been enough for a coach to bet on him, despite his injury. With the anticipation of roster limits, though, coaches are already feeling pressed.

“They only have a few spots to give,” Hedlund said. “They don’t want to waste it on an injured guy.”

Obviously, Hedlund’s experience is not representative of all high school athletes, or even the sub-elite group that Silenieks thinks will suffer most.  

Even those with more luck than Hedlund, though, are far from safe.

 

EAST LYME, CONNECTICUT

“It's turning into something it wasn't meant to be…”

Across the country, Sean McCauley has spent the last year doing everything in his power to solidify himself as a top-tier recruit. In the time that Hedlund has been on the mend, McCauley has raced more than three dozen times. This winter, the East Lyme CT senior also had the benefit of being on the East Coast, where indoor racing opportunities abound.

He’s set PBs in every distance from 800 meters to two miles in the last three months, and he’s ranked in the top 10 in Connecticut in all of those distances except for the 1000 meters. 

McCauley’s past year has been almost the complete opposite of Hedlund’s. And yet, he is in the same boat.

Like many elite runners, McCauley realized during his freshman year that track and field could take him somewhere. He qualified for Nike Indoor and Outdoor Nationals, and those experiences showed him how exciting the upper echelon of the sport could be. He said he felt like a “kid in a candy shop” at Nike Indoor Nationals in New York City, and the outdoor meet didn’t disappoint, either.

“Walking out onto Hayward Field,” McCauley said, “you felt like you were in an Olympic final.”

After taking 20 seconds off his 1,600 meter PB that year, he set his sights high. He wanted Oregon. He wanted NAU. He was drawn to the bright lights.

By the end of his junior year, it looked like he was going to get them once again. He was talking to coaches from many large programs, including Ole Miss.

And then the world changed.

Even with roster limits still speculative, the conversations started to dry up. The lights started to slip away. 

“If you’re not running 4:10 or coming from a different country with a crazy fast PR,” McCauley said, “then it’s really hard for you to get a spot on a team like that.”

McCauley has expressed many of the same concerns that coaches have, especially when it comes to supporting athlete development. The NCAA is “turning into something it wasn’t meant to be,” he says.

“It seems like it’s no longer about trying to bring up a program by finding athletes like me with potential to be good,” McCauley said. “It’s more of just building the program with the most talented people you can.”

Notice McCauley’s phrasing: “athletes like me.” For him, the House settlement is not a vague, formless threat, as it seems to be for many others. It is personal. This is his life, his dream. He can see the lights being dimmed in real time.

It’s personal for Hedlund, too. It’s personal for hundreds of runners who would have had the chance to run at a Power 5 program just a few years ago. It’s understandable that they would be disgruntled, as nearly everyone expects them to be.

And yet, strikingly, they possess more optimism than most.

After Hedlund’s injury, he lost communication with every school he had previously been talking to except for one: UC Santa Barbara. The California state school lacks the distance pedigree and facilities of a program like BYU, but Hedlund doesn’t see those aspects as the most important ones.

“I don’t judge a book by its cover,” Hedlund said. “I think it definitely matters more like, the core of the team, the substance of the team.”

Hedlund loved the coaching staff and team culture at UCSB, and he believes the school overall is one that could set him up well for the rest of his life.

McCauley, too, has adjusted his recruiting perspective, and he’s satisfied with how it looks at the moment. He’s currently talking to coaches at Iona and Central Connecticut State, both of which have proven to be small but mighty programs. Last fall, Iona finished fourth in the men’s NCAA Northeast XC Regional, and CCSU won its conference meet.

McCauley says the chaos of the proposed roster limits has actually helped him mature in terms of how he looks at his future. He’s learned that the bright lights — both figuratively and literally — are unnecessary.

“You can still improve and get better and reach your goals,” McCauley said, “without having to go to crazy schools with crazy sports funding and crazy locker rooms with LEDs glowing from behind.”

 

LOVELAND, COLORADO

“I think I'm actually gaining more…”

In the foothills of northern Colorado, Jackson Fagerlin finds himself in a similar position. Like McCauley and Hedlund, he idolized the iconic runners and teams he grew up watching. He recalls making a drawing with an Oregon logo and a pair of spikes in the background when he first realized that he had a future in the sport.

Oregon was one of his dream schools, but as he progressed through the years, and the fear of the House settlement took hold, he started to adjust his outlook. At first, he became gripped by anxiety and tried to do everything in his power to find a program.

“I was subconsciously thinking all day, ‘Okay, is there anybody else I could reach out to?’” said Fagerlin, a senior at Resurrection Christian. “‘Have I checked my emails? Have I sent enough emails? Am I doing everything right?’”

He, too, believes the proposed roster limits would take away from programs’ abilities to develop their athletes, and he says this could keep coaches from recognizing those who could one day be elite. He cites Kenneth Rooks as a prime example; the BYU star hadn’t broken 4:10 in the mile or 9:00 in the 2-mile coming out of high school, but he steadily developed during college and became an NCAA champion and Olympic silver medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

As he prepares for his senior outdoor campaign, Fagerlin is at about Rooks’ level, with PBs of 4:11 and 9:07. Instead of going to a school like Oregon or BYU, he committed to Montana State. Just a few years ago, things might have been different.

Like McCauley and Hedlund, Fagerlin has a deeply personal stake in the House settlement. 

But somehow, that is what drives his optimism.

By virtue of seeing it as a real problem with concrete effects, he is able to tackle it from a rational standpoint. All of the wildly far-ranging concerns are boiled down to one truth: I probably won’t be able to go to a Power 5 school. In the end, that doesn’t seem like such a bad fate to him.

“I think I’m actually gaining more by going to Montana State,” Fagerlin said. “They’re going to develop me, and their program isn’t at risk.”

Fagerlin said he had a “load taken off” when he committed. If he had committed to an SEC school, he said, he wouldn’t feel that way; he would still have the fear of knowing his roster spot was in jeopardy. 

Obviously, there are caveats to this optimism for all three of these athletes. They are still worried about the state of the sport; as Fagerlin says, “I’m not like, ‘Oh, it’ll all be fine.’”

They also don’t fully represent the high school distance population. Many high school runners depend on scholarships to fund their education, and losing the opportunity to attend a school with a lot of money might cost them their college experience.

But there is at least a blueprint for hope, even in times where people speak with existential dread about the sport itself. 

For McCauley, this is not the first time he’s dealt with something like this — even if he doesn’t fully realize it. One of the most important times in his running career was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. When chaos engulfed the world, he joined millions of people in finding peace in running.

“There’s so much negative, I guess, all this news and stuff,” McCauley says. “Going out on runs, you can get away from that, and it feels really nice. When you’re on a run, it feels like you’re on your own timeline.”

That was a similarly dark time for the sport. Hours before the busiest weekend of the year — indoor nationals weekend, that is — everything was cancelled. Thousands of athletes lost opportunities that could have put them on the map. And yet, McCauley continued to find joy in running itself. 

It’s funny how history repeats itself.

Five years later, the sport awaits a different fate, one that could have far more detrimental effects in the long term. 

But the world made it through last time. Runners made it through. Nothing looked like we thought it would, except for one fundamental truth:

“At the end of the day,” McCauley says, “running is running.”

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