UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesdav. November 3, 1993
9
Desire to excel forces track coaches to look overseas
International athletes
Continued from Page 1
The Cyclones have risen from that basement to be a perennial Big Eight power. The rise in Ames coincides with the appearance of track coordinator Bill Bergan in 1976 and his philosophy of recruiting foreign athletes.
torship of recording for geriatricians.
Bergan became the track coordinator in 1992 after 16 years as track coach. Assistant coach Steve Lynn took over as coach of men's track in 1992.
In the Big Eight, Nebraska placed first in the men's indoor and second in the men's outdoor competitions behind Iowa State.
Nebraska, which proved to be Iowa State's major competitor in the Big Eight last year, has seven foreign athletes on its 92-member track roster.
Lynn said Bergan recruited the best athletes regardless of where they were from. He said this approach helped both foreign and domestic athletes by improving the level of competition.
Last year the Cyclones excelled in the Big Eight. In the outdoor track and field championships, the men placed first. The men's team also placed second in the indoor championships and seventh in last year's NCAA national outdoor championships.
Nebraska coach Gary Pepin said he saw nothing wrong with recruiting foreign athletes.
Iowa State now has 10 foreign students on its 77-member men's and women's roster. Those 10 foreign students include three of the top five cross country runners.
Iowa State was seventh or eighth in the Big Eight every year between 1946 and 1976. Since then it has won 22 Big Eight track titles, the most of any Big Eight school.
"It doesn't matter whether they are foreign or not," Pepin said. "We recruit them because they're good athletes, not because they're foreign."
He said foreign athletes were no sure fix for a poor program. He said a foreign athlete held a much greater risk for a program than a U.S. athlete because foreign athletes might have
more problems than U.S. students adjusting to a university in the United States.
"All things being equal, I'll take the kid from Omaha over a foreign kid every time," Pein said.
Some Coaches, like Timmons, said they see a problem—the talent of a foreign athlete and a U.S. athlete are seldom equal.
"Programs have brought in kids who have competed for their national teams to compete against 18 and 19-year-old Americans," Timmons said. "Pioneer came on side, however."
Pepin saw a plus side, however.
"Of course you have," Pepin said. "So
"Of course it helps," Pepin said. "But it doesn't give the kid an unfair advantage."
He said bringing in foreign athletes
Helena Hafstrom was an example of Shwartz's recruiting philosophy.
"I'm not so much of a pursist to say I'd never have them on my team," Schwartz said. "But I don't go looking for them like some schools."
"You never heard anything about this until the Ethiopians and the Kenyans started winning"
She was an exchange student from Taby, Sweden, who ran for the team
"They have to be good academically to pass an entrance test in a foreign country." Penin said.
raised the level of competition as well as bringing quality students to the University.
Kansas coach Gary Schwartz said that although he would not recruit directly from a foreign country, he would allow foreign students to run if they came to Kansas.
John Chaplin
Washington State University
trackcoach
Sources: KU sports information. Big Eight schools' sports information Dan Schauer/KANSAN
as a walk-on in the 1990-91 season. She was awarded a partial scholarship during the 1991-92 season when she competed in the half mile, 1,500 meter and cross country events.
Although Hafstrom did not bring instant credibility to the Kansas team, Schwartz said several strong foreign athletes could give instant credibility to a team.
The National Scene:
Foreign athletes have competed for U.S. colleges since the late 1940s. Concerns about the trend grew in the late '60s and early '70s when U.S. college teams began to be dominated by foreign athletes.
Washington State coach John Chappin said recruiting from other countries gave smaller schools a way to compete with schools in larger states such as California.
He said he thought schools which proposed rules limiting recruiting were pushing isolationist proposals.
He said factors such as a school's geographic location also made it easier for some schools to recruit from outside the United States.
"That's like me saying, Kansas can only recruit from Kansas," Chaplin said.
"We're close to British Columbia, Canada," Chaplin said. "It's easier for us to recruit in Canada than it is for us to go to Florida and recruit."
"I think a team dominated by foreigners is an abuse." Brown said.
Coach Doug Brown of Tennessee holds the opposite view of foreign recruiting
He said he worried that foreign domination of the NCAA's championships could lead to a domination of the Olympics in the future.
in the 1991 NCAA championships, which his team won, only one of the seven finalist in the 10,000 meter event was a U.S. citizen.
"They've dominated the distance events in the NCAA," Brown said. "Now they're winning the distance events we used to win."
Washington State's Chaplin said it was a lack of interest in distance events by U.S. athletes, not their training in the United States, that had lead to the success of foreign athletes.
this until the Ethiopians and Kenyans started winning," Chaplin said. "It was okay when it was just the Canadians."
Chaplin said he thought that there was a tone of racism in many of the arguments he heard against foreign athletes.
Racism and Politics:
He said that many people did not have a problem as long as it was the "right" people, namely white North Americans winning the events.
"You never heard anything about
He said he thought schools were complaining about something that was not going to change.
"You either have to pass a rule to stomp it or shut up." Chalin said.
Some coaches have tried passing rules to limit the number of foreign athletes in the NCAA or even to change the point system to differentiate between teams with foreign athletes and teams without them.
In 1983 Timmons proposed a plan
Gary Pepin Nebraska track coach
"We recruit them because they're good athletes.Not because they're foreign"
that would promote U.S. athletes in NCAA institutions. The plan would have deleted points obtained by foreign athletes, effectively removing the incentive for teams to have them. Timmons plan was voted down by the U.S. Track Coaches Association.
A proposal must be passed by the coaches association and sent on to the NCAA rules committee for track and field. That committee decides whether to call for legislation to enact the plan.
Nine years later, in 1992, Tennessee's Brown made a proposal to the coaches association to limit each NCAA school to providing two scholarships during a four-year period to foreign athletes. Each NCAA school is allowed to give out 12.6 men's and 18 women's track and field scholarships during a four-year period. Money given as partial scholarships is included as part of the schools' allotment of scholarships.
Brown's proposal was tabled until later this year, pending review to see if such a plan is constitutional. The earliest the plan can be revived is in December at the coaches convention. Many coaches think that such a plan cannot pass.
"It's the institution's money," Frank Gagliano, president f the coaches association and track coach at Georgetown. "You can't tell them what to do with it."
Gagliano said 50 percent of the coaches association supported foreign recruiting and 50 percent opposed it.
Schwartz said he thought such a plan would have a difficult time passing. He said so many schools had foreign athletes that it would be almost impossible to build a consensus within the coaches association.
"People don't like to be regulated," Schwartz said. "Schools that recruit a lot from foreign countries don't want it stopped."
Stopping recruitment of foreign athletes entirely is an emotional issue for some coaches. Schwartz said. `-`
However, changing some rules regarding how foreign athletes are recruited already has taken place.
One of the biggest changes in the rules was imposing a competition age limit of 24 in 1984. Timmons said the rule was aimed at keeping colleges from bringing in older, established athletes from other countries to compete against 18- and 19-year-olds.
The controversy about foreign athletes appears no closer to resolution than it was 30 years ago.
Timmons said the influx of younger coaches made it less likely that new rules would be passed.
"For the younger guys coming in, using foreigners is the only way it's ever been," Timmons said. "Less coaches think like I do today."
Chaplin of Washington State said he believed that the controversy would not be much of an issue in the future.
"It's not that big a deal anymore," Chaplin said. "Almost everyone uses them."
But Schwartz said the Kansas team would not be one of the schools recruiting foreign athletes. He said that U.S. schools had a responsibility to help develop their own athletes and even athletes from within their respective regions.
"If all you want to do is win, then you can go that route." Schwartz said.
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