My college running career was brief and undistinguished––cut short by injury and too many pints of ale. I also went to university in Scotland where, like most British schools, sports follow a club model where teams are run by students. We trained hard and fared well at the British university championships, but the overall vibe was decidedly recreational. Weekly pub nights were just as crucial to team culture as hill repeats: Not exactly Running With the Buffaloes. Maybe it was because I was delusional about my latent ability, but every now and then I’d feel wistful about competing for a program on the other side of the Atlantic. The NCAA, with its stratospheric budget, stupid mascots, and sold-out stadiums, seemed to offer student athletes a quasi-professional experience. This was where you went if you really wanted to maximize your athletic potential, as evidenced by the endless number of Olympians who were NCAA alumni. Then again, there was something reassuringly sane about university sports in the UK, where being on a team was just one component, rather than the dominating feature, of college life.
The…
