OLIN HACKER IS THE SAME AGE AS CONNOR MANTZ

Don't worry, we dislike both of them equally.

Hacker is one of the biggest jokes in the NCAA. I don’t love how Mantz was able to compete for so long, but at least he only competed for 4 years. Hacker has been competing for practically 7 years, pretty unfair in my book.

7th year of college!

Sames as Bluto! (John Belushi).

Well they both graduated HS in 2015.

Hard cap 23 years of age for NCAA eligibility. Old enough for even the oldest of high schoolers to take the five years (even though any worthwhile degree can be had in four). Easy solution and makes it fair for everyone. Gets rid of confusing rules and bogus extended eligibility. Otherwise the NCAA will have to admit that they’re not student athletes anymore.

College athletics is for college students. It's NOT age group competition. It would be fair for everyone if everyone had four years of eligibility, maybe with one year of redshirt completing it in 5 years. The local D2 college once had a 40+ guy running cross country, and I don't know anyone that objected to that. I was certainly OK with it.

There's no reason to discriminate against non-traditional students who can't start college until later. It's probably even against the law. The rules were probably written to avoid age discrimination, which is the law (Age Discrimination Act of 1975) and can't be ignored for institutions that receive federal funds (which many universities do).

Hope he has a higher GPA than Bluto.

LOL at least olin hacker is done with ncaa meanwhile byu's casey clinger started running in 2017 just a year after hacker but clinger is listed as a SOPHOMORE.

grants getting his masters at stanford. let’s let him back in the ncaa so he can win the 10k by a minute and a half

He had his four years already. Also banning pros is not age discrimination.

and olin hacker had his four years three years ago.

Why are you acting like this is some huge problem plaguing the NCAA? It’s not lol. They became some of the best runners BECAUSE they take on the extra competition. Unlike people like you who whine about age and expect to always get a trophy handed to you.

Congrats to Olin Hacker. It's not his fault that COVID changed the rules -- he didn't make them. He's not responsible for the deaths of over 1 million Americans. EVERYTHING about this guy's 5k NCAA title is legitimate. EVERYTHING. Yep, it's odd and hopefully it won't be duplicated, but it's LEGIT.

Once again, congrats to Olin Hacker.

he's drew hunter's age

...and when I was watching today, and they mentioned his 6th year status, I thought to myself "I bet BYU can't wait until the COVID-bonus season era is over and they are the only ones with 26-27yo guys in the races again."

The letsrun review says this about the 800 winner:

“Zahafi didn’t need to come to Texas Tech this year. He already owned a master’s degree from back home in Morocco and ran 1:44 last year at age 23. But he felt coming to Lubbock – even though he would only have one year of eligibility – was the best for his development, and the decision has clearly paid off.”

That struck me as a more blatant abuse of the system. It seems there was no educational objective whatsoever. The guys imply spent a year in college to develop better as a runner.

I for one am very happy to see Olin Hacker’s ncaa career end on the high note. For a while there it looked like he was going to end up as just another highly touted recruit that got lost in the shuffle, but he really managed to put up some good results in the last 2ish years. Anyone who has been following his career for a while knows this is well deserved. Bravo to Olin and congrats to him and the rest of the badgers!!

To be fair to Olin his college career has been impacted by the outbreak of a global pandemic, he wouldn't still be competing in the NCAA if it wasn't for the bubonic plague of 1347.