A development model to guide the recruiting of female shot putters at the NCAA Division I Championship level

Abstract

Given the high stakes nature of NCAA athletics, it has become increasingly important for coaches to recruit athletes who can compete and make substantive contributions to a team’s success. The purpose of this study was to develop an analytic to predict the time it would take a high school female shot putter to contribute a score at the NCAA Championship meet based on her personal best high school performance. Performance data from high school and college performances were collected from NCAA women’s shot putters, who completed their eligibility from 2012–2017 (N = 63), and graphed to construct a trend line which plotted the top shot put performance of each individual from high school (y) against their best result from each of four or five years in collegiate competition (x). Strong correlations were found between high school and collegiate performance for the first three years of collegiate competition with statistical significance achieved at p < 0.0001. The correlation progressively decreased with each year of collegiate competition with years four and five of collegiate eligibility demonstrating a diminished statistical significance at p < 0.05. Minimum high school performances were calculated in order to produce a statistically significant result that could score for each place at the NCAA meet for a given amount of years competing in NCAA Division I track and field. The results provide track and field coaches with the first analytical model that can assist in determining a high school recruit’s ability to contribute valuable points at the most important competitions. 6