For Some DI Mormon Recruits, Collegiate Life Is Deferred – MileSplit

There is a pretty standard route for most student-athletes who are making the transition between high school and college. You graduate high school, train in the summer, and enter college ready to attend classes and compete with new teammates.

However, there’s a slightly different path for those of the Mormon faith.

While many young adults of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints choose to follow the path of missionary work following graduation, that decision is especially more complex for athletes, and especially so for distance runners.

Habitual training builds the cardiovascular systems of young runners who form into Division I athletes. And two-year mission trips can often derail that work, making the road back to Division I athletics sometimes winding and difficult.

But Brigham Young University has formed a unique path at the NCAA level and endured that road quite well, consistently competing for, and winning, championships. The Cougars, in fact, ended Northern Arizona’s reign at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in 2019, winning its first national team title in school history.

“It took me 20 years to do it,” BYU head coach Ed Eyestone told FloTrack after winning the NCAA title in December. “Hopefully it doesn’t take me another 20 to do it again.”

Eyestone, an NCAA cross country champion in 1984 for BYU who served his mission trip in Barcelona, is uniquely qualified to handle that responsibility — he became the first person in NCAA history to both win an individual title as an athlete and win a team title as a coach, coincidentally both with the same program. He’s been the head coach of the Cougars’ cross country program since 2000 and became the track and field coach in 2013.

In 2012, he explained the process of red-shirting athletes following two-year long mission trips.

“I think they’re hungry to get back in it and certainly we have athletes who come back and they’re so eager, they go a little too quick and they end up with injuries and then that’s counterproductive, obviously,” Eyestone told FloTrack. “So we try to bring them along slowly enough.

“And I think as missionaries they usually have garnered a fair amount of patience and persistence and realize that, if they’re patient enough and work progressively slowly enough, they’ll get to the point where they’ll be where they need to be.”

Making BYU an even more interesting commodity is the recruiting classes its brought in over the past several years. The Cougars continually land some of the best distance runners in the country, including NXN champions like Casey Clinger (2017) and Aidan Troutner (2018) and recent standouts such as Easton Allred, Mark Boyle and Lexy Halladay.

At MileSplit, we reached out and spoke to Clayton Young, a now-graduated Brigham Young University runner and an NCAA champion at 10,000 meters who currently runs professionally for ASICS.

Young participated in a two-year mission trip prior to joining the Cougars in Provo, Utah, in 2015 from American Fork High School.

For those not familiar, mission trips are when members of LDS church volunteer to enroll in a service-based assignment that can take anywhere from 18 months to two full years. The purpose of these mission trips are to offer humanitarian aid, community service and religious discussion. Men are strongly encouraged to participate in a mission trip (but not required) while women are given a “completely optional” choice.

Recent recruits to go on LDS mission trips include Clinger — though he competed in his freshman cross country season with BYU and became an All-American before traveling to Japan for his sabbatical — and Troutner, the 2018 NXN winner.

“There can be hundreds of missions that are located in several different countries,” Young told MileSplit. “I was sent to North Carolina, but I know people who have been sent all over the world.”

A mission trip often consists of a rigorous schedule which includes waking up at 7:00 AM and ending your day as late as 9:00 PM. Exercise is limited to only 30 minutes a day in the morning.

“You’re only given 30 minutes a day in the morning to exercise,” Young explained. “So I would go to a treadmill and just run as many miles as I could in 30 minutes.”

What makes running on a mission trip even more challenging is the fact that missionaries are required to stay with their companion throughout the day for the purposes of safety. Convincing your companion, who can oftentimes be a non-athlete, to join you for a run around the block at 6:30 AM isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially since biking and walking are heavily involved with most mission trips.

Some can find it challenging to stay fit.

“I think I went from 135 to 160…I put on roughly 25 lbs during my time on the mission trip.” Young said. “But that’s what happens when the hispanic food is incredible.”

Following the completion of the mission trip, student-athletes will work to incorporate themselves back into collegiate culture. For some, fitness returns relatively easily.

For others, it is a considerable struggle.

“I returned from my mission trip that January and ran in a home meet [unattached],” Young said. “I think I ran 4:26 for the mile which wasn’t too bad all things considered. But some people are different. Some people, like Conner Mantz for instance, can come back and run like a mad man right away.

“Then there are others who were state champions or national caliber athletes who never really get back to that same level.”

Of course, one of the more important aspects to keep in mind is that in a program like BYU and the coaching staff — which is headed by Eyestone — is plenty familiar with the intricacies surrounding mission trips.

For a university that was founded by and supported by the LDS church, it is understandable that a handful of athletes will be Mormon.

According to Young, there were times that BYU’s team consisted entirely of men that were members of the Church, with approximately 70-percent to 80-percent of them having attended a mission trip.

“The great thing about Coach Eyestone is that we’ve had hundreds of athletes come back from mission trips on the program,” Young explained to MileSplit. “It takes some athletes longer than others to get back into the swing of things, but Coach Eyestone isn’t going to cut you right away just because you’re struggling.”

Nearly all mission trip returnees will be redshirted for at least the first six months of collegiate competition upon their arrival to BYU. During that time, they’ll make an effort to do so simple runs and basic workouts, even limited versions of 1,000 meter repeats.

“We know it takes time to get back into it.” Young said. “But it’s all about having a positive mentality, staying healthy and taking your time.”

And considering BYU’s massive success, it’s hard to argue with the patient approach.

– – –