Colleges:

In his 27th season at UC Irvine, cross country and track and field coach Vince O’Boyle is, one might say, set in his ways. Those ways typically include recruiting all-California rosters, particularly in men’s and women’s cross country.

So, unlike many coaches in cross country and track, O’Boyle bristles at the idea of luring talent from beyond United States borders. He said he regularly receives e-mail from Kenyan runners anxious to discuss opportunities to compete in an ideal climate on a campus soothed by ocean breezes and fortified by respected academics.

But his response is always the same.

“Delete, delete, delete,” O’Boyle said of his reaction to such inquiries. “I never even respond. I don’t recruit foreigners. It’s just a philosophy I have. We’ve had a few here, but there’s just no loyalty. They come, get their education and they leave and you never hear from them again. That kind of stuff bothers me a little bit.”

So, when a coaching friend approached O’Boyle at a track meet in Seattle last spring, promoting a young prospect from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, O’Boyle was less than overwhelmed.

“I told [the coach] I can’t and I won’t recruit him,” O’Boyle said.

But Cameron Mitchell and his parents repeatedly overcame O’Boyle’s hesitancy and candor about a lack of scholarship money and the high costs of attending UCI for out-of-state students.

“I met his parents [in Seattle] and there were some phone calls back and forth, but I basically told [Cameron Mitchell] that I couldn’t afford him,” O’Boyle said. “And I thought that was the end of it.”

But Mitchell and his parents, who also own a home in Palm Springs, put UCI on a list of several California campuses they visited over the summer and, O’Boyle said, “his parents fell in love with this place.

“When Cameron called and told me he wanted to come here, I kind of laughed,” O’Boyle said. “I told him and his parents again that we didn’t have a lot of scholarship money and they said that was OK. They basically recruited us.”

O’Boyle then said he had to justify bending his no-foreigners rule to the other locally grown athletes on the team.