ATHLETICS:Looking back on a memorable day of cross country in the US, where many Irish runners held their own, highlights the current shortfalls in junior athletics in the country, writes Ian O'Riordan
WRITING ABOUT cross country running in college in America kills me with a desperate longing to be back there. It kills me just to think it's now 16 years since we wrote our own little piece of history in making it to the NCAAs for only the second time since the founding of Brown University.
Making it to the NCAAs is like finding the Holy Grail. At least it was for us - the pinnacle, the ultimate achievement of cross country running in college in America. Those that do make it are "going to the show" and those who don't are left with the bitter realisation that they just weren't good enough, or more likely, had fooled themselves into thinking they had trained hard enough.
Bob Rothenberg, the cross country coach at Brown who we knew simply as Berg, barely contained the tears that afternoon at Lehigh University, just outside of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In the three years we'd known him Berg always had the knack of putting everything into perspective, mostly in helping us deal with our failures. "You'll remember this for the rest of your lives," he told us that afternoon, and so far he's right about that.
Because the NCAAs isn't just a cross country race, it's a journey. For us it began long before that third season at Brown. It began the moment we'd arrived in Providence, Rhode Island, starry-eyed and laughing at how lucky we were to be on a free ride at one of the finest schools in the East. Ah yes, the Ivy League, the cream of America - rich and thick.
That third season was when our individual journeys became one. The seniors, we juniors, the sophomores and the freshmen - including the star recruit Donal O'Sullivan, the best junior distance runner in Ireland. O'Sullivan had just signed up to our cause and would provide the missing ingredient: cockiness.
The freshmen, though, were excused from cross country camp, while the rest of us had to report back to Providence a week before classes began. From there we made the short trip across state to the Rhode Island Police training camp, where we ran twice a day, watched Martin Scorsese movies in between, and in the evening listened as Berg plotted our path to the NCAAs.
Cross country running in college in America is exceptionally competitive in both quality and quantity. As you would expect. Most college sport in America is run borderline professional, and Brown was no exception. We had the back-up team of a small country; we had an indoor and outdoor track of our own; we had all the free gear we could wear and, provided we made it to the NCAAs, an unlimited shoe fund. The only downside was Providence was not exactly the Rift Valley so, to make amends, Berg was happy to drive us the short distances out to Scituate Reservoir or rural Seekonk - where we could burn up the clean New England air on our tempo runs, wild birds and squirrels our only audience.
"Pick it up! Pick it up!" Berg would shout from the van window while driving alongside us. "We're going all the way, to the NCAAs."
There were several other races leading up to the main event: The Boston College Invite up at Franklin Park; the Penn State meet down in Happy Valley; and, of course, the HEPS in late October, the Ivy League championships, which Brown had never won.
Berg knew that peaking for HEPS could blow our chances for the NCAAs, but we knew it was dear to his heart. We wouldn't hold back.
The HEPS are traditionally staged at Van Cortlandt Park in New York, a fairly grim facility opposite one of the main subway stations in the Bronx, and where you're as likely to come across a game of hurling as you are a game of baseball. At least back in 1992. What gave Van Cortlandt its fearsome reputation were the back hills, or more specifically Cemetery Hill, which needs no explanation. When a couple of us died on the hill that year Brown lost its chance and once again failed to win the HEPS.
Making it to the NCAAs is simple enough, the criteria: Finish first or second team in your divisional championship and you're automatic, score exceedingly well and you may get a wild card. The difficulty is there are often 12 or 13 teams all capable of securing the two top slots, and especially in our division, the IC4As. Leaving Providence the evening before Berg seemed unusually anxious. He handed out our per diem ($35, a small fortune) and said little. On the bus drive down I-95 listening to REM and reading Jack Kerouac we knew this would be the end of our journey.
The course at Lehigh was through cut corn fields and dry pasture, and that suited us. Seven runners, five to score, and this time none of us died. Still nobody had expected Brown to make it to the NCAAs, which made it all the more glorious when we did.
Berg tried to contain his emotion by fussing over how we were going to get to Bloomington, Indiana, the week later but we knew he'd drive us there if he had to. Naturally, he just chartered a plane.
In the end it didn't matter where we finished at NCAAs (although 13th best in the nation had a nice ring to it) because what mattered was we were with the best cross country runners in college in America.
And the best thing about that was so many of them were Irish. Arriving at the course in Bloomington that cold November morning was a sort of homecoming, and of the 22 teams that made it, it felt like half were built around Irish runners.
We met Mark Carroll, at nearby Providence College, Frank Hanley and Niall Bruton at Arkansas, and Ken Nason, at Villanova. There was Conor Holt at Oklahoma, Séamus Power at East Tennessee, and several others. We were rivals on the day but in a sense running together in the satisfaction that we'd all made it in cross country in college in America.
Later today, the nine divisional championships are taking place, all across America. The races to make it to the NCAAs, yet the Irish presence will be at something of an all-time low. The north-east division, the IC4As, are being staged at Van Cortlandt Park and the only Irish prospects there are Andrew Ledwith at Iona and David McCarthy at Providence. Ciarán O'Lionaird at Michigan should also make it out of the Great Lakes division, but after that, the whole thing has thinned out.
Carroll still lives and runs in Providence and it saddens him too to think this great tradition is in danger of dying.
"Go back to our time, 10 or 20 years ago," he told me, "and the times we were running on the track were every bit as good, or better, than the American kids. So to recruit Irish kids was attractive for American coaches. But not anymore. For whatever reason, the American juniors have gotten better, faster, and stronger, so coaches don't need to look to Ireland.
"And I think the standard at the NCAAs is tougher that it's ever been, particularly in terms of depth. The bigger concern for us is that the juniors we are sending to America maybe just aren't strong enough anymore, just haven't the work done, to step in and be competitive. Because they will be left behind if they haven't put in a good foundation. It's a pity because the American college system has been good to us. But this trend will continue as long as our junior rankings are down."
Perhaps, like myself, Carroll is still dreaming young despite the years and it kills him not to be back there, but if, as he says, too many Irish juniors are fooling themselves into thinking they are training hard enough then there's no way they'll ever make it to the NCAAs.
