Issue date: 10/11/02 Section: Campus Life

Media Credit: Courtesy of Larry Rogers Freshman Julie Coats runs at the Rhodes Invitational where Hendrix finished tenth.

As they load the bus headed to Memphis for the King Cat Invitational Meet hosted by Rhodes College, the 17 men and women of the Hendrix Cross Country Teams are noticeably excited.

"It's a sad addiction," they state almost unanimously, trying to explain what compels them to rise before 6 am almost every day and run 50 to 78 miles a week plus 12 to 24 quarter miles of interval training. "And a man with long curly locks," junior Evan Rogers quickly added.

With 10 men and 7 women runners, Hendrix has two full Cross-Country Teams for the first time since the 70s. As if that were not enough to get excited about, according to Coach Larry Rogers (the man with the long curly locks), "Right now we have the best mens and womens teams that we have ever had."

Already this year the men's team has placed in the top three at all of the four previous meets with an overall win at Lyon College on September 27th. The women's team has also consistently finished in the top five, taking third place at Lyon College. Individual stats have been better than ever as well. With a personal best of 27:25 in the 8000 meter (five miles) for the year sophomore Matt Sickbert is ranked 12th in the conference. Not far behind him is Rogers, ranked 18th with a time of 27:47. Freshman Julie Coats leads the women's team with a personal best of 20:08 in the 5000 meter (3.1 miles), and is ranked 14th in the conference.

Senior Michael Simone said that he has enjoyed watching the program flourish since he joined three years ago. "When Greg[Spencer], Christopher [Simeone], and I were freshmen, we hardly ever had any team that scored better than ninth or eighth. Now we actually have recruits and people that want to run and people coming together as a team."

He went on to explain that even though cross country is a sport in which success is measured in terms of individual effort, teamwork still remains a vital component. "It's individualized so that you don't have the same kind of finger pointing that you do in other sports. Even though everybody is running on their own it is the same as everybody playing on their own on the field. Everybody has to run hard if we are going to score well."

Continued...

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