“I’m not a super extroverted person, but the bigger the event, the more energy it gives me. I’m contradicting myself a little bit, but I like going to the national meets and just watching the performances and then going out there and trying to do it. I think part of that is my competitiveness. But you see somebody do something really well—whether it’s from your school or another school—in the 400-meter hurdles or something, and it’s like, I gotta do something equally as good in my event.”
“My high school coach, we call him Coach Pi. I remember going to Illiana Christian, my high school, and [my sister] played volleyball and basketball, and they had cross-country practice around that time. I’d walk in, and I knew [Coach Pi] was the cross-country coach. He’s not a weird-looking guy, but he just kind of stands out just the way he is. He’s like 55 and wears running shorts, and he’s muscular and stuff—he just stands out. I wasn’t even going to do cross-country, and my mom just told me during the summer while they were at cross-country camp, ‘You should go [to the practice for non-camp runners].’ My mom told me to go, and I just ended up doing it. Even now, and during my whole high school career, [Coach Pi] was always doing things to make it fun. We’d play Ultimate Frisbee sometimes when heck, we could’ve been getting injured. We did football tosses and made running fun. He just did the silliest things, and at the time it was like, What are we doing now that’s stupid? It was so different in college—I like college—but it’s just different. I remember asking Coach [John] Foss when I came [to IWU], ‘So do you guys like, play a lot of Ultimate Frisbee and stuff?’ I could tell he was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ … My whole high school career, [Coach Pi] made it fun for me, and I try to make things fun, and I like when other people try to do that. He loves running, and we took it seriously, but he was never—I mean, we had a lot of interesting personalities on the team, so the fact that he balanced all that is incredible. If you knew all of us, you’d just be like, ‘How did he deal with you guys and make you guys pretty good runners?’ He knows his stuff, and he just keeps it fun.”
“A lot of people running in college won a lot of their events in high school, so that’s a big difference when they come to college and they’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ I think it’s important for people to realize that winning is important, but it’s not everything. Giving your best really is enough and the best thing you can do. And loving running.”
“I trained all through the spring to get ready for cross-country for my junior year [at IWU]. In high school, I was the top guy on our team, so confidence in high school was huge for me. It propelled me to being the No. 1, and then I came here junior year, and I was all the way in the back. So that whole flip was huge for me and completely diminished any confidence I had, and I definitely struggled through that. But then I learned that [running] is more than just an individual sport, and you can be excited for other people on your team.”
“My advice for someone who wants to run in college is the importance of doing the little things right. It’s something we talk a lot about here. The importance of getting good sleep, of eating well, stretching—those little things can really help prevent injuries, and they can really help long-term create your season and kind of help mold the runner you are. It also gives you more confidence knowing you did everything right. You don’t doubt yourself like, ‘Oh, well maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that before I raced today, or maybe I should have slept more.’ You know no matter what, you left everything out there.”
Hooray Run 