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BYU Keeps Getting Better By Doug Robinson, Deseret News
Nov. 29, 1999
An athletic powerhouse is in the making in Utah. They are deep and talented, and the coach barely had to leave the county to recruit them. For that matter, he didn't have to look beyond his church's membership. They have claimed two national championships in three years and fell four points short of making it three straight. They've got brains, too. Their team GPA of 3.65 ranks among the top four nationally each year. Meet the poster ladies for collegiate athletics: the BYU cross country team. If all that isn't enough, Coach Patrick Shane hustled the competition last weekend to give the Cougars their most recent championship, and nobody saw it coming. Shane fooled them all. During last weekend's NCAA cross country championships in Bloomington, Ind., the favorites were Stanford and Arkansas. Coaches gathered at the finish line and shouted out the tally of Stanford and Arkansas runners as they finished the race. Only five runners count toward scoring, and when the fifth runner from those schools crossed the line, coaches began to make a frantic tally to determine the winner. Answer: BYU. And it wasn't even close. The score: BYU 53 points, Arkansas 125, Stanford 127. It was the equivalent a 35-point blowout in football. The Cougars delivered such a thorough thrashing of the competition that one of their top five athletes could have broken both legs, and they still would have won by scoring their sixth runner. No one saw this coming for one simple reason: During the regular season, Shane always withheld one, two or even three of his top five runners. The Cougars lost three regular-season meets, but Shane continued to bench some of his best runners, always keeping an eye on the ultimate prize: the national meet. Imagine the Jazz benching Karl Malone one night, or John Stockton another night, and you get an idea of what Shane did. "We laid low," says Shane. "Last season we were ranked No. 1 all season, and it put a lot of pressure on the kids. We were good early and won all the meets, but lost at nationals (by four points). We decided this time we wouldn't show everything we had until the end." The Cougars haven't exactly been a secret, though. In the last five national meets they have finished, in order, fourth, third, first, second and first while competing in the most competitive sport in collegiate athletics. There are 309 Division 1-A schools that compete in women's cross country, the most of any women's collegiate sport. Last weekend, the Cougars placed five runners in the top 20, with 18 seconds separating their first runner and their fifth, and they did it largely with homegrown talent. While many of the top cross country teams rely on older, foreign athletes, the Cougars have stuck close to home, a luxury they can afford thanks to several national-class prep programs in the state. "We don't have to recruit internationally much these days," says Shane. Not when they can recruit next door. Five of their top seven finishers at the national championships are from Utah. Their top two alternates also are Utahns. "Utah produces more good cross country runners per capita than any state in the country," says Shane. (The LDS Church also seems to produce more than its share, as well. All 30 of BYU's runners are LDS.) Elizabeth Jackson, the team's No. 1 runner, was recruited all the way from East High School. Kara Ormond came from Orem High. Tara Rohatinsky walked across the street from Provo High. Sarah Ellet attended Wayne High in tiny Loa last spring. Susan Taylor is from Skyline High. Tara Haynes came from Orem and Lindsay Jones from Highland. Sharolyn Shields (Canada) and Laura Heiner (Virginia) are the only non-Utahns to race for the Cougars at nationals. "They're humble, they're overachievers, their good students, and they appreciate what they get," says Shane. "It's refreshing. Each year I say it can't get better than this, and the next year I'm saying, how did it get better?"
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