FRIDAY,SEPT.7,2001
SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 3B
Kansas cross country team to start season short-handed
Cross country to compete in only home meet of season without two key seniors
By Matt Norton Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas men's and women's cross country teams open the 2001 season tomorrow with the Bob Timmons Invitational at Rim Rock Farm.
Full squads from Baker, Bethany, Colby Community College, Depaul, Hastings College and Pittsburg State will join the Jayhawks. The women's team from Drake and the men's team from Truman State also will attend.
Last year the Kansas women won the meet, while the men finished third behind Truman State and Wichita State.
Assistant coach Doug Clark said the meet gave the staff an opportunity to gauge the runners' fitness level before bigger, more crucial meets later in the year.
Clark said he wanted the team to peak in October for the Big 12 Conference and District V meets.
"It's not like football or basketball where if you lose once it counts against you the rest of the season." Clark said.
The men's team will be short-handed. Seniors Charlie Gruber and Mark Menefee will sit out the meet as they are coming back from injuries. None of the freshmen will officially race for the team, which will preserve their redshirt status.
"A couple freshmen could help the team, but is it worth it?" Clark asked.
The team may struggle with only six or seven runners in uniform, but Clark pointed to a similar decision made four years ago.
"We're pretty excited because we're running strong and much more together than last year."
Courtney Deutsch Senior cross country runner
"Charlie wasn't as good as a freshman as he is now," Clark said of Gruber, a returning NCAA meet qualifier. "What if he didn't redshirt?"
Members of the women's team said they were excited to defend their title but knew it might not be so easy this year. The field has expanded from three to eight teams, and Drake returns all but one runner from a team that tied for third in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Senior Courtney Deutsch said this year's team was looking good in early season workouts.
"We're pretty excited because we're running strong and much more together than last year," Deutsch said.
Junior Katy Eisenmenger agreed that this year's team was well ahead of last year's.
"I think we're going to be good because we have more experience and we have some good freshmen coming in," Eisenmenger said. "We're better in all aspects, basically."
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Contact Norton at 864-4810
Home course respected for terrain
Rim Rock Farm's past makes it unique home for Jayhawk runners
Kansan sportswriter
By Matt Norton
And just fewer than 200 runners will battle with the course and one another tomorrow at the Bob Timmons Invitational, the Jayhawks' only home meet this season.
Runners know they have been through a battle when they charge up Billy Mills Ascent and make the turn around Jim Ryun Skyline with little more than 200 yards left to run at Rim Rock Farm, home course of the Kansas cross country teams.
"Rim Rock is not the type of course for the weak of heart," said John McDonnell, coach at Arkansas.
The course features several demanding hills, and unlike the sure footing experienced on the manicured fairways of golf courses, where many meets are run, the terrain at Rim Rock is irregular.
McDonnell knows a good cross country course when he sees one. His men's team won the NCAA Championship in 1998 at Rim Rock, the first of three straight NCAA titles and one of 11 overall as coach of the Razorbacks.
Iron silhouettes of some of Kansas's best runners — such as Ryun, Mills and 1936 silver medalist at 1500 meters, Glenn Cunningham — dot the course and remind runners of the rich history in distance running at Kansas.
Kansas assistant coach Doug Clark is among a minority who thinks Rim Rock isn't as horrible as its reputation. He said he thought the perception that it was
a difficult course scared teams away.
"The course is overrated," Clarksaid.
When asked to name a tougher challenge in cross country, Clark pondered awhile before suggesting that Iowa State had the only course that could rival Rim Rock.
"I guess maybe it's a medium hard course." Clark said.
Former Kansas track and cross country coach Bob Timmons bought the 96-acre farm back in the mid-70s and in the past 25 years, has molded the course into one of the nation's toughest. After he retired from Kansas in 1988, he was able to give Rim Rock a significant amount of attention.
"It's my golf game, I guess," Timmons said. "God created this beautiful little valley, and I think that if we work it right, it can be one of the great courses in this country."
Timmons is being a bit modest.
Several coaches responding to a survey after the 1998 NCAA meet said they thought that instead of rotating the event annually, the championships should be at Rim Rock every year.
"It's what you call a true cross country course," McDonnell said. "It's what cross country is all about. It's outstanding."
Rim Rock was not always outstanding. Timmons said that he brought each of his teams to Rim Rock for a week before the season to work on the farm, cleaning it up and chiseling it, one shovelful at a time, molding it into the course it is today.
One of Timmons' former runners, Steve Heffernan, now the coach at Free State High School, remembers those week-long camps well.
"We ran twice a day and worked all day in between," Heffernan said. "We'd cook for each other and sleep on the floor of
"God created this beautiful little valley and I think that if we work it right, it can be one of the great courses in this country."
Bob Timmons
Former Kansas track and cross country coach
Timmie's cabin.
"I remember beating Timmie playing gin; he'd make us go run after that."
Heffernan said the Kansas runners used their familiarity with the course to their advantage on race day.
"Billy Mills, the Narrows, those areas were created to challenge you," Heffernan said. "We wouldn't make our moves until the end of the race, after the tough parts."
McDonnell has a warning for anyone running Rim Rock for the first time.
Maybe that's why McDonnell's Razorbacks, with only one returning runner from last year's team, declined an invitation to run at Rim Rock this season. Besides, he said he thought his team did not need to run hilly courses to prepare for nationals, which Furman will be host of this year.
"For those young freshmen, it could be kind of devastating to them," McDonnell said. "It can leave an imprint on their mind."
"With nationals at Greenville (S.C.), it's a relatively flat course," McDonnell said. "We don't have to run so many hills."
Contact Norton at 864-4810
Here's your last chance to see what you missed in yesterday's issue of the Kansan.
-KU Endowment Association set to reveal a list of KU projects that will get money from a $500 million fund-raising effort.
How football players Mario Kinsey and Reggie Duncan legal troubles have unfolded
-Former high school sports stars,now playing Sega and adjusting to intramurals only
-All you ever wanted to know about lubricants Meghan Bainum's weekly sex column
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