W&M's Best Ever Cross Country Team (as they looked in 1973 and when they were enshrined into the W&M Hall of Fame).
Five W&M XC teams have finished in the top ten at the NCAA meet, last year’s 8th place team, 2000 (10th), 1997 (9th), 1970 (10th) and the 1973 team that finished 4th. With the men aiming for a second straight top ten finish, I thought it might be interesting to look at the best W&M team of all time – the 1973 team that has long been enshrined in the W&M Hall of Fame. Read more
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To begin with there was no qualifying for the NCAA meet until 1971. There were gentlemen’s agreements such as if you finished in the top ten at the IC4A meet, you would get to go to the NCAA meet. Under Coach John Randolph (who would one day become W&M’s athletic director), the team that Martin and Louv captained went 10th, 17th, 11th and 4th in their four years. Even more astounding was the fact that Martin was not able to run at the NCAA meet but had been #1 all season even breaking Greg Frederick (ex-American record holder in the 10K)’s Penn State record.
Training was comparable to today with Louv covering 100 mile weeks in the summer and week after week in the 80’s during the season. After winning the District 3 race, the team started to think they could win the NCAA meet. Martin, despite suffering pain in his legs all season ran the state, conference and regional meets. However after jogging the course in Spokane the day before, Ron Martin’s leg gave out and the team goals suffered a blow.
Early on race day, Randolph took Martin to a local hospital where they shot his leg with pain killers. In spite of this he was only able to run 400 meters before dropping out (later x-rays showed that Martin had a fractured tibia). On race day there was a smattering of snow on the ground, but it wasn’t cold enough to have any negative impact on the race. Louv worked his way up to 10th by two miles and help on. At that point Nick Rose of Western Kentucky had what appeared to Louv to be an insurmountable lead over Steve Prefontaine of Oregon. But Pre was unbeatable on US soil and eventually reeled in Rose who barely held on for second. Louv slipped to 22nd, but fought back at the end to finish 19th (which is still the seventh best NCAA finish by a W&M male). In front of Bill were 9 Americans and 9 foreign athletes. Mac Collins (who would earn an All-America title two years later) was second followed by 800 meter All-American Reggie Clark and John Greenplate (who held the freshmen 10K record for years). Remarkably there were only two scholarships divided between all the team members. Both Louv and Martin feel that if Martin had been healthy the team would have finished 2nd. (Thanks for Bill Louv and Ron Martin for helping to write this article)
Other W&M teams have finished in the top ten too. The 1997 team was 9th, and the 2000 team was 10th. Also, this article even mentions that the 1970 team was 10th. This is an interesting article, but I wanted to point out this discrepancy.
Thanks for keeping me on my toes. It is actually FIVE teams that have finished in the top 10 and I changed the header page to reflect this.
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