NXN makes a course correction, to Glendoveer

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Nike Cross Nationals is moving out of Portland Meadows to a golf course that is also a place where many Portlanders actually run.

GALLERY OF PHOTOS FROM NEW COURSE AREA AT GLENDOVEER

Glendoveer Golf Course, located about eight miles east of downtown, offers a setting more typical of cross country in the Northwest -- with trees, hills and expanses of green grass.

The move has been rumored for weeks but was finally made official on Thursday with Nike's press release.

The 11th NXN is only 51 days away, so there is going to be a significant adjustment. But early indications from some top coaches are that the change is welcome.

"I'm looking forward to qualifying for it," Fayetteville-Manlius coach Bill Aris said of the new set-up. "I like this course. I think it's a great improvement. We lose the hay bales, the mud, the pretender hills. This course affords a good challenge and covers a lot of bases. It should satisfy the masses from all over the geography of the country because it's more in line with all the different sorts of courses out there."

Aris' girls won seven of the 10 NXN championship races so Portland Meadows has been kind to him in the past.

"We've had success over the years and I'll have a little twinge of missing (Portland Meadows)," Aris said. "But I'm not that nostalgic. I'm onto the future like everyone else is."

The results of teams from California have offered a mixed bag over the past 10 years. Arcadia's boys won there. Other highly ranked teams seemed to be put off by wet conditions and mud.

Great Oak coach Doug Soles, who has highly ranked boys and girls teams this year in California, said he is all for the change. And it should be noted that Great Oak made the trip up to Portland in September for Pre-Nationals as well.

"Glendoveer is the perfect spot to host in my opinion and should be a familiar style course to virtually every area of the country," Soles said. "To me it will be very similar to Stanford or Griak and should level the playing field. It also solves the problem at NXN of no real warm-up area."

Soles may be more familiar with Glendoveer than most coaches. He's played golf there and run on the popular jogging path that goes around the 242-acre property.

Glendoveer itself is going through a period of change. When it was designed and opened in 1928 it was part of unincorporated Multnomah County east of Portland. As the city grew and filled in around the course, Glendoveer became a popular urban oasis and a everyman's type golf course.

A few years ago, Glendoveer changed management and moved under the umbrella of a regional governance body called Metro.

Glendoveer has two nine-hole courses -- the East and the West. NXN will take place on part of the West course and utilize a mostly flat area of holes that parallel Glisan street and also a down-then-up sloping hill that points toward Halsey Street at the North.

The wood chipped trail that goes around the perimeter of the courses, although popular with walkers and joggers and freshly re-surfaced last month, is not part of the NXN course layout. There is a small stretch of the path that might be used (based on the map), but it is generally too narrow to accommodate the size of the fields.

Ken Martinez, the coach at Aloha High School, which hosts Nike Pre-Nationals, said that the meet will continue one way or another. But he said he would meet with Nike representatives to figure out whether it will change venues as well.

Coach Timo Mostert of US#1 American Fork (boys), said: "I liked Portland Meadows, except the goose poop and the narrow sections where it was hard to pass people. It was a great spectator venue. It really doesn't matter to me where the race is, as long as we have an opportunity to race there. I'm sure the new course will be fun."