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Chico State Cross Country Program Faces Another Significant Challenge Following CCAA Decision to Suspend Fall Sports

Published by
DyeStat.com   May 21st 2020, 8:03am
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After enduring Oroville Dam flooding, Camp Fire and the tragic loss of Frace sisters in the past three years, Chico State presented with another potential obstacle of not competing next season due to fear over Coronavirus pandemic

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Gary Towne vividly remembers the school meeting two months ago that announced Chico State’s spring sports were being shut down due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. And he remembers how emotional the university’s softball coach, Angel Shamblin, was upon finding out her season was canceled.

As an assistant track and field coach, he also lost a season. Two months later, the longtime Chico State cross country coach was dealt a cruel double whammy.

“I felt really bad for her in that moment, and here we are now,” Towne said. “This whole thing hit me pretty hard.”

The California State University system, which contains 23 schools, announced last week that the majority of its 2020 fall semester will be limited — with a few exceptions — to online classes only.

Hours later, NCAA Division 2 conference, the California Collegiate Athletic Association, announced it was suspending fall sports competition, meaning 12 member schools — Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State East Bay, Cal State Los Angeles, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State San Bernardino, Cal State San Marcos, Humboldt State, San Francisco State, Sonoma State, Stanislaus State, and perennial cross country champion Chico State — will be sidelined.

A 13th school, longtime CCAA member UC San Diego, is in the midst of transitioning to Division 1.

The announcement leaves much for interpretation, such as when the conference’s marquee sports — men’s and women’s basketball — can start their seasons. There was also a report that some fall sports could move to spring, but this much is clear: There will be no cross country for the CCAA this fall.

“I first heard about it from other guys on the team that were talking about it,” said freshman Charlie Giannini, who grew up in Chico and redshirted this season, but also now stands to lose next season, in addition to track this year.

“Everybody’s pretty bummed out. It’s really hard to miss two seasons of racing in a row.”

Tucked into the northeastern corner of California’s Central Valley, Chico is a true college town, isolated from a major metro market. Sacramento is the closest, 90 miles to the south.

For the cross country teams at Chico State, the announcement pulled the rug out from a potential NCAA title-contending season. The men placed third and the women seventh at the Division 2 championships last season in Sacramento.

The men returned six of their top seven, and the program, as a whole, looks to continue a standard of excellence that’s marked 18 consecutive conference men’s titles and 12 straight for the women.

This, even with multiple curveballs the last few years.

Consider: In February 2017 the nearby Oroville Dam — one the team has run over the top for workouts — had its main and emergency spillways damaged, sparking flooding fears and forcing the evacuation for more than 180,000 people downstream along the Feather River.

Less than a year later, in January 2018, Chico State redshirt freshman runner Brittni Frace and her older sister, Brynn Frace, were killed as a result of a car accident when returning from their home near Paso Robles after Christmas break for the spring semester.

Ten months later, one of the most devastating wildfires in state history essentially leveled the nearby town of Paradise, burning through almost all of the town’s infrastructure and choking out the Wildcats’ programs as they prepared for the NCAA Regionals.

The 153,000-acre Camp Fire killed 85 people and dumped a thick layer of smoke across much of Northern California. Chico State's runners moved 80 miles to the southeast to train safely, in Nevada City, Calif.

Now there's this.

“It’s definitely been an unprecedented couple of years in our teams’ history,” said fifth-year senior Wyatt Baxter, who is from Simi Valley in Southern California.

“Even as the era of Gary Towne has been around since before I was born, just talking with him about it, it’s definitely been crazy times.”

None of these hurdles, though, knocked out a Wildcats’ season. And as good as Chico State has been, it has never won a national championship.

“We haven’t won one yet,” Towne quipped, “and I’m not getting any younger.”

Baxter was the Wildcats’ top men’s runner a year ago, leading the way at the Division 2 national championships to a 10-kilometer time of 30 minutes, 24.7 seconds.

Sophomores Jack Emanuel (30th, 30:33.7), Jhavahn Holston (33rd, 30:35.2) and Trad Berti (46th, 30:56.9) — also the CCAA runner-up — and freshman Rory Abberton (42nd, 30:52.4) were the other scorers.

chicoFor the women, Chico State boasts the returning CCAA champion in soon-to-be sophomore Destiny Everett.

The conference runner-up, Cal State East Bay redshirt sophomore Angelina Ronquillo, earned All-America honors in November by placing 30th at the Division 2 national final.

Baxter is a two-time All-American and, like his teammates, had high hopes for 2020.

“No one wants to hear that not only one, but two, of your seasons are being stripped away,” Baxter said. “Especially me. I really like competing in cross country, maybe a little more than track.

“Especially,” he added later, “with it being my last year and not getting a shot at a third All-American or a team title coming off a hot season last year.”

Speculation is that the CCAA could afford to make this announcement since none of its member schools field revenue-generating football teams.

Other conferences with teams from the Cal State system, such as the Mountain West (with San Diego State, Fresno State and San Jose State), might wait as long as possible with football dollars on the line.

And that’s just talking about California, as COVID-19 hot spots around the country, should they persist, could render fall sports a fluid situation nationally.

“I have a feeling that this will be a lot more far-reaching than the Cal State (system) or the CCAA,” Towne said.

One report last week indicated the CCAA fall sports could move to the spring season. Towne said he’s heard that as well, but that wouldn’t help with Wildcats’ runners competing in track and field next spring. It would also likely squash postseason competition for those fall programs, unless the NCAA were to shift an entire sport’s schedule nationally and offer postseason competition in the spring.

Some could perceive that as a slap in the face to Chico State’s runners. This is also the conference that produced the Division 2 national champion in women’s volleyball at Cal State San Bernardino, which now stands to be unable to defend its national title.

“I think that would probably benefit soccer and volleyball,” Towne said. “And even then, for them, it may just end up on being a CCAA type of season.”

The fear for any CCAA school is the loss of student-athletes to transfers who may look outside the state for competition, or even in state.

Just after the CCAA announced its decision, the Golden State Athletic Conference, made up of smaller universities in California and Arizona competing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, announced it remains committed to competition this fall.

In addition, the state’s two most prominent high school cross country coaches, Doug Soles of Great Oak and Sean Brosnan of Newbury Park, agreed last week in Twitter posts speculating that college athletes in California might be looking for out-of-state transfer options where they can compete in the fall.

The boys teams from Newbury Park and Great Oak finished 1-2 at last December’s Nike Cross Nationals.

As of Tuesday, Towne said “he hasn’t had any athletes on our team considering going elsewhere.”
Perhaps Chico’s community feel will help on that front.

“I think it’s always been part of our retention,” Towne said. “I feel like we’ve had a good connection. … Because, yeah, that experience of being a close-knit campus and close-knit athletic community is really a unique experience.”

Giannini knows this well. Though just a freshman — he redshirted and is now slated to miss his redshirt freshman season — Giannini led Chico High to a seventh-place team finish in DIvision 3 in 2018, placing sixth individually at the CIF-State Cross Country Championships.

Giannini also led his teammates to a special time trial held at West Valley High in Cottonwood to help Paradise’s Gabriel Price, who lost his home in the devastating Camp Fire, meet the Northern Section requirement to qualify for the state-championship meet. Read Gabe's Race by Dave Devine

“… Having everything thrown at you,” Giannini said, “but then you have all these people to get through it together. It certainly takes off some of the edge.”

Since only the CCAA has thus far called off fall sports, there is no plan in place to offer an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA.

Towne speculated, and hoped, that perhaps there might be some sort of hardship waiver available to those who want their lost year back, just like the one the NCAA Division 1 Council extended March 30 to seniors competing in spring sports to gain eligibility relief during the 2020-21 school year after all winter postseason and championship events, along with the entire spring athletic schedule were canceled March 12 by the NCAA as a result of the pandemic.

Baxter said he won’t go that course. He’s already in his fifth year and doesn’t want to pursue a double major to continue eligibility.

For him, this is the end in cross country.

“We’re just rolling with the punches,” Baxter said. “It is what it is. It (stunk), but in a way, it isn’t a big surprise, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

“The decision is way above us. There’s nothing we can do.”



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