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The Day College Track and Field Shut Down - NCAA Division 3

Published by
DyeStat.com   May 28th 2020, 5:43am
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After The NCAA Division III Indoor Championships Were Shut Down, A Group Of Distance Runners Sought A Measure Of Closure In A City Park In North Carolina And Competed For Honor, And Donuts

Editor's Note: DyeStat is taking a look back at the events of March 12 of this year, when NCAA track and field athletes from all over the country were primed and ready for indoor national championships in three locations. Today, we explore the scene at the Division III meet in Winston-Salem, N.C. 

By Mary Albl of DyeStat 

A hardened surface bears the pounding of countless miles and too many weather-beaten seasons at a well-loved neighborhood track. Lane one is sunk in a bit, perfect for holding puddles after a rainstorm. A concrete rail runs along the outer skirts.

In all of its years, it probably never had two national college cross country champions step foot on it. 

“It was like a weird bizarro world version of the Nike Oregon Project Track,” said Wartburg College head cross country coach Ryan Chapman of the track. “In the middle you couldn’t see, but it wasn’t because there were trees. There were tennis courts.” 

But that old track did have some magic. 

On an overcast March 13 morning in Winston-Salem, N.C., the 400-meter, six-lane track at Hanes Park provided a sanctuary for more than a dozen devastated and distraught Division III distance runners seeking some sense of closure from a season that was ripped from their grasp less than 24 hours earlier. 

“At the end of the day, it’s not the track that matters, it’s getting out there and just racing and making something out of that situation we were in,” Patrick Watson of Stevenson University said.   

Piecing Together A Race 

When news broke in the late afternoon of March 12 that all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships were cancelled due to the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, Wartburg junior Joe Freiburger knew he needed to do something; not for himself but his teammates. 

“Our senior Caleb Appleton, I felt like he really needed to end his running career on a high note,” Freiburger said. 

Chapman and assistant coach Phil Spitzer already had the idea of running a 5,000-meter time trial of sorts, so working with Freiburger, they formulated a new plan. They scouted the nearby public track at Hanes Park, next to the local YMCA, while Freiburger furiously went to work contacting any and all Division III runners interested in running a 5K race Friday morning.

“I immediately started texting teams. I got on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, posting on Strava, whatever I could do to get a hold of other runners, because we’re not the only ones that had our meet taken from us, all of these other teams did, too,” he said.

While many teams had quickly made arrangments to leave North Carolina early Friday morning, an assortment of Division III runners from across the country assembled at 9 a.m. at Hanes Park.

Men and women representing Stevenson (MD), Wartburg (IA), Ithaca (NY) and Berea (KY), toed the line and ran their first and only 5,000-meter competition of the outdoor season roughly six miles from JDL Fast Track, where they had intended to compete for team and individual glory.

The race itself was what individuals wanted out of it. Freiburger took out the first 800 meters close to a 2:10 pace, challenging Watson, the 2019 Division III cross country individual champion. Watson won in an unofficial time of 14:20, while Freiburger finished with a six-second personal best of 14:23, the fourth-fastest outdoor time in school history had it counted.   

“People just love to run,” Freiburger said. “The medals, the trophies, the plaques, getting the All-American statuses, at the end of the day, it’s all superficial stuff. But everybody just loves to run, compete, better themselves and push their limits. So seeing all those guys meet up with us, we all had a great time, and I’d like to think I’m friends with all those guys that showed up.

“That’s a memory I’ll take with me forever.”

Finding A Reason To Race 

Ithaca’s Parley Hannan woke up on the morning of March 13 with no intention of racing.

Barely 15 hours earlier, along with thousands of other NCAA track and field student-athletes, her indoor track and field season was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic. During a FaceTime conversation with family members that evening, her brother, Tully, suggested a way to respond to the news was to go out and race. Hannan latched onto that idea. After having thoughts of putting together a bigger, more comprehensive 5K race, she set up a realistic plan with her teammates to get up early and race before they departed North Carolina. 

“I woke up the next morning (Friday), I had hardly slept, and I was like, ‘No, I’m not doing this. This was way too ambitious, I’m not going out and racing right now. I just wanted to stay in bed,’” Hannan said. “But I had already told (coaches) Erin (Dinan) and Frank (Micale) I would meet them in the lobby at 7 a.m.” 

As Hannan made her way to the lobby, so did her teammates, dressed in their Ithaca uniforms, ready to go. 

“As more people came I was like, ‘I have to do this. My team is here to support me,’” Hannan said. “I think it was seeing them that really fueled me to be like, ‘No, Parley, get out of your head, you're going to go do this. This is going to make you feel better. Running always does. You have all your teammates here to support you.” 

Hannan and her Ithaca teammates didn't know about the goings on and Hanes Park. They were just trying to find their way onto the first track they came across.

But it was closed.  

“We contemplated hopping the fence,” Hannan said. 

“We tried,” Dinan added with a laugh. 

We did try,” Hannan said. “And then we were like, ‘Oh, we have Ithaca written all over us, we can’t do it.’ So we actually talked to someone inside the school and found a track right nearby.”

The next track Ithaca came to was Hanes Park. When the group arrived, it was greeted by runners from Wartburg and Stevenson preparing to race. With a flight set to depart in two hours, Ithaca joined in.

Hannan, who won the women’s cross country individual title in the fall, and set the Division III indoor 5K record in February (16:05.36), was the top female finisher in 16:49. 

“It was really neat to see that camaraderie amongst teams,” Dinan said. “Everybody was feeling that same angst about, ‘This sucks, but let’s bring this back to, we love to run, we want to race.” 

The runners found each other because that’s what track athletes do. The gathering and the racing provided a sense of stability and normalcy at a time when the world was unraveling.

“Even though I wasn’t completing my track season, I think going out and putting out some effort was crucial toward my leaving North Carolina,” Hannan said.

Finding The Positives 

There wasn’t much doubt, going into the weekend of March 13-14 at JDL Fast Track, that Dylan Cooper was going to break the Division III record in the heptathlon. Going into the national championships, Cooper, a multi-event senior from Wisconsin-Eau Claire, had tied the heptathlon record with 5,441 points just a few weeks earlier at the WIAC Indoor Championships.

Instead, with 15-20 teammates surrounding him outside their hotel, he found out he’d never get that chance. 

“Immediately those are all the things your mind shoots to, ‘Oh, I never got to break this record, I never got to do this.’ Obviously with track you’re devastated because you put in all the work, you’re ready to compete, and then it's like 'OK, what’s really going on as far as the world,'” Cooper said. “But soon enough I was kind of able to look at the positives. That’s usually something I’m decent at, pulling positives out of negative situations.”

Cooper said later that evening a few of the multi-event athletes met up with some of the throwing coaches and were able to let some of their frustrations out by throwing the shot put. 

“It was good to do something, and use some competitive juices,” Cooper said.

While the national meet was canceled, Cooper’s future plans were expedited. Originally, he planned to go from Winston-Salem to Raleigh, N.C., to tour a training facility and work out with the Athletic Lab Track and Field Club, which includes decathlete Eric Broadbent

“I ended up working out with their group of track guys. Honestly it made the whole trip, because it gave me, obviously, not closure on my last journey in college, but it just gave me something to look forward to,” Cooper said. “It got me super-excited for what is to come.”

Now, Cooper has his sights set on training for the Olympic Trials in 2021 as he is set to move to North Carolina permanently and train with Athletic Lab. 

“I’m excited to jump in and work toward the Trials and what the future brings,” Cooper said. 

Making The Most Of It

When Watson found out his senior indoor track season was done, he laced up his sneakers and started running.

“I just put my shoes on and went for a run because that’s the only thing I could think about doing,” he said. “I walked outside and my coach was already out there so he came on a run with me. We were running pretty fast because we were frustrated and went for a pretty long run, of course not knowing I was going to be racing the next morning.”

Later that night of March 12, Watson was at dinner when he received a direct message on Instagram from Freiburger asking if he was interested in running a 5K Friday morning at Hanes Park, almost a mile and half from their hotel. 

“Right when I saw the message, I knew I was going to do it,” Watson said. “I came down there (North Carolina) to race. I didn’t care that I ran hard out of frustration, and I might have been tired, but I was going to go out there and have a good time. My mentality when I got that message, 'This is awesome. It’s not going to be a national championship but at least it's going to be a fun group of guys and girls getting together to make the best out of the situation we were given.

Watson said the emotions at Hanes Park were not those of people in mourning over what they had lost, but more so a group of motivated runners assembling their own version of a D-III national race and concluding the season on their own terms.

“It was a different experience and in some ways I think it was better,” Watson said. “And it just shows that everyone there had a passion for running.” 

After the race, Chapman opened a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and awarded all of the runners.

The participants took an “All-Krispy” team photo, and the park was equipped with a couple of cement steps that served as a medal stand, where Watson and Hannan stood and posed with their donuts. 

“You never know when an opportunity is going to come to do something really special,” Chapman said.   



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