Only the Beginning

Cross country runners flaunt the fact: they relish each mile we would hate. "Our sport is your punishment," boasted one team at the Class 4A through 1A state cross country meet on October 28 at Wamego Country Club. The course was crawling that day with team signatures and rally cries screened onto warmup t-shirts. Baldwin, one of the most dominant programs in the state (winning the 4A state title from 1998-2005), identified themselves with smaller print and more text. Six lines of an African anecdote splayed on their backs: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter if you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running. Mulvane High's t-shirt offered warning over wisdom: "Beware of Wildcat Runner." Their performance on the trail at Wamego (state champs by a staggering 30-point margin) more than answered Baldwin's challenge. Mulvane complete their surprise season of utter dominance with the Class 4A state title. By mid-season this fall, out of nowhere, Mulvane had shown unmatched depth and became the 4A favorite. And the Wildcats followed through - completing a season vastly improved over their 2006 state appearance, in which just one runner, David Roberts, placed in the top 40. This fall, Roberts improved dramatically from eleventh place to individual state champ. Mulvane cross country doesn't have Baldwin's great tradition. Their previous and only other state title came in 1963 in the defunct Class A. But, they have a special group of young runners. A tradition is in the making. Roberts, a junior, is just a pure runner. A football player in middle school and as a freshman, Roberts found a new outlet in the spring of 2006. Dale Landes, Mulvane cross country and distance track coach, spotted Roberts, seeing potential after watching him run the 3200-meter; he invited him out for fall cross county. Roberts was a natural - breaking the school record at the league meet and placing eleventh at the state meet as a sophomore. However, talent alone doesn't win titles in any sport. So, Roberts went to work with his teammates. All this past summer, Nikki Trooien-Smith, Mulvane's sophomore No. 2 runner, dialed up his teammates for two-a-days. "Where are we going to run today?" he'd ask. When the sun came up, seven Mulvane kids were often running. Then counting down the requisite 12 hours of rest, they headed back out together at 7 p.m. - on a different course, somewhere through town. "Mulvane's a pretty small town," said Roberts the day before the state meet. "You can't go far without running on the same road at some point." "If they had their way, they'd run year-round," Coach Landes said. "I have to hold them back." When Landes and his son, Evan, a freshman who placed sixteenth at the state meet this fall, went on vacation to Maine over the summer, they asked the locals where people went to run. They drew some looks, but found a road race eventually. Powered by young, motivated runners, Mulvane is a clear favorite for titles the next two years. Not one of their scoring runners in this fall's state meet will graduate in May. Even if they had not had one of the state's top distance runners in Roberts, their lone junior, they would have won the state meet with five other runners placing in the top 20. Those five (three sophomores and two freshmen) would have won the meet by 17 points. Staggering. Stereotypically, while girl runners sometimes have their best years early in high school, boys almost always peak as seniors. With five sophomores and freshmen in the top 20 this year, in 2008 or 2009, the Wildcats could very well place all five in the top 10. With Roberts in his senior year next fall, they could have six. Consider Roberts' progression from his sophomore to junior year. In 2006, Roberts, placing eleventh at state, finished 35 seconds behind the individual winner, Andrew Wagner of El Dorado. One year later, Roberts is the champ, beating Wagner in his senior season by nearly 25 seconds - a full one-minute turnaround. Roberts beat second-place Josh Baden of Colby by 22 seconds. Just maintaining their current levels, Mulvane's three sophomores, Trooien-Smith, Wyatt James and Josh Hansen, and its two freshmen, Landes and Nick Lockwood, could reign over 4A for years to come. Landes had coached the Mulvane cross country team for 20 years before he got a group like this one. He'd had a few top individuals but never a team or individual champ on the girls or boys side. "Collectively, they're the best I've ever had," he said. Landes struggled to pinpoint why such a stout group has finally come together. His rigorous plan for each week has been the same: distance day on Monday, speed on Tuesday, an easy run on Wednesday. During weeks without a meet, they drive out to Udall to run up and down the hills lacking in Mulvane. He switches up the routes, sometimes taking them to the south end of town, other times across the street from the high school to a mowed-out path through farmland his family owns or to his backyard at home where has built a route over creeks and through woods. Anything to keep it fresh and interesting. "This is a sport based on consistency," says Landes. "These guys are just runners." At the state meet at Wamego, Landes tried to keep clear of them. What could he do? Either the stamina is there from a year's worth of work, or on Hill No. 3 or 4, you'll drop off. There are few upsets in cross country. Before the race, Trooien-Smith led the guys around the course, scouting out the hills and turns. But they already knew what they were getting into. In early September, they'd crossed over the prairie canyons surrounding the Manhattan-area and come to Wamego High's invitational meet. Mulvane dominated that race behind Roberts' 33-second individual win. "It's going to be them against the clock, them against the course," Landes said the day before the state meet. "Last year, I thought we were a year away." They were, as the Wildcats turned the 2007 4A race into a given before it even strated. It could be them against themselves for several years to come.