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Issued: October 29, 2004
BLUGOLDS GET READY TO HOST NCAA CROSS COUNTRY NATIONALS
Plans are underway for the NCAA Division III cross country national championships which will be hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire at the Whitetail Golf Course south of Colfax.
The men's 8,000-meter race will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, November 20 while the women's 6,000-meter race will be conducted at noon that same day.
Because of the number of participants and the limited parking at the course, all spectators will have to ride a shuttle bus to attend the event. Only the teams, officials and media will be allowed to park on-site with appropriate credentials. In lieu of an admission charge, spectators will pay $5 to ride a shuttle bus. The spectator parking will take place at Colfax High School and the Colfax Fairgrounds with 10 shuttles making continuous round trips to the course beginning at 9 a.m.
There will be 22 qualifying teams in each race plus individual qualifiers from an additional 25 or so schools. The eight regional races that will determine both the team and individual participants will be contested Saturday, November 13.
An awards ceremony will follow the races at 2:45 p.m. Saturday, November 20 in the McPhee Physical Education Center on the UW-Eau Claire campus. A pre-race banquet is planned for Friday, November 19, at 6:00 p.m. in McPhee. Renowned track and cross country coach Vin Lananna will be the featured speaker at the banquet which will also include the presentation of regional coach of the year and runner of the year awards.
Lananna, who spent 26 years coaching track and field and cross country at Dartmouth and Stanford, is a four-time NCAA Coach of the Year. At Stanford, he built one of the top track and field/cross country programs in the nation. Between 1992 and 2003, the men's cross country team won three NCAA championships and the women one national title while the men's track team won one national crown. Since 1994, he has served as president of Nike Farm, a post-collegiate program for corporately funded professional athletes. He is currently the Director of Athletics at Division III Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.
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