St. Olaf Takes the Title

When St Olaf coach Phil Lundin wants to pay a compliment to one of his runners, he'll often use a "Royism," a phrase or saying passed down from Lundin's coaching mentor at the University of Minnesota, Roy Griak.  "They're snotty nose tough" is one that he picked out of his collection to describe members of this year's team.  They're also NCAA DIII XC champions, the first national champs in cross country in St. Olaf history.

To listen to the Ole dynamic duo of coaches Lundin and Dave Griffith describe the development of this year's team from contenders to champions reveals a mixture of hard work, intelligent training, and luck.  No secret workouts, no "magic sauce," no oratorical pyrotechnics or motivational speech to the team.  Just a methodical, consistent level of high performance and blending of skills.

"Griff and I are probably the worst motivators in the world,"  said Lundin.  "We just get them to the line and let them to their job...We do expect people to compete hard."

At the beginning of the season Griffith, whose coaching relationship with Lundin goes back decades to when the pair coached at Burnsville High School, worked the numbers.  He evaluated the talent they had on their team and examined the other teams in their conference(MIAC), region, and the nation.

Dave Griffith

"Looking at the stats,' Lundin said.  "(We could see) we had the personnel to at least think about a national championship.  But to win a national championship, the stars have to be in alignment."  There were no pithy sayings above the locker room door or posted on the walls.  No methodical plan laid out in detail about how to win that championship, other than simply taking care of the task of preparing for that aspiration day by day, workout by workout.

Run on soft surfaces.  Don't race your longer training  runs.  Stay healthy.  Listen to the athletes.  How were they feeling.  What injuries had to be either treated or workout schedules adjusted to avoid  a potential physical problem.  "Pretty basic stuff," says Lundin.  "Just manipulation of (workout) volumes and intensities.A lot of emphasis on the individual...Ideally we just want to be consultants."

From examining past performances, Griffith and Lundin could see the potential of the team.  The key, however, was to transform that potential into performance.  In junior Grant Wintheiser they had a proven team leader, MIAC and NCAA Central Region champion from 2012, a contender for the NCAA individual title.  Junior Jake Brown, a top cross country skier who finished 16th at the American Birkebeiner 50K this year, transferred from Princeton, started slowly but blossomed as a talent as the season progressed.

Senior Brian Saska, a national class middle distance runner who developed into an All American 8K XC runner. Sophomores Jake Campbell and Calvin Lehn, who contributed the key fourth and fifth place runner scores allowing the Oles to triumph by two points over North Central. Pushing the top five were junior Phillip Meyer and senior Dylan Davis.

Going into Nationals, Lundin says, the Oles aspired for first, but wouldn't have been disappointed if they were runners-up or finished third in tandem with their national ranking.  When the gun went off to begin the contest, opportunity and luck came into play.  "I was surprised North Central didn't go out aggressively," said Lundin.  "We kind of stole the race."  When North Central didn't immediately take control, the Oles took advantage the "gift" and grabbed the lead, an advantage they would not surrender.

The hallmark of the team this year, Lundin said, is that they were consistent. "The group really competed at a high level every time they went out," said Lundin.  They weren't impacted by the fact it was the national championships.  They weren't deterred by the fact that they were competing against the dominant team in DIII, North Central.  No secrets.  No sauce.  Just execution.  And success.