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CCIW Championship Homepage
Oct. 30, 2013 - Milestone victories are few and far between these days for the North Central College men's cross country program, but the Cardinals are poised for just such a benchmark as they host the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Championships at St. James Farm in Warrenville on Saturday.
North Central has the opportunity to extend the team's string of consecutive CCIW Team Championships to an even 40 years, one of the longest such streaks in collegiate sports. A win this weekend would be the 44th overall CCIW title in the 48-year tenure of head coach Al Carius.
"I think back through the years, and every year has a story and a team and its own memories," Carius said. "You want to appreciate everything and you want to help the athletes appreciate the moment, because it is their time. As a coach, you can't live too far in the past and you can't live too far in the future. That's a big lesson in life, to live in the now, and you learn it the older you get.
"It's great that those things happened, and the memories that occurred for each one of those teams, and the growth that happened has been fantastic, but right now the most important thing is this group of people and helping them have the best experience they can."
This year's team has owned the No. 1 spot in the national and regional rankings released by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) all season long. The Cardinals have backed up their lofty status by finishing first in every meet in which the full squad has competed. The only team to finish in front of the Cardinals has been Grand Valley State University (Mich.), then the No. 3-ranked team at the NCAA Division II level, at the Notre Dame Invitational on Oct. 4.
In North Central's most recent meet, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Brooks Invitational on Oct. 19, the Cardinals placed seven runners in the top 19 finishers in a field of more than 500 competitors and topped a 37-team field with eight nationally-ranked opponents with a total of just 33 points. North Central was 31 points ahead of Washington University in St. Louis, currently the No. 2-ranked NCAA Division III team in the nation.
"I think we have some really strong positive momentum coming off of that meet," Carius said. "We had most everybody healthy, the weather was great, and things are blending together at the right time.
"It's a very important meet because it's at the end of the season, it's a standard course that we've run on many times, and a national championship has been held there, so it's pretty accurate. It was an excellent meet to help us sort things out. We're still looking to (the NCAA Division III National Championships on) November 23rd, so we're still looking to see who's running well."
Three-time USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week Award winner John Crain has been the Cardinals' leading runner all season, winning individual titles at Notre Dame and Oshkosh in addition to the Hanover College Madison Kiwanis Invitational on Sept. 7. He has earned First Team All-CCIW honors twice, including a second-place finish in last year's meet.
Five other members of this year's squad have finished in the top 10 at the CCIW Championship. Roger Klein placed sixth, Troy Kelleher seventh and David Weber ninth in the 2012 meet, while Matthew Brinkmeier and Tim Hird finished second and seventh, respectively, in the 2010 championship. Brinkmeier added a ninth-place showing in the 2011 meet.
In addition to their performances at or near the front of the competitive field, the Cardinals' veterans have been instrumental in carrying on the tradition of paying leadership forward which has been integral to a streak of conference victories which, in many cases, now doubles the age of the current competitors' lives.
"It's important that you have upperclass leaders that grasp that responsibility, that their teammates took the time to teach them and guide them and help them along, and they turn around and do the same thing for the guys that come after them," Carius pointed out. "That's been a tradition in our program, and if you don't have upperclass leaders doing that, then when a coach talks, it's just words. They listen to their own teammates much better.
"We're fortunate that these guys have picked up on that, and by doing that I think they're more secure with themselves, and the reality is that it's helped them become better athletes because they're not just thinking about themselves."
The men's championship race on Saturday is scheduled to begin at 12:45 p.m. More information, including past championship results and directions to the course, can be found at cciw.org.
