When it's going your way, it's going your way.  So it was last week in the NCAA Division III Track and Field Championships, when North Central went all the way.

In a meet where 15 points separated the top six teams heading into the final day and the outcome hinged on each race, each jump and each throw, North Central got every conceivable break to win the national championship by a single point on its home track in Naperville.

The 75-74 margin was the tightest in the 21-year history of outdoor nationals and spelled the end of Wisconsin-LaCrosse's three-year reign.

"It took every bit of everything we had," said Al Carius, North Central's legendary coach.  "This is the most points we've ever scored at an outdoor national championship.  Man for man, it is just the most competitive, battling, confident, close group of guys that I've ever seen.  They went about their business event for event, man for man, and they just performed to their very, very best.  There was no letdown anywhere."

It all boiled down to the triple jump, the final event last Saturday, with North Central requiring a third-place finish from David "Frosty" Jones to wrap-up the undisputed team title.  Jones, who always jumps his best in the national finals, delivered again, this time a cool-under-pressure personal record 48 feel 8 1/2 inches for third place.  Jones, surprisingly enough, was seeded 11th of 13 entries coming out of the trials.

It was that kind of meet for North Central.

Brian Fennelly emerged from the trials ranked fourth in the discus and took first place, outdistancing the runner-up by more than six feet.  The next day he leapfrogged from a 12th seed to sixth in the shot put.  The Cardinals needed 20 points in the 5,000-meters and received 20 points as Dan Mayer, John Weigel, Jim Dickerson and Matt Brill placed 1-3-6-8, respectively.  The Cardinals needed points in the pole vault and got a fourth from Justin Tabour, who was ranked 11th of 16 contestants going into the trials.

"We just kept having more surprises," said Carius.

If there was one individual performance that symbolized North Central's inexorable team unity and determination, it was Dan Iverson, who took a tumble late in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, bounced back up and crossed the finish line in eighth place for one point.

"If he doesn't get up we would have lost," said Jones.

And there was Andre Coleman, the 1,600 relay anchorman who accepted the baton in rush-hour traffic, dodged a couple of runners and collided with another, yet ran an implausible 47.8-second split to salvage sixth place and three precious points.

The high scorer was Mayer, Division III's most acclaimed distance runner ever, who was good as gold in his bid to repeat as 5,000 and 10,000 champ.  Late last Wednesday night, after a lengthy rain delay, Mayer established a Division III standard in the 10,000.  The setting was surrealistic:  A partisan crowd cheered for Mayer on each lap as he rounded the track, with its damp surface shimmering under Kroehler Field's dim lights and the scoreboard counting down to a record.  Dave Valentine witnessed the termination of his mark, which had stood since 1983.  Afterward, Valentine seemed more elated than Mayer.

"It's just sheer enjoyment to watch Dan run," Valentine would say.  "It might be a decade before another runner like Dan comes along."

North Central turned out 14 All-America honors in the four-day meet.  Carius has produced 280 such awards in his 27-year coaching legacy, which included 12 national championships- nine in cross country and three in track.  In 1989 the Cardinals won the indoor NCAA track meet and followed up with an outdoor title at Kroehler Field.

"Every one is different because you share it with a new group of people," Carius said when asked to compare this championship with others.

"Each year is very, very special.  I'm at the top of my emotional ladder.  I'm just thrilled."

"It's a profound feeling," said Coleman.  "You're lucky if you experience it once.  This is great to experience it with this team, the greatest team that has come to North Central ever."

Coleman, who closed out his college career as an 11-time All-American, was sixth in the 200 dash, his only individual placement last week.  Coleman and his 1,600 relay partners Brian Johnson, Mike Brindley and Joel Badie clocked a blinding 3:13.10- the second-fastest time in school history- but came in sixth for the second year in a row.  For all its traditions and folklore, North Central's 1600 relay team has never won a national title.  This foursome wanted to become the first- with a school-record to boot.

"We didn't do as well as expected or anticipated," said Coleman, unable to hide his disappointment minutes after the relay had ended.

But North Central careers are never defined by one race anyway.  It's the team that counts, and in the end this joint effort superseded even the most glittering individual accomplishments.

"I didn't think we'd be able to pull it off," admitted Mayer, who wasn't alone in expressing doubts midway through Saturday's action, when LaCrosse was threatening to make the outcome a foregone conclusion.  "But we did it.  It took a whole team effort."

"It means more to me to win as a team than an individual," said Coleman.  "This was a great way to go out.  People just stepped up.  We just put together every possible point we could get.

"From Day 1, I said when it's going your way, it's going your way, and no matter what happens you're gonna come out victorious.  And here we are- victorious."

- by Bryan Byrnes 

from North Central NOW, August 1994
information provided by the College Archives