Schumacher Addresses Media Monday
October 28, 2002 | Men's Cross Country
Wisconsin men's cross country coach Jerry Schumacher spoke to the media on Monday during UW's weekly news conference. Schumacher talked the upcoming Big Ten championship and addressed various issues about the team.
A transcript of the news conference follows. The news conference video is available by clicking on `multimedia' on the red menu bar.
Opening Statement: 'I think so far the season has gone very well. We have accomplished the things we needed to accomplish. As cross country works, almost everything before the championship part of the season is almost pre-season. We put ourselves in position for the championship part of the season, to get done what we want to get done, which we hope to include a Big Ten title this weekend. '
Have you run your best lineup yet' 'No, not yet. We have been a bit protective of our squad this season in order to really get ready for the championship meets, which would include Big Ten, regionals, and NCAAs.'
Will you be at full strength for this week' 'We will be almost at full strength. One individual probably will not be running this season who we had hoped. He had a stress fracture this summer and will not recover enough to run and that would be Josh Spiker. The chance of him running this season will be very slim. Other than that we will be running at full strength this weekend.'
So your ranking is based on non-full strength ' 'Correct. We probably should not even be ranked as high as we are, based on what we have done so far and run so far this season. I kind of take the ranking as something that does not hold a lot of weight. Really, what it comes down to is this part of the year and what you are able to do now.'
Are you being ranked for what you could do or what you have done' 'I think some of the coaches who are voting are voting based on what we could do and I think some of them are looking and saying we should be ranked 30th or not even ranked. So I think we are kind of in the middle because of that reason. I think some of them have ranked us high and some of them really low and that is why they are putting us in the middle.'
