Schumacher Addresses Media Monday
November 13, 2007 | Men's Cross Country
Jerry Schumacher, the University of Wisconsin men's cross country coach, addressed the media Monday as part of the UW's regular weekly news conference.
Schumacher's fourth-ranked Badgers compete in the 2007 NCAA Championships on Monday in Terre Haute, Ind. The men's 10,000-meter race begins at 11 a.m. on the LaVern Gibson Championship Course. Both men's and women's races will be broadcast live on CSTV.
Wisconsin, which is making its 36th straight appearance at the national meet, is the only school to qualify for all NCAA championships since regional qualifying began in 1972. In the last five years, the Badgers have not finished lower than second at the national meet, including the championship in 2005. In 2006, the UW finished second to Colorado.
A complete transcription of the news conference follows below. A video archive of the news conference can be found by clicking on the Audio/Video link to the right.
So since (Jim Stintzi) just put it out there, is there sandbagging and have you ever sandbagged'
I don't think sandbagging is probably the right word for it. We've been in a position recently where we've been able to hold certain individuals out of the regional competition and still felt comfortable with the idea in mind that we would still advance to the national championship. I think sandbagging would certainly imply that we would be not trying to do our best and that wouldn't be the case.
I think the idea behind it is to advance ' Cross country is the only sport where every team that has a chance to win races at the exact same time or competes against each other at the exact same time, exact same moment. That is, it just happens in one 30-minute period. And the team that runs the best wins and the team that runs the worst is going to be 31st and there's 31 teams there.
And the ultimate goal is to qualify, at the regional championship, is to qualify, in my opinion, would be as easy as possible and as relaxed as possible so that you can better prepare yourself and advance to the national championship, which is one week later or eight days later.
And that's been our goal and we've been in a position where we 've been able to hold some key individuals out. Whether you want to call that resting or not having to travel them or allowing them to train through the weekend, whatever it might be, it's been definitely an advantage, I think, for our program the last few years to be able to do that and I think that's probably what we 've done.
The answer is definitely no.
Yes, the answer would be no to sandbagging.
Jerry, doesn't that speak to the type of talent that you have more than anything, that you're able to sit your top three guys in your lineup and still win'
We haven't been able to sit our top three probably per se, but this past weekend, we sat out Stuart Eagon and Andrew Lacy, and they were our second and third runners at the conference meet two weeks before. And they've kind of been on that cycle anyway all season with running a meet, resting, running a meet, resting. And we definitely thought it'd be advantageous to keep them on that cycle in preparation for the national championship.
So that is what we did and when we do that, it really puts the emphasis a lot on some of the key members at seven, eight, nine and 10 (positions) on our team and, which is wonderful because it gives some young guys some experience at major championship events that hopefully they will be at in the future and contributing to the team score.
And although some of those runners knew that they wouldn't be running at the national championships, because when we plug them in, their spot might be gone, it still gave them another late-season race in a championship format. Where other teams are, they go to the meet and they know that if we don't run well on that day, we're not going to qualify.
So it's definitely been a testament to the talent on the team and the young guys knowing that, `Oh, this is my chance to kind of do something at a big event.' And they've always stepped up and done their job really well in those situations.
Matt Withrow seems to have been battling injuries for the last couple years. How did he get healthy and get back into shape '
Matt (has) struggled with a few injuries early on. He's worked really hard, basically the last year or so. He came off his last injury, probably it was late cross country season last year and track season was a struggle just to kind of maintain some sort of fitness while ' he had no foundation, no base to build upon and it was more just kind of getting back into the sport form.
And then he had a great summer this year and we've been very careful to keep him healthy and keep him training. And with him, he's very talented and consistency is the key. He doesn't need any special big hit on any particular workout day. He just needs to consistently train well and he'll do a good job. That's really what we've tried to do with him.
From the last poll that came out last week, it looks like Oregon is the team to beat. But is this maybe just a wide-open race like any good race'
I think that's well put. This year, perhaps more than any other year, where you can single out one or two teams, maybe three teams, that you think, well, on any given day, one of those two or three teams could probably win it and there's a clear-cut favorite. I think this year there really isn't a clear-cut favorite. I really believe there's eight teams that have a chance to win it on the day at nationals this year, which is wide open.
And we're definitely, I would not put us as the favorite to win by any means. But I also wouldn't rule it out. The young guys have really, I think they 've improved all season long and as I said, heading into the Big Tens, we 've gotten better every single race and we're still doing that, and I 'm really pleased with where we're headed going into the meet.
And again, I would never say we're the favorite at this point just because I think there's some other teams that are very, very talented and very good, but they're not so far out of reach that any kind of, well, that's why you run the race, of course. But any kind of mishap and if no team is running well, like I said, one of eight teams could win it this year. So I would expect scores to be pretty close.
Jerry, if you go back over the last five years, what you've done at the national meet, knowing you, you go, you probably focus on what you were unable to get done more so than the time you won the championship. Was there one thing that separated that one that one first place from the other second places' Was it a multitude of things or did it just come down to one simple element that your team just didn't run as well as it could on that given day '
I think when you look at it over the last five years, starting with the earliest, five years ago, the first-two second places, we really weren't in a position to win it. I think we were a very good team, but not a team that could actually win on that day. That would have been, it would have taken Stanford, I think won both those years, and they had just, they had the kind of team that we had when we won it in '05.
When we won in '05, they had a team like that and it would have taken a lot to kind of derail that team and that's, it would have taken a lot to beat Stanford on those years. So we were actually pleased with our second-place performances at those first two. And then in '04, we had a team that definitely we thought could win and that was a tough pill to swallow. That was the one we lost by four points and more or less, we just lost that in, probably in the last you run 10,000 meters and to lose it in the last minute of the race or so is where we lost those few places that really counted and that was a tough one.
And Colorado ran great that day, definitely deserved to win. (I) just wish the raced would have ended about a minute earlier. But so I don't think there was anything really to focus on there so much as Colorado ran great. And we didn't run poorly. We just didn't run well enough to win.
And then the following year we won, which was, which is great, and that was a team that, as I said before, they were a very senior team, been there before, didn't want to experience the disappointment that they had the year before. I would have taken a lot to probably derail that team.
And then last year's team, kind of a complement of young guys and old guys, and I think, unfortunately, last year for us it was oe of our key players or athletes, Chris Solinsky, just, you know, he had one of those seasons where he got the flu, got sick and we were never able to get him back on track.
And that was a team that we definitely could win the meet with, but we really had five guys that we counted on to do that with on that day and one of those five just, he just couldn't, it wasn't his time. And hris more than made up for it in his four years here and all the things he did for the UW and our program, but he just had, it was a rough day for him.
We had to be mistake-free in order to win it last year and we definitely were not that. So this year, we're hoping to be mistake-free and we're hoping that one of the other teams that I think is perhaps a little bit better than us has a few mistakes in there and who knows.
How do you expect Stu Eagon to perform after he, I understand he rolled his ankle back in August and he's kind of getting back. He performed pretty well at the Big Ten. How do you think he's going to do at nationals'
I think Stuart, he's a savvy veteran now. He's he's been top 20 (at the NCAAs) two years in a row. Whether or not he's top 20 or not, I 'm not sure, but he'll run. The one thing I can count on with Stu is that he will do his job as a team member and we'll get what he's capable of doing on that day, we will get that from him. It won't be anything less.
So I really don't have too many concerns with how he'll perform. His ankle is getting stronger every week and he gets more fit every week. I'm just not sure where that will be. He finished fifth at the Big Tens. And he's a guy who 's capable of running up front. It was a nice surprise to see him finish that high in his first race and he's only better from there, when the meet was three weeks ago. He's better now than he was then.
Jerry, of the eight, you said it was a wide-open race. Eight schools are probably in that mix. How many do you believe sitting here today are better than your team'
Well, I think on the day all of them could be. There could be seven of them. But on the day, we could be better than all seven of the other ones. So it's really hard to say.
And there will be some surprise teams in there that'll have a good day as well, but I think right now, looking at results and how they've performed all season long, I think there's seven other teams that have a legitimate shot to run up front and possibly win the championship this year.
And Oregon obviously is one of them, and I think Northern Arizona and Iona, I think Arkansas, Colorado, obviously. Who am I leaving out' UTEP. I think those are all teams that can do it. They've all shown the ability to run very, very well this season.
And when you look at some of their bright moments throughout the season and I kind of like to plug us in and say, okay, if we were in that race, how would have we performed, there are times where they would have definitely, all those teams could have beaten us on the day. So that's how I know they're good teams.
So if they all run to their potential, it's going to be a fun race. This will be a fun one that we haven't seen in recent years. A lot of times it's come down to a two- or three-way team battle out of 31 teams, and this year I think there 's eight of those 31 that are really going to be banging away for the win.
Do you wish someone would have done a little bit better so you didn't have to share the regional title with Michigan '
I wasn't even so concerned about that. The regional qualifying is ... you want to be top two to advance to nationals, get through it as easy as possible, don't overextend yourself. And that's the unique thing about I think our sport, is that, although you like to win, it's a championship event, but it's far from being the important one that this team and program is focused on on a yearly basis. So sure, it would have been nice to pick up a point somewhere, though.
