Lucas: Red Letter Day
October 29, 2014 | Mike Lucas
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Oct. 29, 2014
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com
Madison, Wis. -- Malachy Schrobilgen was seeing red -- Indiana red -- when he crossed the finish line and it represented a good news/bad news scenario for the Wisconsin men's cross country team.
Schrobilgen had just won the individual title at the 2013 Big Ten Championship. What the redshirt freshman experienced next was a "very quick turnaround" in his own words.
Let him explain his bittersweet feelings: "You win and you turn around," Schobilgen said, "and you see a couple of Indiana jerseys coming in before you teammates."
The Hoosiers had runners take fifth, seventh, eighth, and 10th before Wisconsin's Michael Van Voorhis finished 13th -- and that all added up to a team win for Indiana last year in West Lafayette, Indiana.
"It was pretty devastating," Schrobilgen confided.
Devastating because the third-place finish snapped the Badgers' streak of 14 straight Big Ten cross country titles, the longest run in conference history.
"When you lose something like that -- that means so much to a program like ours -- it goes a lot deeper than if you lose some other race," said Schrobilgen.
"The Big Ten (meet) for us, I'd say it's one of the defining characteristics of our team -- that's who we are -- we've won so many in a row for so long.
"To not win one and not dominate the conference, it kind of rocked us a little bit. But it has been definitely motivating, especially for a team that is as young and hungry as this one."
The 2014 Big Ten Championship will take place Sunday in Iowa City.
"I've had this date marked down on my calendar for a long time," Schrobilgen said.
And he has conveyed that message in no uncertain terms to Wisconsin coach Mick Byrne. "That's all he has talked about over the last year, `This is our time to win it back,'" Byrne said.
At his Monday news conference, Byrne acknowledged the importance of the 14-year winning streak and what it has meant to the legacy of all those runners who helped sustain that success.
"You recognize that it's bigger than you, it's bigger than that particular team in any given year," he said. "It represents everything that our program represents over the last 100 years."
During a recent workout, Byrne steered his golf cart over to Van Voorhis.
"Hey, we're 10 days away from getting our title back," he reminded him.
Van Voorhis looked at Byrne and winked.
"They know," Byrne said.
But what about the true freshmen like Joe Hardy and Morgan McDonald? Do they know?
"They haven't figured it out yet," Byrne said. "They were just up in the office and they were saying, `Everybody is talking about the Big Tens. What's this all about?"
What does he tell them? "I tell them, `Go talk to Malachy and Mike," he said.
That's pretty sage advice since Byrne views Schrobilgen and Van Voorhis in the same light. Asked who would be the "heartbeat" of this season's team, he singled out both of them.
"It's definitely Malachy, and Michael has grown into that role and he's kind of embraced it," Byrne said. "We're so young; the other guys are trying to figure out what their role is.
"They're trying to understand what it really means to be a Badger."
So how does Schrobilgen enlighten them? First of all, he conceded, "It's a little weird not being too much older than them (the freshmen)."
Nonetheless, he noted, "I've had the benefit of learning from some great seniors -- guys who have been through similar experiences -- and I'm just trying to impart some of that wisdom on them.
"They're young and they're really talented. They want to go out there and prove that they deserve to be on this team as much as anybody."
Taking a cue from Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, without spelling it out, Schrobilgen will encourage them to "relax" and "stay calm" and "keep their focus on what's important."
That would be the race on Sunday at the Ashton Cross Country Course in Iowa City. "You don't want them right now getting too crazy about it," Byrne said earlier in the week. "You can over-focus."
But you can't overlook anybody or anything in this race. "This is a different beast," Byrne said. "It's head-to-head competition, it's man-on-man because you can see the Michigan and Indiana guys."
You can see, too, where Van Voorhis' senior leadership might be invaluable.
"Mike is definitely the leader of this team," Schrobilgen said. "He's just a very calm, confident presence in the locker room and on the bus and at practice.
"He has definitely been through his fair share of trials and he has come out a stronger athlete and a better competitor because of it.
"I've learned a lot from him the couple of years that I've been able to run with him on this team and it's pretty awesome to see him involved in that leadership role.
"As one of the few seniors in the locker room, he has taken up that mantle and he has really been an excellent role model for a lot of the younger guys."
In mid-October, Van Voorhis led by example by placing 13th in the Wisconsin adidas Invitational. As a team, the Badgers wound up third behind Syracuse and Iona in the talent-rich field.
Schrobilgen came in 20th and it spoke volumes to his competitiveness, Byrne said. Not that he had any doubts about Schrobilgen's ability to compete at a very high level.
Schrobilgen, after all, was only the third runner in conference history to be recognized in the same season as Big Ten Athlete of the Year and Freshman of the Year.
"But he struggled in the adidas meet mainly because he cramped up," Byrne recounted. "But he fought through it. Great athletes do that. He didn't panic."
Byrne remembered thinking, "How good is this kid? Can he fight through this? He's having an off-day, but he knows that he has to keep going for the team and he did a really good job of that."
Looking at the big picture, he added, "He's going to benefit from it down the road."
Schrobilgen is on the same page with Byrne, though he was running from a different script.
"It wasn't my typical race plan, I was trying something a little bit new," he said. "It was a little unchartered territory and didn't go exactly as planned.
"But I was still able to prove to myself that I could push through when things weren't really falling my way. That gave me a lot of confidence going into this week knowing it's not the adidas meet that we've trained for -- it's the Big Ten and the regional and the nationals.
"Knowing that I can have my worst race at the adidas and still finish 20th, that's a pretty good sign of what I'm capable of doing when I'm running at my best later in the season when it counts."
Sunday will come much sooner than later. In fact, it can't come soon enough for Schrobilgen. You can count on that.
