Women: 3300 Meters
Men: 4881 Meters
One can only assume that Bethune-Cookman got the memo about the scheduled 6:00 (women) and 6:25 (men) ‘’tee times.” However, as race time drew near, the Lady Wildcats were nowhere in sight. Someone suggested that the driver of Wildcatmobile might have hit “scenic route” on her GPS before leaving Daytona, because by the time their bus was finally sighted by the JU Campus Security, those start times had to be adjusted by 15 minutes. Their Women’s team warmed up by sprinting from the bathroom to the starting line, finally arriving at 6:14. A grand entrance? Fashionably late? Team strategy? Who can tell? In effect, however, they made their presence known. First, you have Kadian “The Cleaver” Dunkley, who literally split a powerful Jacksonville women’s team in half.
“We had all planned to run together, as a team, the first half,” explained Jacksonville sophomore Svenja Meyer, from Hamburg, Germany.
But as the opening photos show, a “freshened up” Dunkley wedged herself among the “greenery.”
“We wanted to be out first, and be in the lead, so we had to pick it up,” said freshman Sarah Bailey, of Vernon, British Columbia, Canada.
“We knew that some of the schools would go out pretty past,” mentioned Svenja.
“After that, we had to judge where we were. We wanted (to be the first) five, for sure,” added Sarah
“As Sarah said,” Svenja continued, “we had to pick it up, but we still had to split up…but we were pretty close (to our goal).”
Sarah and Svenja were hand-timed in an almost identical 13:07.01 and 13:07.04, respectively. Next was Joane Pierre, in 13:07.22.
“Joane was trying to run with me, to help me,” clarified junior Amalia Vogler of Strausbourg, France. “She helped a lot.” (Vogler finished seventh, in 13:28.04.)
However, a pesky Kadian Dunkley wasn’t the least bit cooperative.
“We lost her for a bit coming up the (last) hill,” said Bailey.
“She (Dunkley) did a really good job coming down. But you could tell she was tired,” clarified Svenja.
“Coach (Ron Grigg) yelled ‘800 to go!’ We left her by the volleyball court,” continued Sarah.
“Going downhill,” added Svenja.
BCC’s Dunkley (fourth in 13:11.30) was the only non-Dolphin in the top nine places.
“I ran track—I did the 800, long jump, triple jump, 4 X 4, 4 X 8, and sometimes the mile in big meets, when they needed me.” And on weekdays, he caught in the late innings of baseball games, to give the starting catcher a rest….only kidding. But he did play football in the fall, which prevented him from running cross country his first three years of high school.
“The cross country coach (Freeman), asked me to come out, but I was playing football. I was being stubborn. I was getting hurt; my knee was hurting. He kept worrying. But I finally came out. I thought it would be boring, but it wasn’t.”
When this computer engineering major runs, it is anything but boring. In this, his first college meet, over three laps of an old golf course (with a short, steep hill and an annoying stretch of sugar sand added for variety) he slowly dismantled the plans of a number of older, more experienced college runners, to win his first collegiate meet.
“It kind of felt like high school, in a way. I ran courses somewhat similar. The runners were more competitive (here), though,” he told me.
He wasn’t totally unprepared.
“I was talking to Kosta Fotopolous (Countryside class of 2010). I ran with him a couple of times just before college, and he said I’d be running a little farther.”
And the time difference, due to their bus getting lost?
“I already knew that I was going to run, because we (the men) went last. I was more worried about the women being late. In high school we were late a couple of times, but we got through it.”
Crossing the line in 16:30.57 completed a perfect day for Racy, I mean Ricy; one for one in college competition, and of course a new world record for 4881 meters. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Footnotes: All humor aside—easier said than done for yours truly—you can always count on Ron Grigg and David Frank to put the fun back in cross country. As alluded to, the course wasn’t a “standard” distance, so the runners ran, the photographers took pictures, and no one worried about PRs…except me. I just have to point out that there were 62 of ‘em (32 women and 30 men) in all. Ah, to bring back the good old days of endless variety in XC meets….
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