Wetmore-Wednesday Top Races: Goucher Starts An American Revolution

BOULDER – The Colorado track and field and cross country program has a special history, one that began to hit full-stride under head coach Mark Wetmore.

CU track and field and cross country will take a look back at every year under Wetmore and recap the best races and teams of every calendar year.

The 1998 cross country season is one forever immortalized in Chris Lear's book 'Running with the Buffaloes.' A team of strong American men gathered in Boulder that summer with the intentions to upend the NCAA that had not seen an American win the individual title in six years.

ADAM GOUCHER 1998 CROSS COUNTRY NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (VIDEO) (5,000) (3,000)
The 1998 men's cross country individual national championship is the first under Wetmore's tutelage. That alone makes it one of the most important single races in Colorado history. Add in the story and tragedy that was the 1998 cross country season for the Buffaloes and you have all the makings for a blockbuster sports movie (or best-selling book).

The 1998 season was something completely different than anything ever experienced by a collegiate cross country team. Things started out differently when a 24-year old Princeton alum convinced Wetmore to allow him to record day-by-day accounts of the CU cross country team. That was the first miracle. Lear followed the team around everywhere he could, even up a mountain in Buena Vista, recording and writing what he believed would be a great story of an American Revolution on the NCAA men's cross country title.

The men's team of Adam Goucher, Chris Severy, Jay Johnson, Tom Reese, Adam Batliner, Ron Roybal, Mike Friedberg, Oscar Ponce and others were poised to battle with both two-time defending champion Stanford and Arkansas who had won four-straight titles at the beginning of the decade and five in six years. Tragedy struck on October 12^th when Colorado's projected No.2 runner, redshirt senior Chris Severy, passed away after striking a tree while making his daily bicycle descent down Flagstaff Mountain.

To say the team was devastated is an enormous understatement. Their brother had fallen and would never again join them for a Wednesday battle up Flagstaff Mountain or a 95-mile week of training. Someone that had been by their sides for the past five years, putting in thousands of miles, was violently ripped from their lives.

Fast-forward three weeks, still heartbroken and with a multitude of recovering injuries, the CU harriers lined up in front of a packed crowd in Lawrence, Kansas. Crowds from all three divisions of the NCAA were lined up ready to watch the next 30 minutes of suffering, the last for many of the CU men. Chief among them was Goucher, who had foregone his professional career just for a chance to take the title that evaded him numerous times after a second place finish his freshman season.

The redshirt senior was among the favorites as he had already captured two more national championships in the spring of 1998, defending his indoor 3,000-meter national title in an NCAA record and taking the outdoor 5,000 title. His junior cross country season he was undefeated all year long but was sick the final week and ended up fourth. This season, Goucher had lost to Butler's Julius Mwangi, a Kenyan runner that upset him at prenationals on October 10^th. Mix in Arizona's Abdi Abdirahman and Washington State's Bernard Lagat and Goucher was up against a large number of talented non-american runners.

Add in the additional pressure of the University of Kansas building giant silhouettes of running legends Billy Mills, Jim Ryan and others, both of which were in attendance for the occasion along with teams and fans from NCAA Division II and Division III championships, as Kansas hosted all six races on the same day and course.

In the words of coach Wetmore, "The University of Kansas's Rim Rock Farm has an unusual race course, not a groomed course like the modern ones, hilly, sometimes bumpy, muddy that day, and often out of sight. The race went out conservatively, so there was a huge pack at the mile mark, when they first disappeared. Each time the race reappeared the lead group was reduced. The pace was accelerating…out into view 100 runners, disappear, back into view 50 runners, disappear, and so forth."

In that time span Goucher had moved to the front, covering a move by Abdirahman and surging past him to the front. Between the first kilometer and mile Abdirahman took the lead again while all the favorites sat in waiting, Mwangi, Lagat, and of course Goucher.

After the second mile, Stanford's Brad Houser, Jeff Simonich of Utah, Matt Downin of Wisconsin and Sean Kaley of Arkansas rode up to cling to the back of Goucher and the three African-descended racers. "Be patient," Goucher told himself. "Good guys take a long time to die. Don't get too excited."

"By the 3rd mile it was down to just a handful," said Wetmore. "The crowd, hoping for an American winner, was chanting, 'Goucher, Goucher, Goucher.' Out of sight again for a while, back into view with two miles to go and down to three: Abdi, Lagat and Adam. 'Goucher, Goucher, Goucher!'"

Seventeen minutes into the race and Lagat began to fade. Abdirahman and Goucher begin running side-by-side. "It's me and him now," thought Goucher. "This is where the race begins, this is where it really gets hard."

"Back into the woods," recalled Wetmore. "The spectator crowd surges across a wintry field to wait at the next point of visibility. Up a wooded, steep hill come Goucher and Abdi into view. Abdi with a step lead. Lagat out of sight behind. And then again invisible behind a hill."

With Billy Mills Hill coming into view, Goucher made his move and began to accelerate farther and farther from Abdirahman. Up the hill, Goucher saw Wetmore at the 8K mark, where Wetmore yelled, "There's a lot of running left, a lot of running. Stay cool babe!"

Goucher continued to press his lead when a wall hit with 1200 meters left. With lactic acid surging throughout his body, Goucher recalls hearing someone in the crowd say, 'Do it for Chris!' Goucher thought to himself, "Alright Chris, if you're with me, let's do it."

"On the top of that hill, maybe 300 meters from the waiting crowd, are tall, metal, silhouette statues of former University of Kansas running stars, Jim Ryan, Billy Mills and others, ten feet tall, spaced widely apart," said Wetmore when recollecting the moment 22 years later. "And then a smaller silhouette, but moving, and alone…in an identifiable posture … Goucher! 'Goucher, Goucher, Goucher, Goucher' chanted the crowd, as, step by step, he surged away to the win."

Goucher had accomplished his final goal at CU. The American was on top, the best of all the thousands of NCAA cross country runners. His revolution was just the beginning as the Buffs would capture a total of four individual NCAA titles in six years.

"My senior year cross country national championship was the most memorable for me," Goucher said during his CU Athletics Hall of Fame induction. "It was something I had been wanting for a while, since I came in second as a freshman. When you work that hard for something for so long, you can remember every step of it. All my wins were exciting, but that was the one I wanted the most and took the longest."

The 1998 season saw the departure of one of the greatest class of seniors to ever toe a start line for Colorado. Through every up and down the CU mantra stayed true, capping the end of an era for Goucher and others. Lear's final line in 'Running with the Buffaloes' sums it up perfectly – "For Mark Wetmore and the CU harriers, the beat goes on."

*A special thanks to Leer and Goucher for their work in Running with the Buffaloes. Much of the detail included in this article came from passages in the book.

PAST TOP RACES:
1997: ADAM GOUCHER INDOOR 3,000 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
1996: ALAN CULPEPPER NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 5,000/ WOMEN'S BIG EIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
(VIDEO)

Wetmore-Wednesday Top Races: Goucher Starts An American Revolution

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