Colorado University Athletics
Press Conference Quotes
Mark Wetmore
On coaching Jenny in college- “The college coach deals with people in a volatile period in their lives. There is an establishment on identity and an establishment of autonomy that takes place between (ages) 17 and 22. It means that an athlete is different every year and different every season. There’s a great comfort to a coach, particularly one entering into his golden years, to win the lottery of an athlete who says, ?How far? How much? How soon?’ I can’t remember in four-and-a-half years of Jenny ever saying to me, ?Why are we doing this? Should we be doing something else?’ This is pretty common with people in that age group. So that makes it easy to write a plan and to trust a plan, even one as complicated as going to the World Championships, Olympic Games, with three full collegiate seasons along the way. People have asked me, ?What’s special about Jenny Barringer?’ Well other than coaching, her parents. Either by nature or by nurture she turned out to be a dream to coach.”
On what Jenny has meant to the CU program- “Objectively speaking, she means a very low score for our first runner at the NCAA Championships and a very high individual score at some event at the Indoor Big 12 and Outdoor Big 12. But also, a coach always says to himself or herself that I know what I can do if I get the right material, and it’s just a matter of waiting 37 years to get the absolute right material to show what you’re capable of.”
On Jenny coming back for this season- “We’ve had some very good people here in the past who stood to sign lucrative professional contracts at some point. I had tried to prevail on some of them to stay as long as possible for the purely financial argument that if you wait, you’ll do better. She trusted me in that decision and she’s now much more likely to sign a lucrative professional contract in couple of weeks then she would have a year ago. Nobody’s ever gone really early. One athlete ever went very early. Adam (Goucher) stayed for five years. Kara (Grgas-Wheeler, now Goucher) stayed for five years. So the athletes who have become the most successful professionally have stayed a long time. It’s a good place to stay.”
On competition at Nationals- “I think with the men and women, there are two teams that are heads above the rest. On the women’s side, the University of Washington, the defending champions, are talented and deep. Villanova seems to have emerged this year; they were nowhere near this good a year ago, but they’ve been dominant in the races they’ve gone through. Those teams are the favorites on paper. On the men’s side, Stanford has been winning everything dramatically. Oklahoma State is a young, upcoming team and has been cagey and careful in how they race. This weekend they didn’t have any individuals high up in their region, but they had six people finish within a couple of seconds of each other. Those two teams are ahead of the rest of the men. Behind that though, Florida, Florida State, Oregon are good on the women’s side. Texas Tech beat us soundly three weeks ago and then we beat them barely the day before yesterday. Those teams and us will be fighting for the podium on the women’s side. On the men’s side, we have a chance to be on the podium, the top four, if we race well. One question for us is whether we’ll be running our normal number one runner Kenyon Neuman. We held him out this weekend, we’re not sure we’ll have him back. He would make a big difference. But either way, with or without, we can still make it to the podium.”
On women’s cross country- “Last I looked, the most sponsored sport in the NCAA is women’s cross country. More schools have women’s cross country than any other sport. I think second is men’s basketball and third is men’s cross country. Every runner in the NCAA is invited to the first round of the tournament which happened last weekend. So even if you’re a woman and the female equivalent of what I was at Rutgers, which is someone not deserving of the first round, nevertheless you’re invited. So everybody, tens of thousands of women get invited to this first round of the NCAA. Then, 280 advance to what’s coming on Monday. It isn’t a poll, it isn’t a ranking, there’s no BCS. They all stand on the starting line in very little clothing in the howling wind in Terra Haute, Ind. in the winter time and they shoot a gun and run 3.75 miles. This is what I’m leading up to, the Heisman is a vote of who people think is maybe the best football player, but you know no offensive tackle has ever been considered. This is a race that determines the very best runner in the whole NCAA. I think it is the most prestigious title in all of NCAA sport. She (Jenny) could be thinking about legacy, she could be thinking about professional contracts, she could be thinking about a Ferrari 599 GTB, or a Tesla, but she’s been hearing from me and hearing from the other girls and hearing from herself, stay on task. Stay on this thing that’s going on Monday. This is a really cool thing if we can do it. Let’s focus on that. So legacies and Teslas are for Tuesday.”
On what event Jenny’s professional success will come in- “One of the most fun things of the last nine months has been Jenny demonstrating her requisite variety. She is national-class at 800-meters and world-class from 1500 to 5000. I am totally confident she could even run 10,000 at a world-class time. She may be someone who never needs to specialize. I guess that’s the fantasy; that we can do things well enough together that she can be world-class at lots of different events and have fun racing at a variety of distances. But if somebody came to me and said you have to pick one race for her, I would say the steeplechase. If I was asked what world record she could threaten the soonest, I would say steeplechase.”
Jenny Barringer
On achieving her goal- “As Mark (Wetmore) said and I totally agree, we always have a plan to be successful and a plan to win, but you don’t go expecting to. I know it’s going to be a hard race and hard work, but I have a lot of miles behind me and a lot of training and I have a lot of confidence in that.”
On how she views competition- “I think as a team everybody’s equal on the starting line. But as individuals there are definitely people you know are going to rise to the top. There are a couple people we have our eye on. I think my job on Monday is very specific and the plan is very much written for who I am and what my skills are and those other people are not really factoring in at this point, as far as my plan. They are going to be a factor, but not in my plan.”
On what will be her last race at CU- “I think that this race, more so than any other race, is a lot about who I am and not just what I do. It’s about putting myself in a very uncomfortable and difficult position to finish what I started and I feel very strongly about that; about being loyal to the group that has supported me the last four-and-a-half years. But, the race is another race so all of those emotions, I think it’s necessary to strip those away and see the task at hand and see it as another race and another job and another day at the office. That’s what I really hope for my mindset to be on the starting line. As far as going in to the week, I’m excited about being with the team, I’m excited about being with the women. I came back to be part of a team. I have opportunities to race other places, but the unique thing about this situation is being on the Colorado team. There are a lot of emotions wrapped up in that, but I’m not sad. I’m really excited. I think the future has all good things. I’m excited about the opportunity to really be myself and finish what I started.”
On running for Coach Wetmore- “I think the level of trust takes years to develop. I think the relationship we have with each other as coach and athlete is something that is never easily found and nearly impossible to ever replace. So I value that with him and with Heather (Burroughs). Through my years of college, I’ve discovered that being on your own for the first time and having to make decisions and taking responsibility for your own life and your own path, there are two people (Mark and Heather) in life that you can always count on. I really am appreciating and enjoying the opportunity to show my team and show my coaches that I am going to be a person that they can consistently rely on. In the same way, that’s been reciprocated. There have been several times, especially in the last track season, where I kind of looked back in my running log or in my notes that Mark and I exchange before races, and he’d put down a pace and put down a goal and I never really questioned it. He knows my running ability better than anyone does, better than I do sometimes. Looking back on those from a more offset perspective, I’m kind of surprised I trusted him as much as I did at times. But when you really work on that and develop that over time, you learn that these are people you can really count on. The rich get richer; it just builds on itself.”
On her decision to come back- “I feel like when I came here and when I was offered such a generous offer by the University of Colorado to come here, like that was an agreement for four years from them and four years from me. I felt like that decision was made from day one. The decision for me to come back for my fourth-and-a-half year, that also wasn’t difficult for me to make. But separate from the four years, I think that it was a decision I made on my own and that I really wanted to follow through with the women on the team. I really wanted to follow through with my desire to win a cross country championship. Boulder is the best place for me to train and the best coaches for me. So the decision for me was very easy.”
On redshirting last year- “I think I could have made it through the cross country season after Beijing, coming back from the Olympics. I think I could have had a successful season. But there’s no way I would have had the track season I did. You only have so much in a well and you draw out of it every time you race and every time you train. I know that I would have fought through and had a successful cross country season whatever the specific outcomes might have been. But taking that time was really a decision Mark guided me in, redshirting. It was really hard sitting on the sidelines especially when the team wasn’t doing as well. But I really got time to refuel and get excited about racing. The Olympics was fun and exciting, but a very stressful experience. Coming back from that, Mark was really wise in suggesting I take a season off. We decided that together and I wouldn’t trade that decision for anything. Being able to be a part of this team, this season has been really special.”
On what she has left- “I think I have quite a bit. I think I have what it takes to have a successful outcome on Monday. I think I’ve been consistent and I’ve shown that consistency over the season over the past few years. I think the bigger story is in the team and what the team has been able to pull off this year. The women went from not making it to nationals to second in the Big 12 and just this last weekend we beat Texas Tech, the only team that beat us at Big 12. So we’re moving up and I think the greater question would be what the team has in their well.”
On if she has thought about her legacy at CU- “Absolutely not. I am one of five women who will hopefully score on Monday. That’s an important job and a position I have a lot of respect for. Not every day is a good day, we plan on racing well, but what we do is really hard and I have a respect for that. The competition we’ll be facing is very well-prepared for this week, much like I am, so I have a respect for that. I hope that I’m a better teammate now then some big, awesome legacy. I hope that’s what is resonating with the women and that I can be one of five on Monday.”
On her career after CU- “There’s a big negotiating table and a lot of things are on it. Where I live and who is coaching me and those things are on the table. Fortunately I’m being sought after as a professional athlete and I don’t take that for granted. I’m really excited about being able to do what I do well and continue doing that in the following years. My primary priority is to stay in Boulder and I’ve made that very clear with all the people I’ve met with. It’s important to me to stay where things are working; not to fix something that’s not broken. But further than that, I have established relationships with the women on the team. I have a fianc? here that has a career of his own. So there a lot of things that are pointing me towards staying in Boulder and making that a top priority for me. As far as coaching, and my relationship with Mark and Heather, our relationship is nearly impossible to replace and that’s definitely going to be something else I look at.”
On her relationship with Kara Goucher- “I think Kara experienced a very different series of success than I have. She’s a very outgoing, very excited person and woman and I think she has a lot of passion for her racing, similar to I do. But like I said, she didn’t experience the same level of success in college as she has post-collegiately. I think there were some other decisions, moving to Oregon and so forth, that have proceeded her success. I’m very excited for her as it looks like she’s moving up into higher distances. But I hope she comes back down so I can race her a couple of times. She’s a very motivated and very fun woman to watch and I’m excited to follow in her career.”
On what event her professional success will come in- “I like them all. I love running, partially because I’m good at it. I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be doing all of this and as committed if I wasn’t good at it. It just fuels that, that I can be successful at several different events. I like having things to look forward to. I think I have some untapped talent that we’ve been able to see and demonstrate for the first time this last season. I think I have a lot of bright spots for me in the future.”