Relating to Greatness: By Bryan Green

By Bryan Green (@bryangreen1 )

LetsRun nailed it with their quote of the day, today.  It comes from Colorado Buffaloes coach Mark Wetmore, discussing his superstar Jenny Barringer.  As we all remember, Jenny broke the collegiate records from 1500m to 5k in the spring and finished 5th in the World Champs steeple this summer.  She easily could have turned pro at the end of the track season but she came back, and she's started off her season by breaking Kara Goucher's course record at the Rocky Mountain Shootout and by dominating the Blue Race at the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet this weekend, winning by 30 seconds after powering out to a 25 second lead at the half-way point.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Wetmore was asked in a Flotrack interview what it means to his team to have her return for this cross country season.  He said:  "First of all it takes a couple of hundred points off our score immediately. Secondly, they've gone from the point of being awed by her to just respecting and emulating her. Their training in the last year has come up a notch. They don't aspire to beat her right now, but a year ago they didn't even aspire to be like her and now they do."
Sometimes the hardest thing to do to a great athlete isn't beat them, it's relate to them. 

How often have you talked about a great athlete and heard people use words like "freak", "machine", "out-of-this-world", "bionic", "superhero", "robotic", "cheat code" or "Kenyan"?  These words don't just serve to differentiate a person, though.  They emphasize that what makes them different is something we don't have and we can't match.  Be they mutant, alien, programmed for destruction, or simply from the Kalenjin tribe, the sport, we are told, is just different for them.

We have a natural bias toward talent in this country, and maybe throughout the world.  We love talent, we love the idea of talent, and we love to identify and worship talent.  And when we've found a talent to love and worship, we do so by ascribing all of their success to their amazing talent.  It's the highest honor to be described in words like the above, words that serve to separate you from the world of mere humans. 

There's a complementary bias that makes this possible, though: our bias toward results.  We focus on outcome over process, and it's our good friend Context who suffers the most.  Whereas results should be looked at as an indicator of an athletes's progress at a given time, we tend toward interpreting them as simply how talented that athlete is.  That is to say, we read more into them than can be read.  Especially when those times are smokin' fast. 

I'm not saying results don't matter.  Of course they do.  But how you obtain them is what really matters.  We see Jenny's times, but not her preparation.  We see Galen Rupp's dominance, but not the seven years of focused training that preceded it.  We see Dathan Ritzenhein's blazing times, but not the lifestyle that led to them.  It's even worse when we watch runners like Wanjiru and Bolt.  We see what's visible--the race, the time--and because the rest isn't visible, we use what we can see as a proxy for talent.

The funny thing is, even when it's entirely visible we can fail to appreciate it.  Take, for example, having a superstar on your team. 

It's easy to watch a superstar do their thing and be awed by it.  It's natural.  But when that awe turns into talent worship, and when awesome times are seen but awesome preparation is not noticed, you have a problem.  I think that happened to me (and others) as a freshman at UCLA.  Meb Keflezighi was out there winning national championships, and was competing at a level I just couldn't relate to.  And yet everyday, he was doing all the things that made him a champion right in front of me.  Did I see it and emulate it?  Not immediately.  I simply didn't make that connection.

That's why I actually disagree with Coach Wetmore when he was asked how to get younger athletes to not be in awe of a superstar.  His answer was that you just need to "be patient, not push to hard...and just let it come naturally."  I think that's a start.  But what I think coaches need to be actively doing is emphasizing process, building an expectation of excellence in preparation, and de-mystifying (and de-mythifying) the superstar's success. 

You can't emulate talent.  But any athlete can emulate hard work and painstaking preparation. 

Five More NCAA Pre-Nats Weekend Cross Country Thoughts

1. The Big Three Represent: Chris Derrick, Luke Puskedra, and ... Colby Lowe?

Chris Derrick rolled up Sam Chelanga in the White Race at NCAA Pre-Nats, running the fastest time of the day in 23:27.  He also crushed some big names, like Ryan Sheridan, Hassan Mead and Brandon Bethke.  He appears to be the second coming of Ritz.  Luke Puskedra ran roughshod over the Blue Race field, winning his race in 23:40.  This was particularly impressive after he struggled home in 11th at the Bill Dellinger Invite. 

But the surprise was Colby Lowe at the Chile Pepper Invitational, winning the 10k race in which German Fernandez finished 11th.  (Colby's more talented than German!  Oh wait...)  Colby was highly touted coming out of high school, but struggled compared to the other freshmen.  He seems to be back on track.

2. How good are the Stanford men?

I was surprised by their complete domination at Pre-Nats.  I knew they were ranked #1 coming in, but something told me their team was simply benefiting from Oregon and Oklahoma State not looking too hot.  Well, they appear to be legit.  With a potential #1 in Derrick (and a very strong #2 in Heath), they can run with anyone at the front, which is a prerequisite for winning at NCAAs.  Their 3-4-5 runners would have been ahead of every other team's #3 except for Oregon.  It's tough to say whether Oklahoma State is much better, though if any team can match Stanford up front it's that one.  It looks like the big three freshman are going to be in more than just an individual battle at NCAAs.

3.  Can Colorado compete with Washington's women?

Um, no.  But I like that I'm able to ask the question.  At the start of this year, I'd have said nobody is going to compete with UW on the women's side.  But I love that Colorado might just have an outside chance.  It would take a couple of sub-par races from Lady Huskies and a couple big runs by Lady Buffs--so it's possible--but it doesn't look like anyone will be running away with UW's title this year.  I could see Colorado having a better average time, though, especially if Barringer wins by over 30 seconds like she did yesterday.

4. How good is Jordan Hasay?

My expectations were lowered when she finished 6th at the Bill Dellinger Invite, but she is the two-time defending USA Junior Cross Country Champion, so she's no stranger to the longer distance cross country races.  Still, her third place finish behind Barringer and Kuijken was a pleasant surprise, and she might have contended for the win in the other race.  I can't wait to see how she fares at the Pac-10 meet against the Lady Huskies and her old rival Christine Babcock.

5. Who was missing The Fifth Element?

Not only was it a great movie, it's also a great name for a team in search of a fifth scorer.  I always check teams to see if anyone had a fifth man who scored more points than the top 4 combined.  I found 5 teams at Pre-Nats:

Men:
Portland - 1st-4th men 79, 5th man 132 (+53!)
Auburn - 1st-4th men 107, 5th man 156 (+49!)
Tulsa - 1st-4th men 130, 5th man 151 (+21)

Women:
Washington - 1st-4th 26, 5th woman 33 (+7 - but they sat one stud out, so yeah...they're really good)
Illinois - 1st-4th: 74, 5th: 132 (+58!)

All of these teams stand to either make a big improvement later in the year when their fifth runner closes the gap (or rejoins the team), or to look back on this season as a "what could have been" kinda year.

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