Advertisement
Those literal first steps were taken at 6:45 a.m. on Aug. 10. Why so early? Coach John Metelko and his runners didn’t want to wait any longer.
“All these student-athletes have the opportunity to start their own tradition here from day one,” Metelko said. “It’s an opportunity to leave your mark for years to come.”
The V-Hawks, with 11 runners on the women’s team and eight on the men’s team, will take their first competitive steps today at the Saint Mary’s University Open in Winona, Minn. Metelko isn’t sure what will happen, only that it will be a thrill to see the product of six months of work.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Metelko said. “It’s really going to tell us where we are.”
Metelko ran cross country for four seasons at NCAA Division I Evansville before graduating in 2005. He was team captain as a senior and is still on the program’s top 25 list in the 10 kilometer race. Metelko was a volunteer assistant coach at Evansville last fall.
Viterbo named Metelko its first cross country coach in February. He had to start the program from square one, recruiting athletes, setting them up with summer running schedules, and figuring out all the details necessary to be ready for practice in August.
The next challenge was to find out more about the athletes who had committed.
“We met in April and set our workouts, after that it was a lot of calling on the telephone,” Metelko said. “We kept in touch about mileages and pace, and I set them up with an online running log so they could see what the others were doing and that helped motivation-wise.”
There is a wide range of running experience on both teams.
The women’s team has six freshmen and sophomores along with three seniors who are in their first year of college athletics. The men’s team has three freshmen, three sophomores and two seniors who are also trying college running for the first time.
“We have some that did well in high school cross country, but it’s been a couple years since they ran competitively,” Metelko said. “Some have been in other sports but are picking up cross country for the first time.”
Holly Cuhel joined the women’s team for her senior year at Viterbo. Cuhel was a standout cross country and track athlete at Reedsburg High School, but decided on Viterbo for its nursing program and set aside competitive running.
When Viterbo announced it was adding cross country Cuhel was the first in line to sign up.
“I dove right in, no question,” Cuhel said. “This will be my first and last year of college cross country, but I’m glad to have at least one year. We’ll probably struggle for a while, because cross country programs are things that have to grow with time. For right now, I think we’re doing OK.”
Like Cuhel, Westby, Wis., native Kyle Constalie saw a chance to participate in college cross country in his senior year. Constalie attended UW-Stout for two years, was friends with many of the cross country athletes and ran on his own, just not on the team.
Now, he has a team.
“Being here at the start of this, you don’t know where it’s going to go,” Constalie said. “I’m going to enjoy watching it progress and evolve.”
Today’s meet will be a major learning experience for 19 runners new to college cross country. Metelko will treat it as such, but by the Wisconsin Private Schools Championships Meet on Oct. 18 and the MCC Championships Nov. 8, he expects his team to be competitive.
“Today, the goal is to go out and run the times that we can regardless of the competition,” Metelko said. “We want to get better every meet, and I really think we can reach the top half of the conference meet by the end of the year.”
