Sept. 19, 2006

PITTSBURGH -

For several members of the men's cross country team, this season marks their last hurrah, and with a national berth on their minds, they're prepared for the competition ahead. We sat down with seniors Steve Gonzalez (Johnstown, Pa./Westmont Hilltop) and Mike Long (Williamsville, N.Y./Williamsville North) to reflect on the last three years and discuss the 2006 season.

Cross country is really a team sport, but it requires a lot of individual determination and drive. Many of you will run on your own in addition to your regular workouts. What motivates you to put in 80 miles or more in distance each week?
Mike: You've got to be a little crazy to do it for sure. We've talked at the beginning of the summer and throughout that as individuals we do make up a team. If you don't feel like running for a certain day, you could get your rest and no one would really say anything. But at the end of the day, in the back of your mind, you know a part of you is letting the team down. All we've said coming into the season is, "We're going to nationals." Not one person has been mentioned individually on how he's going to contribute. Everyone knows he has to do it and put the work in. Even worse than letting yourself down is letting your team down, especially when it's something in your control. We see the light at the end of the tunnel. We understand what we have to do. That by itself is a driving force. We don't need to be told to run or to do our workouts by ourselves. We're mature enough, and we've got enough experience. We have that taste in our mouth. We want it. That determination and drive is what helps us get up for those early morning runs and those longer runs by ourselves.
Steve: The question "Why do you run?" has been thrown at us our whole lives, and it's one of the most difficult to answer. Sometimes we'll joke it's because we've all come from multi-sport backgrounds and eventually we couldn't do anything as well as everyone else. And no one else wanted to run, so we figured we should. But with this team, you see guys working hard day in and day out. You don't want to let these people down. These are guys that are dedicating a lot of their time and a lot of their life to this sport. You owe it to not only yourself, but to your teammates, to get up and run every day and train and stay motivated. There's never a lack of support or help. If you're really feeling bad one day, you can always find some guy to drag you along. That's what we do. We pick each other up when we're down. We make sure that one and other's okay. We cook for each other. We're frequently at the Chinese buffet on Forbes. We really try to do as many things as a team. When you wake up every morning, you have to think, when am I going to run? How am I going to get it done? And am I going to let my teammates down if I don't do this?

Injuries plagued your team last year, and as a result both of you were counted on to score points throughout the entire season. What did you take away form that experience, and how will it benefit the team this year?
Steve: When we lost some of the guys, it really happened at the Paul Short Invitational last year. Everything that could have gone wrong, really went wrong that meet. There was a broken foot, people vomiting, someone had cramps. It was just a disaster. It was interesting running that race and passing teammates that you're used to being a little ahead of you. You start thinking to yourself, "What's happening?" Mike and I were fortunate to find each other in that race, along with Curtis Larimer. The three of us worked together to move ourselves up and help the team scoring. Once we saw some of our really good runners go down, there was a sense of urgency within the team. That's the kind of philosophy on this team. Everybody has a role. The crazy thing about it is that we don't have definitive number two, number three, number four guys. We're always shuffled around like a deck of cards because some people feel better some days than others. That's the great thing about this team. It's always in question who's going to be where. But we don't really think about that. Instead we focus on how fast we can run and how high we can place to help the team do well. If you're around teammates in a pack, and you pray to God that you are sometimes, you try to stay with that pack and work that pack as high up as you can to aid in team scoring. To step up because of injuries, it's just something we expect from ourselves. It's something the coaches expect from everybody. We can't really rely on one or two people to make this team of national caliber. We have to be able to count on everybody, and we realize that. When our teammates went down, we provided social support for them in the sense that we still included them in as many team activities as we could both during and after practice. That's the big thing. When you do go down, you're not looked down upon or abandoned. We'll work as a team as hard as we can to get everybody up and running again. We like to get them back as fast as possible. Given our small roster size, everybody does play a huge role. We only fielded six guys when we really needed seven at that regional championship. Right then and there we were already facing adversity, but we don't let those things affect this team. We still ran and placed as high as Pitt has ever placed as a team at the regional championships. It was just natural to think maybe we could get this team to nationals.
Mike: I was honored with the position we were put in last year, not because I've wanted it but because we did mean so much to the team. That's ultimately what a championship team does. That's when you find out where you're headed. When things are going well it's easy to receive praise, collect press and gain support. Only when you're truly tested, can you find out what you're made of. Paul Short was as good a test as any, and that was really our turning point. We could have continued to go downhill. I think that was the easy option. If we were to do what we wanted to, we could have used every excuse in the world and packed it in, and no one would really say anything because it's true we had lost people. As Steve was saying, each one of these guys is vital. That's why everyone comes to practice every day and trains. Whatever your position is, you matter. Things like Paul Short are possible, and I didn't think so until it happened to us. Any team can have that happen at any time. You have to be ready and have everybody at the top of their game. Steve and I were ready when we were called upon, and we came through. I'm glad I was able to help our team when we needed it. That's true of our team. When things aren't going well, our true colors come out.
Steve: You can't take anything for granted at all. When you're given the opportunity to perform at the level Mike and I were able to perform at last year, you have to embrace it. We're two hardworking guys who came onto the team as pretty good runners in high school, but we weren't state champions and we weren't the best. Looking at college and coming in and realizing where we were compared to a lot of runners in the NCAA, our opportunity to compete at this high of a level is growing shorter and shorter by the day. We understand that sense of urgency, and so does the rest of the team. How many people get the opportunity to compete at this level? You can't take that for granted. If you're going to do something, you have to put your whole heart into it. If there's anybody that realizes it, it's this team, if not Mike and I specifically. We try to motivate everybody to be like that. That's the way we feel about things. That's the way we're going to get things done.

With the addition of the Pre-National Invitational this year, the last three meets of the year have become considerably tougher. What is it going to take in some of these earlier meets to prepare for a tougher championship season?
Mike: The end of our schedule is definitely more difficult than it's been in the past. But we've earned that mark. The team is ready to handle it. The whole season is a process. Our whole college career is a process. The meets in the beginning are paving the way for the meets later in the season. Obviously, the end of the season is when it really matters. This past weekend at Duquesne, we won without our top runner and some of our other guys not quite in great shape yet. We didn't accomplish a lot in great times or anything. We're slowly building the confidence we need for the end of the season. Like I said before, confidence is ultimately what wins or loses races in the end. The beginning is important not for times or places on the team, but for instilling that confidence we hope and know will carry us through the end of the season. Those meets at the end of the year are attributed to our coaches having confidence in us that we're able to handle it. I don't think they'd have those on there if they didn't think we were ready to handle it. We've already proved that we are. The meets in the beginning are just stepping stones to our end goal which is nationals.
Steve: The meets at the beginning of this year are really setting us up for success because we start off low-key and we gradually get more and more difficult with the number of teams we face and the caliber of those teams. We realize as a team there are some great teams in our conference, and there are some great teams in our region. The Big East is arguably the best cross country conference in the country. We always have teams ranked in the top 25. For us to make it to nationals, we have to be number one or two at regionals or beat some really good teams in the process getting to regionals so that we can get an at-large bid. Starting with a lower-key meet is valuable especially for the freshmen that might contribute to the team as we go through this year. That's really going to help our team grow and realize the amount of effort and caliber of people we're going to face. In order to get to nationals, we have to beat some really good teams from other regions that could also get an at-large bid. We understand the urgency of performing well. This team is no stranger to stepping up when it matters, especially when we're facing a lot of adversity. There's no doubt in our mind that we're going to make a great run at the NCAA meet. Our schedule is really setting us up for that. We're going to have some great opportunities to face some great teams that are going to be competing with us to get to that level. If this team just continues to believe in itself, people continue to get the work done and if we believe in ourselves, we should be at the NCAA meet in November.

What is the one thing people will remember about the 2006 men's cross country team?
Mike: I just want people to remember this team on the grand scale of things. I want this year to be remembered because of what it was. I want people to understand what led up to this year. As Steve was saying before, we had one or two state champs come in, top of the line guys. We also had a lot of really good guys who performed very well in high school but by no means were the cream of the crop. I want people to realize that if you put in hard work, believe in yourself and if you're strong enough, anything is possible. I remember coming in as a freshman and hearing about nationals. It seemed so far in the distance - something that would be nice to read about. I didn't even believe then that we would actually have a shot at going to these championships. It was such a distant thought. You have to believe in yourself, your teammates and your coaches. That's incidentally what's going to lead you there. That's the difference between this team now and the team when we were freshman. We're obviously stronger and have matured a lot in terms of how to handle a bad race and also a good race. We have a very humble team, and we don't let things get to our head too much. I want people to remember us as a top-quality team with the average guys. No body has to be incredible coming in. It's all a matter of what you make of it and what you become. Everybody is coming into college with a clean slate, and we've made the most of it. You have more control over your future. I want to be looked at as a benchmark. I want every recruit to come in here and say that team was amazing but I want to be better. To be quite honest, I hope down the road they are better. I hope every team that comes in is better and it keeps adding and going. Our team goes beyond who we are right now. It's great that we're setting the mark, but this should be a normal thing. [People should be saying] Pitt's going to nationals again. They're up near the top. I don't want that to be a new thing or a once in a life thing. I want that to be a continuing thing. I hope that every team that comes in after us is better than our team. That's why we're trying to do everything we can to set a high standard so it keeps getting higher and higher. I'll be nothing but proud to know that I was a start of that and to know we helped build the program. It would be more gratifying than keeping the record books as the highest team average. Just knowing that you were part of a program that became elite is ultimately what I want to be remembered for.
Steve: We want this team to be remembered as the best team that's come through the University of Pittsburgh. We want to set that mark because we want good recruits to keep coming and build on this legacy. We want to leave this place a better place, and I think we've definitely done that. I think this team should also be remembered for its character because we have a lot of class-act guys. We work very hard both at practice and in the classroom. As a team, we made the National Honor Roll list for men's cross country teams. We're right up there with Harvard, Princeton and Yale for team GPAs. We have some really intelligent and wonderful individuals on this team that both athletically have given this school a great name and academically, a tribute to the academic excellence Pitt has achieved throughout the years. I think the last thing we should be remembered for is being reflective of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is a blue-collar town. We came in here, not as top-chip athletes, but as hard-working people. What's a better setting than a blue-collar town like Pittsburgh where people really work hard day in and day out. Just being in that kind of environment and around these kind of people really motivates us. Pittsburgh's full of opportunity, but you have to do something with that opportunity. And I think we've made the most of our years here, and we're by no means done.