Those who say there are two sides to every story have apparently either followed or anticipated the 1997 men's cross country season.
To hear senior Mike Park tell it, the season could not have gone worse; however, ask assistant coach Norm Ogilvie the same questions and he'll insist this was the second-best cross-country season in 20 years.
How could the opinions on the same topic vary so drastically? Two reasons: expectation and results.
Before the season, the team set three goals: defeating Yale in the annual Duke-Yale meet, finishing third in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships and advancing to the NCAA national meet.
For the record, the Blue Devils had to settle for one out of three, as they did claim the title of the Duke-Yale meet by a count of 24-35. However, they finished a disappointing fifth at the ACC Championships and failed to qualify for NCAA Nationals with their ninth place showing at the NCAA District III meet.
"We weren't involved together mentally," Park said. "We weren't ready to race at the same time. [The loss of focus] was the runners['s fault], the coaches can do only so much. We were talking a lot about that in the locker room-whether it was coaching or whether it was the running. In my opinion, it was the runners."
Whatever the runners did seemed largely effective midway through the saeson. The Blue Devils swept the top five spots at the season-opening Pembroke Invitational before beating Yale at home.
After a sixth-place finish at the Notre Dame Invitational, the Blue Devils enjoyed perhaps their finest meet of the season at the IC4As. Junior Tom Becker's fifth place finish paced Duke and led it to a third place finish.
"I'd say through the IC4A meet, we were very happy with what we did," Ogilvie said. "We dominated at Pembroke, we won at Yale and third at IC4A was better than what we expected. I wouldn't term [the season] a disappointment. If anything, it was an overestimation on the coaches' part on what we could achieve."
The pitfall for the team came at the ACC Championships in Tallahassee. A top 10 finisher at the same meet last season, Becker slipped back to 13th place at the meet. To compound the problem, Park-the team's lone senior-struggled through what was admittedly one of the worst meets of his career, finishing a distant 38th overall.
"It was one of those days where if I had raced the next day, I would've been perfectly fine," Park said. "I literally snapped mentally in the middle of the race, almost came to a point where I wanted to give up. I knew what I was doing and I knew how I was hurting the team. It was one of those unexplained incidents. To this day, it hurts me more than anything."
The ACC debacle put a damper on a season which saw the emergence of a new generation of Duke runners. Freshmen Terry Brennan, Brendan Fitzgibbon and Mike McKeever surprised even the Duke coaches with their performances.
Fitzgibbon and Brennan finished two and three overall, respectively, against Yale to propel Duke over the Bulldogs in its only home meet of the season. Fitzgibbon finished second on the Duke squad to Becker at the IC4As and the ACCs, while Brennan came on strong late in the season to finish second to Becker at the NCAA District III meet.
"We're close to breaking through," Ogilvie said. "It was very encouraging to see the three freshmen do as well as they did. They probably exceeded our expectations coming into the season. What happened was that we demonstrated we have a really solid team for the future."
The program's promising future was, surprisingly, one of the few things Ogilvie and Park agreed on.
"It wasn't that great of a season, but it would've been a lot worse if [the freshmen] had not been there," Park said. "Here are three freshmen who worked harder than I've ever seen a group of freshmen work before.
"I think it helped team morale. It's frustrating for me to see them not get what we planned. I could see it in their eyes, like 'geez this sucks,' because we had these goals and we never reached them."
The freshmen will have more chances to attain those goals. Park, however, has already lost his chance to fulfill what seemed to be a bright future in cross-country just two years ago.
"Cross-country and I never seemed to get along too well," Park said. "My love for cross-country came too late; it came this year. I honestly wish I had more time to do it. As much as it's nice to say, 'Oh, I don't have to run cross-country any more,' I think I'll miss it."
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