After 27 years of waiting, the men's cross country team will only have to wait another week before returning to the ultimate stage in collegiate cross country.
The Blue Devils were selected yesterday to participate in the NCAA Championships next Monday in Lawrence, Kan., marking their first appearance in the NCAAs since 1971.
"Anyone in collegiate cross country considers making the NCAA as a sign that you're back among the nation's elite-it's great to be there," men's associate coach Norm Ogilvie said. "We have to reel in all the emotions and good feelings and remember there is one more race to run and see if we can end the season on an even more upbeat note by doing well in the National Championships."
The NCAA Selection Committee chose Duke as one of 13 at-large teams to join the 18 automatic qualifiers for the Championships. The Blue Devils fell just short of an automatic bid, given out to the top two teams in each regional meet, by finishing third in the Southeast Regionals Saturday.
"We felt the men deserved to go-it's not surprising," Ogilvie said. "It feels good to find out for sure, because men's soccer was surprised so badly last year. You never know for sure until you actually hear it.
"We just want to take a good look at this Monday, and see if we can finish in the top 25 in the NCAAs-that's our team goal. If we do that, we will have confirmed where we felt we belonged all season."
The selection was a particularly satisfying one for Ogilvie, who watched his first team finish dead last in the ACC Championship in 1991. At that time, Ogilvie made it his goal to return the Blue Devils to the nationals before long-time Duke track coach Al Buehler retires. With Buehler set to retire after next season, Ogilvie did himself one year better.
Duke received an additional dose of good news yesterday when it learned that sophomore Megan Sullivan became the first Duke woman ever to earn an individual berth in the NCAAs with her 11th-place showing in the Regionals.
"I'm extremely excited," Sullivan said. "This has just been my goal for the whole year, I wrote it down in my training log, so I'm pretty excited that it's finally come true. I'm really psyched, this sort of puts the icing on the cake. It's a great experience and hopefully I can compete for another two years there."
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