In a season in which the men's cross country team rewrote its history, it's merely fitting the year ended with a member of this year's squad claiming yet another piece of team history.
At the season-ending banquet last week, the team selected senior Tom Becker as this year's MVP. The selection marked the fourth time the senior has won the award in his career, making him the first four-time cross country MVP in school history.
This season, Becker led a resurgent Blue Devils squad to its highest finish in the ACCs since 1977 and its first appearance in the NCAA Championships since 1971-all this following a year when the team finished a lackluster fifth at the ACC Championships.
"Cross country is something that shows itself in the fall, but it's actually done during the summer," men's associate head coach Norm Ogilvie said. "I guess the guys weren't satisfied with the year before, because for the first time in recent memory, we took a step backward last year-maybe that motivated the guys.
"They came back in town in shape and certainly set the tone for the season at the Fordham Invitational."
At that meet in Van Cortlandt Park, N.Y., the Blue Devils certainly sounded a promising opening note. With sophomore Terry Brennan taking the individual title, Duke easily outdistanced second place Harvard 19-64 to bring home the meet title.
After throttling Liberty in the season's lone home meet two weeks later, the Blue Devils travelled to Notre Dame and gave the first clear signal that this year's team could be legitimate contenders for an NCAA spot. The Blue Devils raced competitively with national power N.C. State and Notre Dame, ranked No. 11 in the country at the time.
"After Notre Dame, [where] we were fairly close to Notre Dame and beat Butler, we were pretty sure of our chances," Ogilvie said. "We were sure we could make Nationals after IC4As."
In Duke's return to Van Cortlandt Park for the IC4As, sophomore Brendan Fitzgibbon became the third different runner to lead his team across the finish with his sixth-place finish. Paced by Fitzgibbon, the Blue Devils narrowly lost to Princeton, who later finished 17th at the NCAAs, and handily outran traditional power William & Mary, who surged at the NCAAs to finish 13th.
In the team's final tuneup before the NCAA Regionals, Duke finished second in the ACC Championships, the Blue Devils' highest finish since they won the conference championship in 1977.
"It was a momentum thing each week," Ogilvie said. "Going into the NCAA Regionals, we had a lot of momentum. Certainly the second-place finish in the ACCs gave us the confidence it took to feel like we can run with State and JMU. They beat us, but we weren't intimidated."
Becker showed a flair for the dramatic by running the finest race of his collegiate career in the NCAA Regionals, propelling the Blue Devils to a third-place finish at the meet behind N.C. State and James Madison. With his ninth-place finish in the meet, Becker captured All-Region honors to complement the All-ACC and All-East honors he had earned earlier.
Duke's third-place finish earned it an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships-its first in 27 years-in Lawrence, Kan. Perhaps falling victim to inexperience, the team slipped to 26th, just short of its pre-meet goal of finishing in the nation's top 25.
"Finishing in 26th certainly proves you beat five teams-you certainly belong in the meet," Ogilvie said. "We really think we earned our way there, now we're going to try to raise it a notch higher.
"I think we're going to be okay because we're going to have six of seven [starters] back. We're certainly going to miss Tommy, because he got these guys to believe and think big."
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