Renewed Expectations Come to Life
Surprise return of veteran duo alters outlook
Mike Brohard
One of the quirks of the program is the use of Grandview Cemetery.
Seems an odd place to do a workout or begin a run, but hey, its tradition. The unpaved roads are great for speed drills or a quick loop. When it’s done, Colorado State’s cross country team can trot back to campus. Over the years, those Rams have found all the back alleys and shortcuts leading to back home – and some they’ve learned to avoid.
It was also the place where two veterans made surprise announcements that despite the rumors their careers as Rams had come to pass. There may be no better backdrop for a resurrection to take place.
It was among the tombstones where Lars Mitchel handed coach Kelly Hart an edited version of Michael Jordan’s return announcement. It was there where Quinn McConnell showed up unexpectedly, ran a loop, then exited quietly. Later that day, her cameo appearance blew up a text thread.
This was no longer a time of solemn reflection. For Hart, it was a time to rejoice.
“It’s huge. In cross country, experience goes a really long way,” Hart said, her Rams approaching this season’s launch at the Wyoming Invite on Aug. 30. “Yes, they’re really fit, athletic, toned athletes, but they’ve done it for a long time and that goes a long way. The leadership they bring to the rest of the team, the confidence they’re going to give their teammates when they see Quinn go out really hard in a race – really, close hard in a race; that’s her big thing – they will go with her. When they see Lars swooping up through the field, that fires Michael (Mooney) up. It’s huge. It makes my job easier as a coach. They’re both great leaders.”
McConnell represents the team’s top finisher at last season’s NCAA Championships and a competitor who was constantly in the top three for the squad all season. In Mitchell, the men have back their top finisher from both conference and the NCAA regional.
In both instances, Hart was caught off guard to a degree.
Mitchel had not given her an inkling he was considering coming back. He was going to finish school in the summer and move on with his life. That was what he told her at the end of the track season after finishing in the top five in both he 5,000- and 10,000-meter races at the Mountain West Outdoor Championships.
As for McConnell, the idea was always floating around, but by that point, she felt relatively ghosted. Besides, McConnell was heading into her second year of vet school, and her balancing act between the two discipline-driven pursuits, while admirable, was also stressful.
On July 15, Mitchel broke the news. On August 5, McConnell made her choice.
Mitchel had already had some things in life lead him to thinking. Then Mooney sent him a text, asking him to go on a long training run one day. Fine, he had a race he was planning to participate in later that month, and as the two often do, they started talking. Just about stuff, nothing in particular.
Mitchel thought harder about it. He could switch a class and take it in the fall. He talked to his parents, who were all for the idea. And deep down, he felt he had more to give the program, as well as himself.
“She didn’t believe me at first. What I did was I made a copy of the Michael Jordan press release when he came back to the NBA and edited it slightly to be about me,” Mitchel said. “I met her at the graveyard for a run, gave it to her and she took a really long time to read it; it’s only three lines. Guess that Notre Dame education didn’t work, but she took a while. Then she looked at me and didn’t believe me, then goes, ‘are you serious?’”
Deadly so.
She did receive a text from McConnell, stating she had done a training run on grass. Hart read between the lines, but she wanted to make sure, so she fired back. The reply was ‘yes.’
Not that the team knew at the time.
“Anna (Petr) just kinda dropped it in our group chat one day. I had done a workout in the graveyard and met up with a couple of people there and we saw Quinn,” Kenya Dennee said. “We saw Quinn, she did a loop and then she was gone. We thought it was weird, but OK, she did the workout. Later that day, Anna texted the group chat about how many people were going to team camp, and she says Quinn is going to be on the team now. I was, ‘are you serious?’ She said ‘yeah, she’s actually coming back. She just decided.’
“I was really excited because Quinn’s a great contribution to the team and our culture.”
Having a few people back allows underclassmen to take that next jump, that next step, but not feel they have to fill shoes they don’t need to fill yet.Kelly Hart
The team was going to have leaders back, regardless. Petr ran third for the team at nationals. Sam Griffith ran second to Mitchel in both of the final two races. Now the Rams on both squads had frontrunners too.
Hart knows their impact goes deeper. She’s excited about what the youth on the team is ready to do and intrigued by transfers, but now there is less pressure for them to feel they need to get to a certain level quicker. The leadership the duo provides will help alleviate such notions, not just mentally, but physically.
The physical aspect is where Dennee knows McConnell will make an impact for her.
The Greeley product came out of high school more of a middle distance runner, 400 and 800, to be exact. Getting used to the added difference in races has been a process, making her a little anxious at times during the buildup, with last year being what she considers to be her first full season of cross country. Impressively, she was a mainstay on the starting line.
“She encourages me, especially when we have runs or workouts together,” Dennee said of McConnell. “When we have recovery runs, we have great conversations. She’s a great athlete, but she’s also just a great friend. Quinn knows when to be serious, but she knows how to have fun.
“Quinn helps me more physically. Anna would be more of the contributor to me mentally. She helped me especially at the start line of nationals; I was having a really hard time, and she was comforting me through it.”
The other side is having people willing to lead, a task Mitchel relishes. Having made his announcement, he said it really hit when he dropped his bag on his bed at the team retreat. Then they went into goal-setting mode.
Hart knows his return will continue to have an impact on Chris Henry, a bond which started last year. Oddly enough, Mitchel had an off vibe about the Park City, Utah runner on his recruiting trip, only to find out they had more common ground.
“I think he’s 12, turning 13 this year, but I like his mentality about running,” Mitchel said. “The reason it started that way is he jerseyed during cross country season, and to ask a true freshman to toss a jersey on and run an 8K at a pace probably faster than he ran a high school 5K at was a tall order, and he wanted the pressure. He wanted the team to need him and carry that with him, and he did a really good job with it.
“I could tell in training, then on recovery runs, you have a lot of time to kill and just talk, and we just clicked. Our mentality about running is similar, and I think that’s why we got close.”
Cross country teams aim to run in packs, keep the gaps between runners down to a minimum. Hart was seeing wider gaps prior to July and wondering how to bridge them. There weren’t a ton of holes to fill: The women still had talented regulars Kensey May and Ava Escorcia to lean on; the men Ben Kirbo.
In two moves, they started to take care of themselves. Two runners who were once younger, feeling the weight of expectations and the corresponding struggles and solutions. Those are experiences they can share as both programs continue gain greater traction.
The women have a run of four successive trips to the NCAA Championships, one they don’t want to see end. The men are looking to get back after two years away and start a run of their own.
“I think when you have a big drop off, when you lose leaders like that, the underclassmen suddenly feel the weight of the world on their shoulders and they feel they have to be an athlete they’re not quite yet,” Hart said. “Having a few people back allows underclassmen to take that next jump, that next step, but not feel they have to fill shoes they don’t need to fill yet.”
Leaders help keep the focus in the place Dennee said it should reside, old or young.
A year ago, the men would make charges. The women made surges at the end of races, storming back the final two key weekends to return to nationals. In the final 1K, the CSU women were picking off opposing runners like petals from a flower.
They’d see a teammate go by and get inspired. Or a teammate would come up and give a nudge. That’s the way it worked best for them.
“I personally have never looked at the pressure that way. I think we move more as a team than individually,” Dennee said. “If Chris is in front of Lars, that’s awesome, he’s having a great day. If I’m not moving up but the rest of my team is, that’s great. The pressure is throughout the entire team.
“I think we really put a lot of emphasis on running for the team. Before we even start races, we huddle up and say we’re not doing this for ourselves, we’re doing this as a team, doing it for each other. When it comes to that very painful spot of a race, it becomes I’m pushing through this for the team. You see teammates in front of you, you know they’re behind you and you encourage people behind you, ‘OK, let’s go,’ and you start moving forward.”
For as long as possible. The grim reaper named eligibility makes the end of a collegiate career a definite, and Hart had a feeling she’d seen two meet their end. Turns out they were plans best laid to rest, at least for another year.
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