The First Time I Met Steve Crowder...

Ok, back to my series of posts recapping my running career and time to discuss the college years. As was the case throughout high school, running definitely wasn’t even remotely on my mind when I started at Roanoke College. I had thought about trying out for the soccer team and even had some contact with the head coach, but I ultimately decided against it, partially because the team was really good at the time and I didn’t figure I’d get to play much and partially because I was concerned enough about how hard the academics would be that I didn’t want to have any additional commitments until I was sure I could handle my classes. As a result, my athletic career came to a halt and I actually started hitting the weight room regularly just to get in a workout. I didn’t put on a lot of weight or anything, but I did get my bench press up to 185, which was a good 40 pounds more than I weighed. In terms of sports, I got a little more serious about motocross and also played lots of pickup basketball, often playing with the guys who played for Roanoke. Several of them told me I should play JV ball because I was certainly good enough to make the team, but I simply wasn’t that interested in riding the bench on a JV team. As much as it was my first love in sports, at 5’9”, basketball at the college level had outgrown me and I knew it.

Anyway, something else happened when I started Roanoke that was the final thing that would push me into running. When we had freshman orientation, we were assigned peer groups, and it just so happened that a guy by the name of Brad Reeves was in mine. Brad was another local, and I found out that he was also a soccer and basketball player in high school and was interested in motorcycles as well. That was enough for us to form a good friendship and we hung out together here and there throughout our freshman year. When the year ended, Brad told me he was going to run cross-country the next year, and since I had told him I ran some in high school, he told me I should come out for the team as well. I resisted at first, but at the same time, the prospect of being part of an athletic team again definitely got the wheels turning, so I started doing a little running on my own that May just to see how it would go.

After a few weeks, I was up to 3-5 miles a day and running 5-6 times a week and starting to get in shape (at least I thought I was). So, that June, I decided to enter a 5-mile race in Salem that Brad said he was running. It was hot as heck that day and the course was hilly as could be, but I don’t think it would have mattered if conditions were perfect and the course was flat as a pancake. I simply wasn’t prepared to race that distance. After all, 5 miles was as long as my longer runs and I had never raced farther than 5k. I crossed the line pretty well wiped out in a blazing time of somewhere around 32:30 (don’t remember the exact time). In any event, Brad, who was much more prepared than me, did quite well, finishing second I think it was in under 29 min. I was impressed, but I also didn’t like losing so badly to my friend.

After the race, Brad introduced me to Coach Pincus, the head cross-country/track coach at Roanoke. That introduction led to a great story that Coach Pincus still tells to this day. I’d recap it, but there’s no way I could do justice to the way he tells it, especially the “punch line.” However, the story always starts out with “The first time I met Steve Crowder, he was FAT!” Thanks, coach. He was right though, at least when it came to being the right weight for a distance runner, and quite honestly I don’t think he was real impressed with me or had much hope of me running on the team after we met. He agreed to send me some workouts though, and from there I began training much more seriously, determined to prove I could make something of this.

I’ll stop there and pick up in my next post with my first official college practice and college race, both eye opening experiences. I was still far from being any good or even decent for that matter, but I saw enough potential in myself to know I could at least be competitive and that’s all it took. I was hooked.