MAAC XC Championships: Men's comments and history

The sight and sound of Pat Rynkowski, one of our top runners, coming out of the Back Hills on Friday at the MAAC meet is one that I won’t soon forget. He was not charging out of the woods with the look of confidence that I know well, one in which I know and he knows that he is killin’ it out there and running a great race. He was not powering past runners from rival schools, something we have seen, something we know he is capable of, and something he had visualized entering the meet. No. Not on this day. Instead it was a mix of anger, frustration, desperation and sadness and he hobbled out of the woods and screamed in frustration.

Yes. In a season filled with moments of waiting for the other shoe to drop, on this day it literally did. Pat lost one of his racing shoes early in the race, tried gamely to keep going with one socked foot and one shod foot. But he could continue no longer. He sadly but smartly walked off the course, saving it for another day. Had he tried to finish the race the other way, who knows what damage he would have done to his foot, to the rest of this season and maybe ones in the future.

So yeah. The shoe dropped. He dropped. And so did our place in the standings. Understand that this was not Pat’s fault; it was nobody’s fault. It happens. All good things come to an end. Our reign as runner-up kings of the MAAC – eight years running, nine out of the past 10 years – ended on this day at Vanny. Please understand that this did not happen from a lack of effort. These guys have fight in them, each and every day. All good things come to an end.

The last time a Marist men’s XC team did not finish second in the MAAC meet was 2004 at Disney, when we were third. Looking at the team picture hanging in my office from that fall, I notice a punk-ass freshman – a kid who looks like a 12-year-old crashing a college XC team photo -- who was on that squad. Tough kid. Started the season on crutches with a stress fracture, but made his way onto the Disney travel squad. That tough kid would be Mike Rolek. Rolek would go on to have a marvelous college running career, and then ran a 2:23 marathon as a post-collegian. That erstwhile punk-ass freshman on crutches texted me the other day to say he had passed the bar in New York State and is now a full-fledged lawyer.

That 2004 team featured athletes that set a multitude of school records and set the table for the generation of second-place finishes that would follow. That 2004 team consists of at least three future lawyers, two doctors, an up-and-coming NYC police detective, an aspiring college track coach, a professional writer and countless other success stories. I remain proud of them all to this day.

In a few hours, our men will meet in the racquetball court for their Saturday long run. The shoe dropped yesterday. But we will strap it back on today, continue with the remaining weeks of this season with pride and toughness, and finish what we started to the best of our ability. And maybe, just maybe, in nine years’ time we will reflect back on another run of success – on the cross country course and off.  

MAAC Championships history, men
1997: 6th place, 149 points (VCP)
1998: 2nd place, 70 points (VCP
1999: 3rd place, 102 points (VCP)
2000: 4th place, 91 points (Disney)
2001: 3rd place, 69 points (VCP)
2002: 4th place, 91 points (VCP)
2003: 2nd place, 60 points (VCP)
2004: 3rd place, 77 points (Disney)
2005: 2nd place, 73 points (VCP)
2006: 2nd place, 52 points* (VCP)
2007: 2nd place, 61 points (VCP)
2008: 2nd place, 55 points (Disney)
2009: 2nd place, 57 points (VCP)
2010: 2nd place, 53 points (Hammonasset)
2011: 2nd place, 66 points (VCP)

2012: 2nd place, 80 points (Disney)

2013: 6th place, 151 points (VCP)