An interview with Mike Rolek

So many memories. So many great memories! Today’s Pandemic Papers interview is with Mike Rolek, a 2008 graduate. Along with his teammates, they helped set the stage for the greatest, most prolific years of our men’s distance program. Along the way, though, Rolek sure had his fun, and you can tell that here. He gives great advice to current team members. He followed it when he was here. Great student. Fierce runner – trained as hard as anyone, raced as tough as anyone. Followed his passion for sports. Had his fun, too – he is one of the Founding Fathers of Jerk Squad! I remember distinctly sharing lunch with Rolek and his fellow graduates during senior week, 12 years ago. Twelve friggin years ago … it doesn’t seem that long. Anyway. I remember commenting how this group – this special group of men – was going to do big things in the world. Rolek has gone on to prove my point, over and over again, as you’ll read about here.

Upon graduation, he did not follow his original intended career path of sports communication. That’s fine. He’s done amazing, groundbreaking things just the same. He taught at a charter school in Newark for three years, a one-of-a-kind experience for him. He then went to law school at Seton Hall. He ran some incredible times in road races, pushing his body to the limit until it finally broke, but he would tell you it was worth it. And now as a lawyer, he’s forging a successful career – even giving back to the sport by representing Garden State Track Club (pro bono) in drafting and presenting amendments to USATF. This is one of the longer Pandemic Papers interviews. Take your time and read it to the end. It’s good stuff. It’s great stuff. As with so many of them, it left me smiling and nodding at my laptop. Thank you, Mike, for this, and for your continued loyalty to the Running Red Foxes.

Talk about your strong high school running career in New Jersey and how you wound up at Marist over other schools that might have been recruiting you. How did you choose Marist?

I was born and raised in Maplewood, NJ, and was fortunate to attend Seton Hall Prep. 

My coach was Steve Trembley.  He was a fantastic motivator and very direct.  My teammates and I would run through a brick wall for this man (and still would today).  His training plans were hard and (I found out later) beyond what most high schools were doing at the time, especially our summer training which consisted of 70-80 mile weeks, 10-mile tempo runs, doubles, mile repeats, and 15-mile long runs.  I went from being a 19:58 5k runner as a freshman to a 15:45 guy as a senior. Under his training, I fell in love with the sport.  Specifically, I fell in love with the idea that if I put in the work each day, over the course of months and years, I was going to get better, beat people I shouldn’t and run times I never dreamed of.  I was hooked.

My most memorable experience in high school was my senior cross country season.  I was the only senior on the team, but we had a strong group of juniors, and a talented sophomore and freshman.  Before the season began, we were not on anyone’s radar.  Over the next few months, we ended up winning a bunch of meets, including our county and conference championships, and ended up 10^th at the Meet of Champions. It was a dream season.

Dues to my cross country times, I ended up being recruited by Marist, Syracuse (pre-Chris Fox era), TCNJ and a few other schools.  When I stepped onto Marist’s campus, it simply felt like home.  I loved the campus, the guys on the team and the coaches. It seemed that Pete and Chuck had everyone’s best interest in mind. (They did!) A combination of those factors, including the Communications Department, brought me to Marist.  It was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

Talk about your four years as an athlete at Marist. There were many highlights! You were at the beginning of perhaps the greatest era of men's distance running at Marist. How did that feel and what are some of your fondest memories of your time as a Running Red Fox?

My four years at Marist were some of the best in my life.  Below are some highlights.

--Racing the 10,000m at the 2005 USA Junior National Championships and the trip to California with Pete.  I still laugh at the image of me as a rising sophomore (looking like I’m 12 years old) and Pete (with high socks and mullet flowing) walking around Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills looking for places to eat.

--Steve Hicks Memorial Run. At the end of my freshman year, Senior Captain Steve Hicks (’05) wanted to run to the other side of Tower before the sun rose as a way to cap off his career.  Hicks, Mike Schab (’06), Matt Walsh (’07) and I woke up early one day during finals week and did the run.  I think it ended up being around 18 miles.  It wasn’t about the time or the distance, it was about the experience with some friends.

--Daily training with CT (Matt Szymaszek, ’07), John Keenan (’09), and Girma Segni (’09).  I loved running with all of my teammates, but on a day-to-day basis, I mostly trained with these guys.  We worked out together, did long runs together, doubled together and lifted together.  Today, if I don’t talk with these guys for months or see them for years, it doesn’t matter - when we speak, we pick up right where we left off due to the bond formed from training.   

--Jerk Squad.  In Fall 2006, Bryan Quinn (’07), Mike Bamberger (’07), Chris Baum (’07), Bryan Dixon (’08), Thomas G. Dixon (’08), Matt Maynes (’08), John Keenan (’09), DJ Paulson (’09) and I all took night classes on Wednesday nights.  Instead of going to dinner before class, we elected to meet each other after class at The Cabaret for a group dinner. We called it Jerk Squad. Eventually Jerk Squad included almost every member of the team.  In Spring 2007, Bryan Dixon and I hosted the 1^st Annual Jerkies, where John Keenan was named the Jerk of the Year.  My understanding is that Jerk Squad still exists today.  If so, that’s amazing. 

--2007 MAAC Cross Country Championships. We finished second to Iona.  More importantly, I remember it being one of those rare races where almost everyone, from top to bottom, ran well. 

--Setting the school record in the 10,000m at the Sam Howell Invite at Princeton, NJ in April 2008.  When I came to Marist the record was 30:38, held by Marist legend Kirk Dornton (’04).  I wanted to get that record before I graduated.  By the time I was a senior, Kirk’s record still stood and my PR was 45 seconds off.  It seemed like a long shot, but I always believed I could get. It was a great feeling when I finally did – one of those rare races where everything clicks and nothing hurts.  That night is memorable for many other reasons as well.  First, Adam Vess (’11) set a school record in 5,000m.  Second, after the meet concluded, we brought Pete to a hospital near Princeton due to extreme kidney/stomach pains (Pete ended up being OK). Third, after we left the hospital around 1 a.m., I drove the van home with Keenan sitting shot gun. We listened to Kid Rock the whole way home, finally pulling into Marist around 4 a.m.  What a day!  

--Watching my roommate and training partner crush my school record a few weeks later. I hosted Girm for his recruiting trip.  We connected right away, and ended up being great friends.  I’m not sure who the greatest runner in Marist history is, but I believe Girm is the most important/influential.  He worked hard, was an unbelievable competitor and set the bar high for Marist runners to come.

--Winning the 2008 Marist Male Sportsperson of the Year, and then seeing Girm win it the next year.

--The bond with my teammates. This is the number one thing I took from Marist. I got to live, party and train with my best friends for four years. The memories we created will last a lifetime. I still speak with Bryan Dixon, Thomas G. Dixon, and Bryan Quinn on almost a daily basis. Joe Tarantello and I speak regularly (our daughters FaceTime each other now). And I try to speak with CT and Keenan as much as I can. As previously reported by CT, a bunch of alums, including Prinz (’06), Justin “Jud” Harris (’06), Schab (’06), and Sean Hopkins (’05) are currently completing weekly running challenges to keep us active during the quarantine. This past week was a beer mile – the videos of each competitor’s efforts are fantastic and will never be shown to the public.

For the younger guys on the team, tell them what it was like back then at Marist -- the daily grind, how we trained, where we trained (McCann track, Spackenkill, the lobby of McCann, etc. ... all foreign concepts to them now).

Training at Marist (2004-2008) was great. The runs from campus were (and hopefully still are) legendary – Mariner’s Loop, Tower, CT Loop, Culinary trails, FDR, Fab 9, Willy McClurks, Vassar Farms, North Field, etc...  If you want a flat run on grass, it’s there.  If you want some trails, it’s there.  If you want to hammer a hilly run on the roads, it’s there. 

During my four years at Marist, we didn’t have a locker room. Our gathering place was the McCann Center lobby in cross country and outdoor track and the McCann Indoor track for indoors. 

The McCann Indoor Track – our saving grace in Poughkeepsie winters.  10 laps to a mile.  You could crank out 5-minute mile repeats in there, and I saw a few guys (Quinn, Bamberger, both Dixons, Bryan DeMarco (’07), Pat Carroll (’07)), get pretty close to 50 for 400m in there as well. My fondest memory of the McCann Indoor Track was the AAU Indoor Championships each year. The AAU Indoor Championships started before I arrived on campus by Harris, Prinz and Schab who wanted to get one more hard workout in before spring break. The AAU Championship was simple: two 2-mile repeats with a 10 minute break in between; fastest combined time wins. Participants wore their high school jerseys and music was blasting in McCann – always a great practice.

Spackenkill High School track (located on the other side of Vassar Farms) was our home in the spring. It was the site of many hard workouts and the place where most seniors in that era had their final workout.

Finally, Minnewaska State Park – still my favorite place to run in the world. Great bridal paths, lots of shades, tons of hills and a dip in the lake after… what’s not to love.

Also, for the younger or prospective student-athletes: Any advice you could give to them to make their experiences better or more fulfilling?

--Enjoy the Process. Probably a cliché, but it’s true. Like most young runners, I used to judge my entire fitness level off of one race or a particular workout. When I stopped focusing solely on results, and started enjoying the process, that’s really when the results came. Your fitness level comes from months and years of uninterrupted training. Be patient, and enjoy it. If you can string together a few good months, you’re going to get fit. Enjoy the hard tempos, enjoy the easy days over the bridge, enjoy the early morning doubles along the Hudson, enjoy the ice baths, enjoy the van rides, enjoy the weight training, enjoy spending time with your teammates, and enjoy Pete’s puns. In running, as in life, some days will be better than others. Get the most out of each day and enjoy the Process. The journey is the reward, not the end result.

--Take advantage of the time you have in college. This has different meaning for everyone. If you want to be a great athlete, and try to get the most out of yourself athletically, do that. Take care of your sleep, eat well, double, do drills, ice bath, etc. If you want to get a jumpstart on your career, do that. Apply for that internship you’ve always wanted, network like crazy and excel in the classroom. If you want to get a 4.0, do that. Spend time in the library, go to office hours and participate in class. If you want to party, do that. The point is, for the most part, there will never be another time in your life where you can be completely selfish and focus entirely on yourself.  Don’t waste it.  If you don’t get that PR or internship or 4.0 who cares, at least you can say you gave it your all. And if you didn’t get that PR, internship or 4.0 because you half-assed it, then there is no one to blame but yourself. 

Let's pivot to your post-collegiate running. Your picture from Steamtown has a prominent spot on my cluttered desk in McCann. You emerged from your time at Marist to do even better things post-collegiately in the marathon and other distances. How did you do it and what are some of your highlights from THAT era? And what advice can you give to graduating seniors now on how to make themselves better post-collegiately?

For me, the 5K always felt like a sprint and long runs always came easy – so I always knew I wanted to test my limits in the half-marathon and marathon. 

If you want to run competitively post-collegiately you have to really want to do it. You do basically all of your runs in darkness (either early AM or PM), you miss out on happy hours and late nights with friends, you do all of your workouts alone, and only a handful of people really care about your results. 

That being said, I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed the daily grind, and I truly loved running 90-100 mile weeks, running fast and winning races. If my body allowed it, I would still be doing it today. Based on my results, I ended up getting some support from Sneaker Factory (Millburn, NJ) and Saucony (elite-amateur program), and never paid for shoes, gear or race entries for years. My post-collegiate highlights included:

--2^nd place in 2010 Steamtown Marathon – 2:23:07 (debut)

--1:06:51 in 2011 NYC Half Marathon

--2011 Spring Lake 5 Champ (big win for a Jersey kid!)

--2012 Penn Relays 20k Champ

The goal was always an OT qualifier, but one day my body quite literally gave out on me.

After graduating from Marist, I burned every end of the candle for years. For the first three years after college, I taught elementary school at a charter school in Newark, NJ.  We had long school days. I either had to train at 4:30 a.m. or start my runs at 7:00 p.m. (I got really comfortable running in the dark).  Throw in law school at night, and I had a full schedule.  Throw in 100-mile weeks, and, looking back on it, it was just too much.  At the time though (22-25 years old), I thought I could handle it, plus a social life. However, I got into a pattern. String together six months of hard training, then either set a big PR or get hurt (surgeries, sacral stress fracture, torn hip flexor, soft tissue issues, etc.). I did that for four years, until my body finally had enough in May 2012. During a 4-week span, I went from winning the Penn Relays 20k in the middle of a 100+ mile week to not being able to run 5:30 pace for 10k to not being able to feel the left side of my body.  I was done, my body had enough.

It took about two years, and dozens of doctor appointments, to figure out what went wrong: extreme muscular imbalances developed over years of training, causing a pelvic tilt and more imbalances. It took me until about 2018 to finally get it under control and not have pain every day. Today, I still run, but only what my body can handle (25-35 mile weeks, running 3-4 days a week).  I do a ton of yoga and physical therapy at home which has helped with my alignment and imbalance issues. Quick plug: If you are in the NYC metropolitan area and have a running injury that you can’t resolve, go to Finish Line Physical Therapy in NYC.  They are fantastic!   

My advice, for seniors who want to keep running post-collegiately is to do it. Distance running is unique in that anyone can still compete at a high level after college, you just have to make time for it. Enjoy the grind and enjoy getting better. If you stay at it, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. My final piece of advice is advice you gave me Pete - “Sometimes life gets in the way.” Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to this advice all the time; I wish I did.  The point being is that sometimes you have to stay late at work… sometimes you have to run errands… sometimes your car breaks down… these things happen, life gets in the way. The running schedule does not always have to be followed as written, adapt accordingly. Post-collegiate running is fun, don’t make it another job.  

And now to the academic side: You were a very strong student at Marist (CoSida award!). What did you take out of your education at Marist and how well did it prepare you for your future in education and now your career as a lawyer?

I really enjoyed the liberal arts education at Marist.  I took everything from economics to philosophy to pre-law. My favorite class was an art history class I took my junior year. I forget the professor’s name, and the types of works we discussed, but I remember really thinking about perspective for the first time. Every student was looking at the same piece of work, yet every single person took something different from it.  That always left an impression on me. Now, as an attorney, I think about perspective and viewpoints on a daily basis in my practice.

The greatest lessons I took from Marist were those tied with being a scholar-athlete: don’t worry about the things you can’t control; take care of the things you can control; believe in yourself; and enjoy the process. If you believe in yourself, work hard, and are kind to others, opportunities will come your way, and you’ll be ready to capitalize on them when they do.

Describe your post-collegiate career path and how you eventually wound up in law school and now as a lawyer?

When I entered Marist, my dream was to be a sports broadcaster. During my four years at Marist, I hosted a radio show called The 4^th Quarter with Marist sprinter Matt Whyte (’08) and Quinn occasionally. I was also fortunate enough to be able to call the women’s basketball games for 3 years and men’s basketball games for 2 years on WMAR, Marist’s student radio station. I enjoyed all of those things, but after a few internships, I decided the radio/television industry was not for me. After a few pre-law classes, I decided to apply to law school.  

While applying to law schools during my senior year, I (along with every other senior captain at Marist) received an email from Teach for America, encouraging us to apply to the non-profit program. I never heard of it. After some research, I discovered that Teach for America was a non-profit organization that placed recent college graduates in low-income areas to teach for at least two years with the goal of eradicating the educational gap in the United States.  I loved the mission and applied. 

During my senior year, I ended up getting accepted into Seton Hall University School of Law and Teach for America. I deferred my entrance to SHU Law for two years, and decided to teach elementary school in Newark, NJ instead.

My time teaching was amazing. I was fortunate to get placed teaching elementary education at a charter school called North Star Academy. When I started teaching, North Star elementary was in its second year and the school was in the basement of a public school. I was the utility teacher – I taught everything from gym to art to literacy to math. It was a fantastic school which consisted of long school days, academic rigor and discipline. The scholars (which is what they are called in the school) thrived in the environment. It was an inspiring place to be each day. North Star now consists of 14 schools in Newark and is the highest performing charter school in New Jersey. I taught there for three years before starting law school full-time.

Talk about your current position and what type of law you practice.

I’m a commercial litigator at Connell Foley LLP where I represent a wide array of clients in state court and federal court across the country. I generally handle cases involving products liability, premise liability, business torts such as unfair competition and fraud, insurance coverage, catastrophic injury defense and disputes concerning real estate.

I’m lucky - I thoroughly enjoy my work, where I work and the people I work with. 

Connell Foley is a full-service law firm with offices in Roseland, NJ, Newark, Jersey City and New York.  Established in 1938, Connell Foley has approximately 140 lawyers and offers a comprehensive range of legal services in both established and emerging areas of law, including banking, bankruptcy, corporate law, construction, cybersecurity, employment and labor, environmental, insurance, product liability and, real estate and land use. The only thing better than the legal work product of Connell Foley are the people who work there.

Last December, you had the opportunity to mix your passion for track/running and law by representing the Garden State Track Club at the USATF Convention in Reno. What was that about and briefly describe what your role was in that case?

I’ve wanted to get back involved in the sport for a long time. Last year, I began to reach out to people I know in track and field to see how I could combine my law degree and passion for running. One of those individuals was Chuck Schneekloth, the founder and president of the Garden State Track Club (“GSTC”).  I’ve known Chuck for a long time and he mentioned some potential ideas for proposed amendments to the USATF Bylaws and Operating Regulations. I signed GSTC as a non-profit client and we started drafting the proposed amendments.

The proposed amendments, collectively referred to as the Diversity Bill, are aimed at increasing engagement and accessibility to USATF Associations across the county. The idea being that if more USATF members with diverse backgrounds became involved with the sport at a local level, the USATF and its Associations will become stronger, new ideas will germinate, and the sport will grow.  

In September 2019, we submitted the proposed amendments to USATF’s Law and Legislation Committee.  Thereafter, we received support from Olympians, coaches, and chairs of various track and field committees and Associations across the country. 

In December 2019, I flew out to Reno, Nevada for the USATF National Meeting to present and defend our proposed amendments. Understanding the importance of the issues discussed in our proposed amendments and the impact it will have on the USATF and its local governing bodies, the Law and Legislation Committee elected to table a vote until the 2020 USATF Annual Meeting.  In doing so, the Law and Legislation Committee formed a Task Force to further investigate issues of diversity/engagement/inclusion at a local level, develop the language in the proposed amendments and ensure that the amendments are passed expeditiously. 

I am a member of the Task Force and we are currently working through the language. I am looking forward to going back to Reno this year for the National Meeting to pass the amendments.

How are you and Nicole managing the Coronavirus pandemic? Are you both able to work from home? You have a young daughter, how is that aspect of it as well -- balancing caring for her with your career obligations?

We’re doing just fine. Like most working parents with young children, it was a slight transition balancing work and childcare, but we’re making it happen!

Overall, we’re making the most from being home. Ryleigh (close to 2) is learning something new each day and really coming into her own. We are really enjoying the time together. I love cooking (goal of mine is to be on Amateur Chopped), so experimenting with new recipes and eating three meals a day together as has been fun.  Also, my sister just had her first child on April 18 – Peyton Marie Garson!  Mom and Peyton are doing great!

Anything else you'd like to add and contribute to this ...

Many of these memories are close of 15 years old now.  It goes by quick.

Pete, it really does go by quick.

First, thank you to all the individuals on the front-line in this COVID pandemic, including my boys CT and Quinn.

Second, thank you Pete and Chuck.  You two are the heart of Marist track and field, and have kept the program going at a high level for decades. Thank you. 

Finally, to everyone reading – be well and safe! Can’t wait to grab a beer when this is over. All the best!