Sooner Cross Country Opens Season Saturday in Tulsa

The University of Oklahoma men's and women's cross country teams head to Tulsa Saturday for their season opener. Collegiate action in the ninth annual Hurricane Festival at Mohawk Park will begin at 8:30 a.m. with the men's four-mile race. The women's two-mile race will follow at 9 a.m. The Festival opens at 7:45 a.m. with an open race for adults. High school and junior high teams will race following the collegiate action. This marks the second year for the Sooners under head coach Rodney Rothoff. Rothoff joined the OU staff August 20, 2002, days before OU's season opener.

The Field Joining the Sooners and host Tulsa in the field will be teams from Kansas State, Oral Roberts and Oklahoma State as well as runners from Rhema Bible College. Tulsa is the defending men's team champion after winning the last three meets. Southwest Missouri won the women's title in 2002 but will not defend the title this year. The Tulsa women were second a year ago.

Competing for the Sooners Final decisions on the Sooner lineup will be made Friday. Scheduled to compete for the OU men at this point are senior Trevor Gillum, junior Andrew Call, sophomore Billy Grona and freshmen Jason Coleman, Salah Hussein, Stuart Lisle, Tyler Schmiedeberg and Andrew Tower. The OU women will be represented by senior Amanda Luksetich, juniors Jackie Dubois and Emily Leonard and freshmen Andrea Bonner, Kristi Cook, Jessica Eldridge, Nicola Maye and Catherine Odell. The young Sooners have eight true freshmen scheduled to compete Saturday. Lisle and Maye used redshirt years last year as true freshmen.

Sooner Captains Following a three-day mini camp last week, the Sooner teams elected captains for the 2003 season. Seniors Jimmy Buchanan, Darren Hutchins and Joe McNair will serve as tri-captains for the OU men while junior Jackie Dubois will serve as captain for the Sooner women.

The Coach Rodney Rothoff joined the Sooner coaching staff in August 2002 after two seasons as the head cross country and assistant track coach for the Tennessee women's program. In his tenure in Knoxville, Rothoff coached 11 NCAA cross country and track All-Americans. He coached the 2002 SEC champion in the outdoor 800 and had four All-SEC cross country selections. His 2001 cross country team was the SEC runner-up. A 1990 graduate of Methodist College in North Carolina, Rothoff has also coached Clemson and Arkansas-Little Rock. His impact on the Sooners was demonstrated last November as the OU men finished 13th in the NCAA Regional, OU's best finish in the regional meet in six years. He also saw one of his runners, Aldwyn Sappleton, qualify for the 2003 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor meets and earn All-America honors in the outdoor 800.

The Coach Says 'The bottom line is to be ready at the end of the season so we won't run everyone in this meet as we continue training and putting the lineup together. We are still looking at potential redshirt seasons for some of our runner. We've actually had just a week of time of train together. 'I'm looking forward to seeing all of our freshmen run in a competitive situation after a week of training. One of the reasons we go to this meet is to get the freshmen broken into a competitive situation wearing the OU uniforms. It's important to get race experience for the freshmen. I expect most of the teams will be using this competition in the same way we are -- giving freshmen an opportunity for collegiate competition and giving everyone an opportunity to run against someone in a different color uniform. 'I'll be happy with the competition as long as everyone gives a solid effort and we come out of the meet healthly.'

A Not-So-New Experience While only four of the Sooners scheduled to run on Saturday have competed in the Hurricane Festival before, several Sooners have seen the course while competing in the high school portion of the Festival. Andrew Call finished seventh in the 2001 meet and Trevor Gillum finished ninth in that same meet. Amanda Luksetich ran in the 2000 meet as a freshman and Emily Leonard competed in the 2001 meet for the Sooner women.

Next Up The Sooners will return to competition on Sept. 13 when they travel to the North Texas Invitational in Denton, Texas.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooner Cross Country Opens Season Saturday in Tulsa

Related News

Related Videos

Sponsors