Pilotz 4 Dayz

Big day for the men's XC team in Madison, Wisconsin.

2nd place overall. Wins over No. 3 Syracuse and No. 4 Stanford among many others.

http://www.uwbadgers.com/documents/2017/10/13//2017_Nutty_Men_Championship_Results.pdf?id=21092

Awesome finish! I noticed on Portside that Coach Connor said we had not run our variety squad until now. Does anyone know if the other schools ran their A teams too? If so, that makes this all the more impressive.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:Does anyone know if the other schools ran their A teams too? If so, that makes this all the more impressive.

Cross Country is always a a bit tricky for people not totally in the know, because you can't always tell which teams were going 100%, which were holding back a bit as a training strategy, etc etc.

That said, I believe it's common at big races like this for teams to race their top runners, as a way to see where you stack up. I'm sure there were some guys that were held out because of injury, but every team has to deal with things like that.

Rob said he had an "ace up his sleeve."  

Don't exactly know what it was, but it sure worked!!

From what I have read, the vast majority of teams ran their "A Squad." This is the meet where teams who have been experimenting or running limited teams go all out for the first time. Pilot Cross Country is so under-appreciated. Think about this. What other squads can say: "in the course of our season we have defeated #3 ranked Syracuse, #4 Stanford, Michigan, UCLA, Michigan State, Minnesota, WSU, UW, North Carolina State, Iowa State, Purdue, Florida State, Penn, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Providence, Cal, Columbia, and UConn?" Really an amazing performance. Rob Conner is quite an amazing coach. Pilot Cross Country is a gem of a program that we, too often, forget about.

Who could forget 32 straight?

It was 32 right?

DoubleDipper wrote:Rob said he had an "ace up his sleeve."  

Don't exactly know what it was, but it sure worked!!

Perhaps it was Emmanuel Roudolff-Levisse, who placed 11th and was our third finisher in what was (I believe) his first race ever as a Pilot?

ehk21 wrote: Really an amazing performance.  Rob Conner is quite an amazing coach. Pilot Cross Country is a gem of a program that we, too often, forget about.

Yeah, I think we sometimes take Rob's success for granted.

This time of year I'm able to sit down and talk to Rob and his family at soccer games, and he just hasn't changed from (he's not going to appreciate this) his younger days.  Still the same easy going inquisitive family man who puts others first.  We are indeed blessed to have Rob remain at UP all these years when other programs would love to have him.

The reason we often "forget about" cross-country, IMO, is because it's just so danged hard to watch.  I try to go to at least one meet a year, but in addition to it often being cold and rainy, we often only gets to see the runners race by 2 or 3 times, if that...it's even worse than rowing in that respect.

At least the rowers are a hardy looking beer drinking sort, the runners are so skinny they barely make a shadow on the sunniest of days.