The amazing thing about Jeff Martinez is not that he ran an 8:57 3,200 as a high school senior and came to SUNY-B to run, its that when he arrived he wasn't the best runner on the cross country team. Don't believe me? Click on the title of this entry and read about it.
But maybe I shouldn't be surprised--didn't I read something recently about a SUNY-B runner breaking 4:00 in the mile? And this change isn't just going on with distance runners. SUNY-B broke 3:10 in the 1,600 meter this past season. That's a very respectable time and means that there are at least four good 400 meter runners on the team.
The article about Jeff mentions some of what the overall running program has accomplished recently and how much the program has improved over the last few years. So, I think the time has come to stop picking on the teams and saying that they are no better today than they were more than thirty years ago. SUNY-B appears to finally have some runners who are not only faster than Mark, but would probably also be able to beat Bob Daniels. Way to go Colonials! (Sorry, as sad as the Colonial was, it was still better than an imaginary Bearcat that looks like every other cartoonish unimaginative logo out there.)
1 comment:
I concur that Jeff is doing a great job, but that article was ridiculously long. I was more interested in his times but the article really got lost in describing Jeff's history and family, etc....wow!
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