There sat the future of Terrapin men’s cross country. It was in the form of three shy freshmen, sitting anxiously in one of their first interviews, checking their coach’s reactions to make sure their responses were valid.
Before answering, one of the freshmen, playing around with the height-adjustable chair he was sitting in, abruptly lowered himself and a loud bang was heard behind his teammates’ laughter. Just three normal teenage kids, three months out of high school, still shaking off freshman jitters: The future of Terrapin men’s cross country.
“For me, it was more about recruiting personalities,” head coach Michael Garrison said. “Everyone I recruit has talent, but it’s really about finding the right people that fit me.”
For newcomers Tyler McCandless, Josh Davis and Jake Travers, the day started at 7:00 a.m., when they began running for pre-class practice. Antsy to finish their interview, the three freshmen looked forward to getting ready to board the Terrapin bus for their first ever NCAA road trip, as the team prepared to travel to Cary, N.C., for the Great American Cross Country Festival last Saturday.
But unlike many teams, whose freshmen are more expected to ride the pine than the bus, these three runners expect to compete at every meet. In the team’s first two meets, at least three of its top four finishers were freshmen.
Each year a new crop of talent comes and goes for the Terps’ cross country squad, but never has the talent been as bright as the freshmen recruited by Garrison this past summer.
After struggling in recent years, the Terps had found trouble drawing elite runners, but Garrison proved he could revive the program with his own form of recruiting.
“It was a lot of hard work,” said Garrison, who coached Univ- ersity of Arkansas women before joining the Terps last season. “It was really my first men’s class, so coming in here I was very fortunate to have a good eye for talent.”
Look no further than Josh Davis to back that statement up. Davis accomplished far more in high school than becoming the 2004 Group III New Jersey State Champion in the 1600 meters. He was also named top Earth and Space Science student in his class and chose to study electrical engineering at this university over Princeton, Stanford, and Villanova.
“What really made my decision was the combination of athletics and academics,” Davis said. “I was looking at some pretty good academic schools, but none had the athletic program of [Maryland].”
Biology major Jake Travers also had a tough decision to make between academics and athletics, as the Washington, resident turned down Ivy League schools Dartmouth and Penn to run at the university.
“[My decision was based off] the direction that I saw the program going in,” Travers said. “It is definitely starting to build with Garrison coming in last year, finally getting the kind of coaching it needed to become a top D1 level program. I was just excited to come in and know that every year we’ll be getting recruiting classes of kids that were faster than us in high school.”
It’s possible that Garrison’s finest recruit was Pennsylvania’s Tyler McCandless, who has led the team in each of its first two meets. McCandless had an illustrious career at Northampton High School, where he was named Express Times cross country runner of the year after becoming the District II champion and record holder at 3,200 meters and a state medalist in cross country and track and field.
It all comes back to one recruiting visit Garrison had at which McCandless, Davis, and Travers were all present. Junior Peter Hess mentioned to Garrison during the visit, “They were just like a team. They were already a team.”
This teamwork has helped the freshmen develop in what is thought of as an individual sport.
“We clicked really well as a group when we came in,” Travers said. “Within the first week it seemed like we had been friends since we were little. It was nice to have other guys alongside you that were going through the same thing.”
McCandless and Davis found a sense of camaraderie early, as they realized they vaguely knew each other from their high schools, which were located 20 minutes away from each other. The two continued their friendship and decided to room together, which they admit has its benefits because of their similar athletic schedules.
“If Josh didn’t sleep through his alarm everyday, it would be even nicer,” McCandless joked.
Such is the life of the majority of this season’s squad, but the benefits of youth may pay their dividends in the future.Six freshmen on the team now means six more veterans on the team in later years. Both the coach and his players think this could be a recipe for success in the future.
“We all want to return Maryland to the powerhouse it used to be back in the day,” Davis said.
It has been many years since Maryland was that powerhouse in the 1960s, and just last year, NC State tied the Terps with their 11th overall ACC championship. Still the team is confident they can end the Wolfpack’s reign, which includes ten championships since 1990.
No one expects these Terps to completely hatch from their shell just yet, but as McCandless asserts, “You can’t put limits on our goals.”
“They came because they believe that what we’re going to do is a great thing,” Garrison said. “I need to nurture them along the right way and bring them some more teammates that will help these guys graduate with a ring on their finger.”
Contact reporter Mark Selig at sports@dbk.umd.edu.
