Goshen College’s men’s and women’s cross country teams are losing a total of eight seniors as the school year comes to a close. According to some, the last few years have been “the golden age.”
Rustin Nyce, the director of track & field and cross country, recognized this class of runners as special. “I guess what [the golden age] means is, like, the best that it’s been, right? … going back to look at any decade in Goshen’s sports history, this last decade of track and cross would have the most nationally competitive programs and the most all Americans and most success.”Including national appearances in all four seasons and 22 all-Americans titles, the decade has been led by Annika Fisher ‘24, Nelson Kemboi ‘24, senior Mercy Chebet, and junior Mathew Keitany. All four of them were recognized nationally more than three times each during their careers.
“I think this group has been defined as resilient and adaptable, because they’ve had to be, and they’ve had to just be really open to trying new and different things and finding ways to be successful when they do that,” Nyce said.
Aaron Yeakey, a senior nursing major, is a distance runner for the cross country team. He thinks the winning tradition “boils down to the culture and the hard work that the team puts together … Our team culture is like … we all care so deeply about what we do and what we put into the program,” he said.
Chebet highlighted the importance of a support system and team chemistry.
“I feel like this couple of years have been successful because of my teammates. We always walk as a team, we always make sure that everyone succeeds, helping each other, and encouraging each other.”
When this group of seniors were first-years, they joined a much more mature program than usual. In 2021, the GC cross country team had athletes as old as 28. In the present, Yeakey mentioned how beneficial that age gap was.
“As freshmen coming in and having teammates that are ten years older than you, that’s actually a huge advantage because they just have so much more experience and just growth that you can see … they can teach you things,” he said.
Now being on the other side, Yeakey talked about his role as one of the upperclassmen on the team.
“All of the upperclassmen when I was a freshman were all so accessible and confident in who they were as runners and what they did to be as phenomenal of athletes as they were … [I’m] trying to replicate that and then pass that on through things like team culture to younger athletes.”
Concerning the future, Nyce and Chebet envision it as being promising.
“I encourage my other teammates that are staying behind to continue doing what we have been doing … basically nothing special just keep doing what we have been doing all along, I think they will be ok,” said Chebet.
Nyce said, “We will continue to recruit people that are just first, good people that can do the right thing and don’t have to be motivated to do the right things. They already want to do the right things. And so once we have people here that are just good people, the rest of it takes care of itself.”
