Emily Furia

Randy Hawthorne

Greetings, fellow William and Mary harriers and track and field athletes, near and far!

Such fantastic news to share: the men’s cross country team, which already had won Regionals by 50 points and was ranked 7th in the US, placed 5th at the NCAAs November 23, becoming the 2nd best W&M team EVER, after the 1973 team that placed 4th. This year’s team counts three All-Americans, starting with Jon Grey (17th at NCAAs), Patter-son Wilhelm (34th) and Colin Leak (40th). In addition, Coach Alex Gibby received the Southeast Region Coach of the Year Award.

The women, coached by Kathy Newberry, placed 2nd at ECACs for the third time in 4 years. Meghan Burns, Emily Anderson, and Kayley Byrne all placed in the top 10. At Regionals, they upset then-#28 North Carolina, and Meghan Burns and Emily Anderson were All-Region. The 4th place finish matched W&M's best ever women's effort, last accom-plished in 1998. And Emily Anderson successfully defended her title at the CAA meet.

Fantastic performances, all!

The times that we live in, however, are not especially sup-portive of public institutions. We all know that throughout the country public funding has been cut right and left, and that, unfortunately, affects William and Mary directly. As Coach Gibby describes, “The administration is more than willing to support the program. But money is so tight, it just isn’t there. Increasingly, we depend on alumni for funds to support us.”

The support of all alumni, big and small donors alike, has made a tremendous difference these past few years. But

with the basic cost of traveling with both teams—air, hotel, food—to meets coming in at $10,000 per meet, and the College able to supply less and less, it may be that budget constraints begin to affect the choices of competition venues. The teams traveled to compete with Oklahoma this year, a team that ended up #1 at the NCAAs—but if the funds aren’t there in the future, competition will have to remain much closer to home, and therefore be less varied and valuable for the team.

It would simply be a shame for such talented athletes to be con-strained by the artificial ceilings of governmental budgets. Your $5, $500, or $5,000 makes an enormous difference: whatever you can give will directly benefit these young athletes.

Please log in to www.spikedshoesociety.org in order to donate to the team, and to check out performance updates, great photos, and video of the NCAAs. Through the site you can also invest in an in-scribed brick adjacent to Zable Stadium. The login is wmalumni and the password is sunkengardens. You can also use the enclosed en-velope. There are also naming opportunities at Zable Stadium for alumni who want to make large donations. One recent donor, for example, had the starting line named for a former coach. If interested e-mail kenhalla@gmail.com. Many thanks to our donors, big and small, who have been supporting the teams thus far.

Wishing you health and happy miles in this holiday season.

Dear Friends of Track & Field/Cross-Country,

http://www.spikedshoesociety.org December 2009

T h e S p i k e d S h o e S o c i e t y a t t h e C o l l e g e o f W i l l i a m a n d M a r y

Track Talk

Board of Directors Co-Chairs Randy Hawthorne ’67 Juan Conde ’86 Committee Glenn Crafford ’77 Jacob Frey ’04 Ken Halla ’86 Sue Haynie ’88 Ali Henderson ’04 Marcie Homan ’95 Brian Hyde ’96 Ron Martin ’74

Volunteers Website videos and pictures Coach Emil Davis ’85 Coach David Fritz Randy Hawthorne ’67 Podcasts Ali Henderson ’04 Facebook (Type in “Spiked Shoe Society”) Kristyn Shiring ’07 Fundraising Letter Brigid Dorsey ’83

Newsletter Harald Anderson ’89 Emily Furia ’01 Tim O’Dowd ’80 Rick Platt ’72 Jason Schoener ’07 (men's write-ups) Jennifer Svan ’93 (women's write-ups) Alumni Team Organizer Ken Halla ’86

Special thanks to Bob Keroack ’79

Ken Halla

The Spiked Shoe Society

Find us online at

Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree

The men’s team traveled to Stillwater, Okla-homa for the highly competitive Cowboy Jam-boree, finishing a close 2nd place to 5th-ranked Northern Arizona, 52-58. Juniors Jon Grey (Lancaster, PA) and Patterson Wilhelm (Lynchburg, VA) didn’t waste any time taking the early lead the first two miles of the race. “We felt like we had put out a solid perform-ance for our first race of the cross-country sea-son,” said Wilhelm.

It was a solid race for the Tribe as Grey fin-ished in 8th place with a time of 24:11 followed closely by Wilhelm in 9th (24:15), seniors Colin Leak (Chadds Ford, PA) in 10th (24:16) and Ben Massam (Chatham, NJ) in 12th (24:22). Lewis Woodard (Charlotte, NC) rounded out the scoring for the Tribe in 20th place (24:33). “We started to find our team identity and began refreshing ourselves on how to race effec-tively,” said Wilhelm.

Pre-National Invitational

The ninth-ranked Tribe finished 4th in the Blue Race at the Pre-National Invitational in Terre Haute, IN—the best finish ever by a W&M team since the meet was split into two races in 2001. Jon Grey had an exceptional race, finishing fifth in 23:54. Grey became the first Tribe run-ner to finish in the top five at the Pre-National meet, bettering former All-American and volun-teer coach Ed Moran’s sixth-place perform-ance in 2003.

Patterson Wilhem and Grey were in the lead pack through the 5k. After passing 5k in 14:59, Grey took the lead through the 6k mark narrow-ing the lead pack down to a few athletes, then held on to finish 5th. Wilhelm placed 12th in 24:05. Rounding out the Tribe scoring were Colin Leak in 23rd place (24:17), redshirt freshman Zach “ZB” Gates (Fishers, IN) in 33rd place (24:27), and senior Charlie Swartz (Manassas, VA) in 55th place (24:44).

CAA Championships

The Tribe took to the hills of New Market, VA, on a windy Halloween morning looking to scare the rest of the conference with another domi-nating performance at the CAA Champion-ships. “This is one of the best teams that I can

remember since I have been here,” said Direc-tor of Track and Field Dan Stimson. “We rested five of our top seven runners and gave some of the younger guys a chance to run in a championship meet.” It proved to be a successful strategy as the men won their 10th consecutive CAA title in dominat-ing fashion, outscoring second place George Mason 21-57. Ben Massam and Charlie Swartz took the early lead in the race establish-ing a pace for the rest of the team. Following close behind was junior Brian Skoldowski (Newark, DE) who used his middle-distance kick to win his first individual conference title. Sklodowski’s time of 25:06 won the race by six seconds, making him the 15th W&M runner to win the CAA Championship. “Team-wise this was a great win. We had a few guys step up with huge performances,” said Sklodowski. Some of those performances in-cluded sophomore Chris Tyson (Arlington, VA) finishing third and redshirt sophomore Max Werner (Sterling, VA) earning his first spot on the All-CAA team in sixth place. Also finishing with All-CAA honors were Swartz (4th), Mas-sam (7th), and senior Harry Miller (Portland, OR) in 9th.

NCAA Southeast Regional

W&M successfully defended its Southeast Re-gion title in Louisville, KY, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships with a 50-point victory over 2nd-place North Carolina State. Patterson Wilhelm was the team’s top finisher, taking fourth place in 30:07 and earning a spot on the All-Region team for the third consecutive year. Jon Grey (5th; 30:08) and Colin Leak (9th; 30:25) earned All-Region honors for the second time. ZB Gates and 2009 CAA cham-pion Brian Sklodowski finished 11th and 20th respectively, earning their first All-Region hon-ors. Ben Massam and Charlie Swartz also competed, taking 29th and 42nd, respectively. The last time the Tribe won back-to-back re-gional titles was 1970-71.

IC4A Championships

The Tribe took second to Duke at the 101st IC4A Championships, which were held Novem-

(Continued on page 4)

William and Mary Men Cross-Country Season Updates

Find us online at www.spikedshoesociety.org

William and Mary Women Cross-Country Season Updates Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree

The women knocked off their first top-20 na-tionally-ranked team at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree on October 3 in Stillwater. With the seniors leading the way, the Tribe beat No. 16 Northern Arizona by 10 points, en route to a third place finish behind No. 30 Texas Tech and Kansas. Senior Emily Ander-son (Golf, IL), a three-time All-American, was the top runner for the Tribe on the 5K course, taking 12th place with a time of 17:46.9. Seniors Kayley Byrne (Oak Hill, VA), and Meghan Burns (Coopersburg, PA) also earned spots in the top 25, finishing 20th (17:58.1) and 23rd (18:04.5), respectively. Rounding out the scor-ing for the Tribe were graduate student Darcy McDonald (Lititz, PA), in 36th place (18:18) and junior Betsy Graney (Harper Woods, MI), who was 39th in 18:19.8. Also competing for the Green and Gold was senior Sallie Ford (Lynchburg, VA), who clocked an 18:37.6 for 54th place. Freshman Katie Buenga (Greenville, DE) finished less than a second behind Ford, placing 57th.

Pre-National Invitational

On October 17, the team earned a solid 15th-

place finish in the 37-team White Race in Terre Haute, IN. The Tribe beat four higher-ranked teams, including No. 12 Baylor. The veterans led the way again, with all five Green and Gold scorers coming from the class of 2010 or graduate school. Emily Anderson clocked 21:21.0 over the 6K course to finish 29th, Meghan Burns was 50th in 21:39.4, and Kayley Byrne finished 91st with a time of 22:01.5. Next for William and Mary was Sallie Ford in 22:10.4 for 103rd, and not far behind was Darcy McDonald in 22:28.5 for 133rd. Betsy Graney and freshman Krissa Loretto (Toms River, NJ) rounded out the var-sity squad in 23:16.4 and 23:20.0, respec-tively.

CAA Championships With an impressive five runners earning all-conference honors, the women took home their seventh-consecutive Colonial Athletic Associa-tion conference title at Newmarket Battlefield State Park in Virginia, out-scoring runner-up James Madison 33-40 and trouncing the other eight teams on the 6K course. Emily Ander-son defended her title from a year ago, running 20:35.7 for the victory. Her time was the sec-ond-fastest in conference history behind Ali Henderson ’04’s 20:14 in 2003. Second for the Tribe, and second overall, was Meghan Burns in 20:49.1. Also nabbing all-conference acco-lades for the Green and Gold were Kayley Byrne (7th, 21:30.5), Darcy McDonald (11th, 21:40.46) and Kelly McElroy (Wyomissing,

PA; 12th, 21:42.21). Betsy Graney took 14th with a 21:52.4, barely missing all-CAA honors. The women’s seventh-consecutive conference win ties the squad with Butler for the second-largest active streak in the NCAA.

NCAA Regional

Meghan Burns led the Tribe to fourth place at the Southeast Regional on November 14 in Louisville, Kentucky, as the team upset North Carolina. Although the College’s finish matched the women’s best-ever effort at regionals, dat-ing to 1998, it wasn’t enough to earn one of 13 at-large team bids to the NCAA Champion-ships. With her 15th-place finish and a time of 20:56.3 on the 6K course, Burns nabbed her second all-region accolade, as did fellow senior Emily Anderson, who was a few paces behind in 21:01.2, good for 17th place. Sallie Ford and Kayley Byrne also crossed the line seconds apart, with Ford clocking 21:34.8 for 33rd, and Byrne finishing 36th with a 21:39.8. Junior Betsy Graney was the Tribe’s only non-senior running. She placed 45th with a time of 21:51.0. Also competing for the Green Gold were Kelly McElroy and Darcy McDonald, who took 52nd and 77th, respectively. ECACs

The women ended their season with a strong kick, taking a close second to Boston College at the 25th ECAC Championships on November 21 and earning four individual All-East honors. Continuing her late-season peak, Meghan Burns paced the Tribe with a third-place finish and a time of 17:14.7 on the storied Van Cort-landt Park 5K course in the Bronx. Also placing in the top 10 for William and Mary were Emily Anderson and Kayley Byrne, finishing in fifth and seventh with times of 17:29.5 and 17:32.5. Burns, Anderson and Byrne scored All-East recognition for the second time in their careers, while senior Sallie Ford earned it for the first time with a 16th-place showing and time of 17:51.3. Also running for the Green and Gold were Darcy McDonald, Kelly McElroy, Krissa Loretto, and sophomore Kelsey Budd (Oakton, VA). In the team scoring, the women beat CAA rival James Madison by a wide mar-gin, 60-116.

Find us online at www.spikedshoesociety.org

ber 21 in Van Courtlandt Park in the Bronx. Five Green and Gold runners earned All-East honors, led by sophomore Chris Tyson's second-place finish (25:24.9 for 8k). Tyson's performance was the best W&M finish at the event since Matt Lane's victory in 1998. Junior Skeeter Morris (Burkeville, VA) earned All-East honors with a ninth-place finish in a time of 25:36.7. Redshirt freshman John Pence (Columbus, IN) and Max Werner placed 16th (25:54.3) and 18th (25:56.5). Junior Peter Asaro (Gloucester, MA) rounded out the All-East runners for the Tribe with a 22nd-place showing in a time of 26:04.5. Redshirt fresh-man David Adley (Pittsburgh, PA) placed 45th with a 26:31.4.

NCAA Championships

On November 23, the men’s team made its 13th-consecutive appearance at the national championships, placing 5th, and for the first time in history, multiple Tribe runners earned All-American honors in a single meet. Coach Alex Gibby was voted the Southeast Region coach of the year for the third time since 2005.

Senior Jon Grey was spotted among the na-tion’s top runners as they turned in a blistering 4:21 first-mile split. “I wanted to get out hard so I wouldn’t have to fight my way through the pack like I did last year,” he said. This proved to be a good move as Grey finished 17th overall in 29:51.4, a solid improvement from his 78th place finish at last year’s championships. Fol-lowing close behind was Patterson Wilhelm, who finished 34th in 30:18.9 and also became an All-American for the first time. “The team works well together, which is what makes this

(Continued from page 2) team so special.” said Wilhelm. “We can hope-fully get podium [top four] next year.”

Like Leak, Woodard gives Gibby credit for his improvement from last year’s 149th place finish. “Gibby holding me out of meets this year was a good move,” Woodard says. “I felt more confi-dent and fresh. I would have been happy with a top 100 finish, but the race went better than expected.” Rounding out the scoring was ZB Gates in 126th place (31:10.6). “ZB ran the race of his life at regionals and had an average race at NCAAs,” said Woodard. “He’s a top guy who’s going to give you everything he has.” CAA Champion Brian Sklodowski and Ben Massam finished 202nd and 212th for the Tribe.

Senior Colin Leak grabbed the final All-American spot by finishing 40th in 30:21.4, a result that’s been a long time in the making. After finishing 211th and 249th in his first two NCAA Championships, Gibby sat down with Leak and formulated a new plan in which his runs and workouts would be more controlled. “I always wanted to be an All-American,” Leak said. “But I would go for broke and take myself out of the race or get injured.” The new plan resulted in drastic improvements as Leak fin-ished 94th at last year’s championships. After the final workout of the 2009 season, Gibby talked to Leak on his cool-down and said, “Colin, I don’t want you to race for All-American.” Leak was upset at first, but took Gibby’s advice to heart. Instead, he ran a con-trolled start with Lewis Woodard, which put him in place to do what Leak had always dreamed of. Both runners advanced from 90th to 50th place by the 8k mark. Leak moved up to take the last All-American spot and Woodard fin-ished 53rd in 30:30.2.

Alumni News *Will Tarantino ’05, who is fighting brain cancer, is hiking across the Colorado Plateau to raise money for cancer research. To learn more, visit willpowerresearchfund..com.

*Congratulations to Tara Guelig '03, who ran 2:54:27 at the Twin Cities Marathon on October 4.

*The CAA recently named 25th-anniversary teams for men's and women's cross-country. William and Mary alumni took 15 of the 25 men's spots and 9 of the 25 women's. Tribe athletes are listed below; to see the complete rosters, visit caasports.com.

Mike Brown ’98 Jacob Frey ’03 Sean Graham ’03 Ken Halla ’86 Jeff Hedley ’06 Charlie Hurt ’05 Brian Hyde ’96 Mike Keally ’06

Meghan Bishop ’07 Janice Brown ’93 Julia Cathcart ’06 Emily Furia ’01 Ali Henderson ’04 Marcie Homan ’95 Jackie Kosakowski ’05 Kathy Newberry ’00 Cathy Stanmeyer ’91

Kevin Krause ’92 Christo Landry ’08 Matt Lane ’01 Ed Moran ’04 Steve Swift ’04 Howard Townsend ’98 Paul Vandegrift ’92

Men Women

The 25th anniversary track & field teams will be announced the week of December 14th.

See More Stories, Pictures, Videos, and Updates Online

Find us online at www.spikedshoesociety.org

This newsletter is just a snapshot of everything that has hap-pened on the team over the past few months. By taking the Spiked Shoe Society online it is our hope that we can keep eve-ryone up to date while simultaneously reducing paper mailings. Going online also allows us to take advantage of the many rich multimedia outlets available on the web.

Visit www.spikedshoesociety.org for regular updates on team-mates past and present. There you’ll find photographs and video from races, radio-style interviews available for download as pod-casts, meet results, and links to news stories covering current student athletes and alumni alike.

While you’re there, feel free to leave a comment on any story. Let us know what you think! Plus you can sign up to receive updates by email or in your favorite RSS reader.

Looking to get in touch with fellow classmates? You can find contact information for old friends at the alumni database (login, wmalumni and password, sunkengardens). While you’re there, take a second to check your own email and mailing address.

To help you keep in touch with your friends and teammates, The Spiked Shoe Society has set up groups on several social net-working sites. In particular, you can find us on Facebook and LinkedIn by typing in “Spiked Shoe Society”

The most important thing about the Spiked Shoe Society is you. Let us know what you want to see on the website or in this news-letter. Tell us what you’ve been up to since you’ve graduated. Have you run in any interesting races (it doesn’t matter how fast, most of us are “retired” after all)? Any exciting life changes? We’ll put it up on the blog so your old teammates can catch up with what you’ve been doing. The Spiked Shoe Society is here for you so help us make it better by becoming an active par-ticipant!

If you’ve ever wondered what your old teammates have been up to, chances are good they’re wondering about you too! Be sure to include your full name and graduation year with any stories or information you send in.

Please e-mail Ken Halla at kenhalla@gmail.com if you have any news, ideas, or thoughts so he can put them on the webpage or in the newsletter.

This issue welcomes our new editor, Emily Furia (’01). In addition to being a professional editor (she has been an editor at Bicy-cling magazine for more than eight years), she has a personal connection to the current teams (Coach Newberry was one of her college roommates) and she looks forward to helping spread the news of Tribe runners past and present, as Randy Hawthorne and Ken Halla have done so well for so many years.

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Exp. Date: 3-Digit Sec. Code: ________ Name: Phone (H) (W)_____________________ Address: ________________________________________________________________________________________________ City, State, Zip: E-Mail:___________________________________________ Does your firm match gifts? ______ Name of company: _______________________________________________________ My gift is designated for: WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELD & CROSS-COUNTRY (0758) MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD & CROSS-COUNTRY (0469)

FRIENDS OF TRACK AND FIELD & CROSS-COUNTRY ENDOWMENT ($2,500)

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Please send completed forms to: W&M Tribe Club P.O. Box 399 Williamsburg, VA 23187

Tribe Men Take Fifth at Cross-Country NCAA Championships

T h e S p i k e d S h o e S o c i e t y a t t h e C o l l e g e o f W i l l i a m a n d M a r y

Track Talk

http://www.spikedshoesociety.org December 2009

After defending their Southeast Regional title, the men placed fifth in the NCAA championships, making them the second best W&M team EVER (after the 4th in 1973). In addition, three runners earned All-American honors, the first time in W&M history that more than one runner has done so. The men exceeded the polls, which had them ranked seventh and expected to place sixth. Leading the team were Jon Grey (finishing 17th), Patterson Wilhelm (34th) and Colin Leak (40th). Lewis Woodard finished 53rd, and rounding out the scoring was ZB Gates in 126th place. CAA Champion Brian Sklodowski and Ben Massam finished 202nd and 212th for the Tribe. Prior to the race, head coach Alex Gibby received the Southeast Regional 2009 Cross-Country Coach of the Year Award.

This was the 13th consecutive year the Tribe has competed in the NCAA Championships.

Both the Men’s and Women’s teams won their respective CAA championships—the women for the seventh consecutive time and the men for the tenth.

This issue includes a special request for donations. With increased budget cuts, our teams need you more than ever. Increased support has allowed the teams to travel to meets as far away as Oklahoma, in large part because of our generosity. Competing with the best teams in the country helps our athletes improve and gives the Wil-liam and Mary name more exposure, which leads to better recruit-ing. We all know how this cycle works, and it all begins with a few donations. You can donate using the enclosed envelope or elec-tronically via the spikedshoesociety.org page.

Lastly, if you would like to volunteer for Track Talk or the Spiked Shoe Society, or if you can help the Spiked Shoe Society in other ways, please contact Ken Halla at kenhalla@gmail.com.

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