I am not sure why I feel obligated to try and justify Steve magness? choice to attend Rice University in the Fall. Seeing comments on this board such as ?shame he chose Rice?, the fact that I graduated from Rice in May and the pride that I take in wearing my class Ring has a lot to do with it.
I grew up in Australia and had always wanted to attend an American University. My high school coach pointed me in the direction of Rice and after running 3:50 for 1500m in high school I wrote to Rice and was offered a scholarship. I didn?t know much about Rice at the time, but I accepted the scholarship anyway. I had moderate success at Rice. I did a lot of stupid things with my training, didn?t always listen to my coach, had a lot of little injuries and eventually ran myself into the ground, resulting in a spectacularly bad senior year. I did however manage to lead the team to its first conference cross country title in over 80 years and a 31st and dead last place at nationals that same year in 1999, and run a 3:45 1500 as a sophmore and an 8:50 steeple as a junior. I am back home in OZ now and am slowly getting over the blood problem that slowed me down last year, and starting to train well again.
Anyway, I should get to the point of this post. Not many people would have heard of Rice. The reason for that is because we got the arse from the best conference in the country in 1996 ? The SWC, which broke up into the Big 12, WAC and UH into conference USA. Before this conference broke up, Rice captured a conference title in indoor track and had one of the best teams in the country, not to mention some world class calibre athletes. In the early 90?s, some of the Rice athletes were:
- Bryan Bronson (won NCAA 400H title and is 3rd all-time on the world list 47.03)
- Kareem Street Thompson (multiple NCAA champ in the long jump. Career best of 28?3 and sub 10 sec in the 100)
- Gabriel Luke (NCAA 400m indoor champ)
- Brian Klein (3rd indoors in the 800 in 1996 ? holds schoold record indoors and out 1:47.06 and 1:46.91 and the man who held the Texas Relays high school 1600m record unitl this year)
- Andrew Burrow (146.99 outdoors in the 800m)
Some of the All-American athletes on the team right now include decathlete Ryan Harlan, long jumpers, Tommy Oleksy and Vaughn Walwyn and 800m runner (also pre- med student who is an academic all-American) Adam Davis in the 800. We also had a freshman run 8:11 indoors in the 3k last year, and I was a member of a DMR squad which was the first team to miss out on Nationals (ranked 13th in the nation) in 2000.
I don?t know where Steve took visits but I can be assured that he made a good choice for a number of reasons:
- Head coah Jon Warren (PRs include 3:43 1500, 3:59 Mile, 8:30 steeple and 2:15 marathon) is one of the most easy going and highly regarded coaches in the US. I spent many hours talking to him about running and life in his office. He always has time for his athletes. He never gets mad (except with me when I ran really badly a few times, but that?s a different story) and he has his priorities in order. Education is number one and athletics is number two.
Rice is the smallest D1A university in the country. I am sure Steve could have gone to UT or Arkansas but he might have been lost in the crowd. UT has 51,000 students. Rice has 2,600 undergrads.
Outside of the Ivy League Schools, there is only one school that I can think of that has a better combination of academics and athletics than Rice. I think everyone knows that school is Stanford. No one else can claim to be ranked as highly academically and also have an athletic program that is also well respected. Our football team might not be great but our baseball team is number one in the country right now and just had a 30 game winning streak broken.
I know people are sceptical about Steve?s choice to attend Rice. Jon Warren has a big responsibility with this kid. Success in high school does not always translate into success in college. Just ask Michael Granville. The best coaches often struggle with such talent. Ron Warhusrst has taken a lot of flack because of Alan Webb and Mark Wetmore cops his fair share of criticism on this board for his star athletes being injured and there perceived lack of improvement. However, I am a firm believer that you can run well at any college if you want to badly enough. Just look at who has the fastest 1500m time in the nation right now. Can anyone tell me who Blake Bolden is and who his coach is at South West Missouri State? I don?t think so!
I am sure Steve made his choice based on the academic repuation of Rice. He would have heard plenty about the school from his teachers and from growing up in Houston. I think he should be applauded for his choice. There are too many kids who forget about getting an education and think that running for John McDonell is the be-all and end-all of college running. I truly am grateful for the opportunity I was given to attend Rice and If this kid was smart enough to choose Rice, I think he will be successful in the long run. Good luck at Rice, Steve!
Lachlan McArthur, Rice University - class of 2002