Article from the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i18/18a03001.htm)
From the issue dated January 11, 2008
A Texas Team Loads Up on All-American Talent, With No Americans
By ROBIN WILSON
El Paso, Tex.
Most of the students who attend the University of Texas here don't have to travel far to enroll. More than 80 percent come from El Paso County.
But at the university's Kidd Field — where the brick-red track is surrounded by an expanse of rocky brown mountains — you won't find any El Paso natives on the men's cross-country team. In fact, you won't find a cross-country runner from anywhere in North America.
It's been that way for the past couple of years, after Paul Ereng, who won a gold medal for Kenya in the 1988 Olympic Games, arrived at El Paso to coach the Miners' cross-country team. He is trying to put it back on the map by recruiting students from his own country, which is well known for its long-distance runners.
The strategy is working. El Paso's cross-country team earned a spot in the NCAA championships in 2005 for the first time in 13 years. And it has won its conference title in each of the past three seasons.
This year's team consists entirely of seven Kenyan runners, all of whom are on full scholarships. They speak a dialect called Nandi, live together in off-campus apartments, drink hot tea and eat homemade cornbread together, and attend the Anglican Church of St. Clement. Most of them never return home during their entire undergraduate career, becoming like family members to one another.
Mini-United Nations
The track-and-field program here has a long history of recruiting foreign athletes. Bob Kitchens, the head coach, says El Paso doesn't have enough name recognition to beat out places like Stanford University, or even Texas' flagship university, in Austin, when it comes to recruiting top American athletes. "We have to go and find as good an athlete someplace else," he says.
Lately that has meant not just the cross-country runners from Kenya, but also sprinters from Nigeria and Latvia, a high jumper from France, and a discus thrower from Sweden. Indeed, the men's and women's track-and-field team at El Paso is a mini-United Nations, with 40 athletes from 12 countries.
The number of foreign athletes in all intercollegiate sports is on the rise, but track and field is a pioneer when it comes to international recruitment. "There is a tradition dating back to the 50s, if not before," says Craig A. Masback, chief executive of USA Track & Field, the sport's governing body. The foreign influx makes sense because 211 countries have national teams, he says — more than in any other sport.
Here in El Paso, no one appears concerned about the lack of native-born Americans on the cross-country team. "I don't think it matters," says Bob Stull, the university's athletic director. Neither does Darla R. Smith, associate dean of the College of Health Sciences, who is the faculty athletic representative. "The fact that these athletes are good students is what matters," she says. The African students have an average cumulative grade-point average of 3.16.
When the runners put on their bright-orange shorts and shirts with the UTEP logo, no one cares where they're from, says Mr. Kitchens. "We're all from UTEP."
African Pipeline
From 1973 to 1983, El Paso's cross-country team consistently placed among the country's top five programs. But by the time Mr. Ereng arrived, in 2003, the team had been flagging for years. It continued to struggle during his first season. Brooding at his desk one day, he stared out into the hallway at some of the hundreds of framed NCAA all-American certificates lining the walls of the track-and-field office. They had been awarded to UTEP athletes who came from all over the world: Jamaica, Romania, Kenya, Nigeria. As Mr. Ereng sat racking his brain, wondering: "How do you survive as a team?" the plaques suddenly offered an answer. "The success and life of this team has come from international students," he recalls realizing.
That summer the coach made his first recruiting trip to Kenya, to watch competitors at the junior national trials. His own Olympic win had made Mr. Ereng a household name in his native country, something that would naturally attract young athletes.
He came back with three Kenyans, who helped El Paso's cross-country team win the Conference USA championship in 2005, its first league title in more than a decade. One of the three new recruits — Patrick K. Mutai, a 6-foot-1, 21-year-old freshman — was an NCAA all-American in the steeplechase in his first season. Another Kenyan, Stephen K. Samoei, also earned all-American honors in cross-country that year. Mr. Ereng has returned to Kenya every summer since then, bringing back at least one new runner each year, although not all of them have been champions right from the starting gun.
"Everybody thinks that because a guy is from Kenya, all you have to do is put him on a track and let him run," says Coach Kitchens. "It's not true. He needs good food, good coaching, good training."
Running in the Cold
El Paso's cross-country athletes spend hours training together each day, running in the hills surrounding the campus and working out in the weight room or on the track. In the weeks leading to the NCAA championship last year, in Terre Haute, Ind., they were ranked fourth in the nation. To prepare for the competition, the team added an extra practice, meeting at the Rio Grande, eight miles from the campus, at 5 a.m., when the temperature was in the low 40s. Mr. Ereng wanted to acclimate the athletes to running in the kind of cold weather he anticipated in Indiana.
All of the Kenyan athletes came to El Paso because they wanted an American education, and they knew running was the only way they could pay for it. Most of them grew up on farms in remote areas, in families of six or seven siblings. "I wanted to do something unique, something the others didn't do," says Japeth K. Ng'Ojoy, a junior whose family owns a large farm, which grows corn and tea. A biology major, he would like to go to medical school. "We need a lot of doctors" in Kenya, he says.
Like most of the team members, Mr. Ng'Ojoy, who is 20, didn't start running competitively until he was in high school. Even then he considered it a hobby. "In high school, I would run when I wanted to run: once a month in two or three events," he says. "Here, I compete almost weekly. Here I need to train to score points." The training has helped Mr. Ng'Ojoy shave two minutes off his 10K race time, to a personal best of 28 minutes, 24 seconds.
Running is a national pastime in Kenya. "In the U.S., people play football," says Dominic K. Tanui, a junior on the cross-country team. "Where I grew up, people run." He applied to Texas Tech University and the University of Arkansas as well, but only Mr. Ereng gave him a scholarship. Most of the other young Kenyan runners never applied anywhere but El Paso. They met Coach Ereng, scored well enough on the SAT to be admitted, and were in.
Fitting In, Staying Fit
Adjusting to life in El Paso wasn't easy, says Mr. Tanui, who at 24 is one of the older athletes on the cross-country team. First, the students here didn't understand his English, which he spoke with a heavy British accent. Then the food, like hamburgers and desserts with lots of sugar, didn't always sit right. "You can gain a lot of weight," he says. As Coach Ereng explains, "The food at home is more organic. If you want carrots, you go out to the garden and you get fresh."
None of the young Kenyan runners seem all that surprised to have found a team in Texas that is made up entirely of Africans. "At the back of your mind," says Mr. Tanui, "you expect Kenyans to be where running is."
Now that Mr. Ereng has opened a pipeline from Kenya to El Paso, the older runners are starting to attract younger ones. Aggrey Chirchir, who is in his first year here, is the team's newest recruit. He and Mr. Tanui went to the same school. "Back home we were running at the same level, but when he came here, I saw his times improve," says Mr. Chirchir. "I felt maybe I could train with him and the same would happen."
At the beginning of the NCAA cross-country championships last November, the El Paso men raced to an early lead. But Mr. Tanui got a back spasm and barely made it across the finish line. The team came in 10th, a much poorer showing than Mr. Ereng had hoped for, but still the best finish in nearly 25 years.
Mr. Samoei, the team's captain and the program's first Kenyan recruit, will graduate this spring. This summer Mr. Ereng will probably go back to Kenya to recruit more runners. With a little luck — and a couple more Kenyans — maybe everything will come together next season.
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Section: Students
Volume 54, Issue 18, Page A30