In Tuesday’s Argus, Dave Mingolla wrote an article ostensibly detailing the success of runners on both the men’s and women’s cross country teams at the New England D3 meet, and how the captains of both teams (Sean Watson and Lucia Pier, respectively) earned spots at Nationals. He dedicated about 7/8 of the article’s length to the men’s team and its captain, including such details as Watson’s time; an exciting play-by-play of Watson’s race; analysis of the team’s performance in comparison to rivals Amherst and Williams; reflections and philosophical pontification about the men’s season; and hopeful predictions about next season’s success. The article included an extensive selection of quotes from Watson and teammates Lang and Tassone.
At the end of the article, Mingolla tacked on two sentences about the women’s team, saying that Pier and Ravenna Neville ran well, and the team overall was largely “disappointing” this season, though they might improve next season. There were a few words of praise quoted from Watson — Mingolla did not bother to interview any of the members of the women’s team. He did not even give Lucia’s time.
For anyone interested, a quick Google search discovers that she ran an impressive 22:21 (on the 6k course), an improvement over her time at the New England D3’s last year of 23:12. It was only a minute off the winning time of 21:20, and about 50 seconds off the legendary Ellen Davis’s 21:29 winning performance at last year’s meet (which was on a different course, but times are still roughly comparable). Ravenna, only a sophomore, finished in 22:33.
It shouldn’t have to be explained why the men’s and women’s teams deserve equal coverage. The two teams performed comparably (the men’s team finished 13th, earned 1 All-New-England honor and 1 spot at Nationals; the women’s team finished 8th, earned 2 All-New-England honors and 1 spot at Nationals). Yet Mingolla devotes an entire article to the men’s team and in two sentences writes the women’s team off as “disappointing.”
Cross country is really, really hard. Running at competition-level is just frankly painful. It’s not a sport of skill, talent, or fancy equipment, and success doesn’t automatically follow from being lucky enough to have a large body. There is minimal strategy. It’s essentially a battle with your own weakness, a test of grit — as Prefontaine famously said, “I run to see who has the most guts.” Anyone successful at this sport — no, anyone who even competes in the sport at this level, and especially someone who places 18th, or 29th, or even a pair of freshmen who place 109th and 110th out of 344 in all of New England D3 — deserves recognition, not a thoughtless judgment of “disappointing.” Let’s all, for a moment, acknowledge the underappreciated toughness of Hannah Bourne, Hannah Hastings, Jessica Levin, Ravenna Neville, Lucia Pier, Anna Schindler, Sarah White, the rest of the team who did not compete this past weekend, and any current undergrads who ran with the team at some point in the last four years. It’s tempting to wish Lucia luck at nationals this Saturday, but anyone who has ran cross country before, in college or high school, knows that luck has nothing to do with it. Lucia (and Sean) – go kick some ass.
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