Editor’s note: Longtime Baton Rouge sportswriter, author and television host Lee Feinswog takes his unique approach to sports to dig deeper into LSU Athletics. Look for these features online and in official athletics department publications throughout the 2014-15 season.
Hardly anyone watches.
Heck, if you’re reading this you’re probably an LSU fan but unlikely one who knows much, if anything, about LSU cross country.
“Track and field is already so much of an individual sport,” LSU senior Philip Primeaux said, “that you’ve got to be doing it for reasons other than that.”
It’s hot.
Just to find hills they have to drive an hour up to Tunica Hills.
“You can’t sell them on hill work,” LSU head track and field coach Dennis Shaver cracked. “And you can’t sell them on nice, cool weather.”
The life of a cross-country runner at LSU is not easy.
“Most people don’t realize that we sponsor cross country,” Shaver noted, “but there are no scholarships for cross country.”
So, wait: They run in this heat and obscurity for nothing?
“Well, because of that our formula for winning track and field meets has always been sprints, hurdles, jumps and middle-distance people,” Shaver said. “Once in a while you have a great distance runner in there. So each year our cross country team is made up of walk-on athletes. And many of them develop into successful runners. But it’s tough.”
Yet …
Primeaux graduated from Catholic High and figured his running career was over.
“When I came to LSU I hadn’t intended on running at all. The year I didn’t run I thought I was done with it,” he said. “But after a year without it I realized I missed the competition and the thrill of the race and had to get back into it.”
So he approached then cross country coach Mark Elliott, now head track coach at Clemson.
“(Elliott) said he thought I could help the team out, which gave me some inspiration to come out.”
And so he did. Hot temps and all.
In 2011, Primeaux notched career bests and finished 66th at the SEC Championships and then 100th at the NCAA South Regional.
“During that year off the drive of getting in shape to compete in a high level of competition in a race that’s moving quick and just being in the middle of a race, there’s nothing like it.”
That was obvious.
In 2012, Primeaux got better. He finished in the top three in five of six meets, had personal bests in the both the SEC and NCAA Regional meets, finishing 82nd in the latter.
Last year, he was LSU’s top runner and capped the campaign in the NCAA Regional with his best 10K by more than a minute, 32:00.09, and finished 49th.
Now this year, he’s continued his success, training hard for the SEC Championships next Friday in Tuscaloosa.
“Your teammates and your coach, that’s all you need,” Primeaux said.
Morgan Schuetz, another Baton Rougean, feels kind of the same way.
For example, Schuetz, a junior from Parkview Baptist, loves the 800-meter run, which happened to be current LSU cross country coach Khadevis Robinson‘s specialty in college at TCU. He won the 1998 NCAA title in the event and ran it in the Olympics for the USA in 2004 and 2012.
“Who better to learn from?” Schuetz asked.
In the meantime, there’s cross country.
“It’s not my favorite,” Schuetz admitted. “But I get it. I understand why we do it. It’s harder for me mentally to wrap my mind around it.
“I love that it’s more team-oriented and you’re running for your teammates and it doesn’t matter how well I I do. All five of us have to do well to have a good day. It’s easy when you’re tired to think about your teammates and want to do well for them.”
Schuetz was among the state’s best long-distance runners coming out of high school in 2012.
“I always wanted to come to LSU,” Schuetz said.
When she was in the eighth grade she went to the team’s season-ending banquet because her mom worked at the hotel where it was held.
“I saw Lolo (Jones) and got some stuff signed, like the national-championship poster and my dream in life was to run at LSU.”
She laughed.
“So they let me on the team and I was pretty happy.”
That fall at LSU she was the only freshman on the women’s team and finished 123rd in the SEC meet.
“In high school I didn’t know how to train,” she said.
Last year, the first under new cross country coach Khadevis Robinson, Schuetz got better. She made the NCAA Regional and set a personal-best with her 23:00.2 and 85th-place finish.
“She’s real consistent and extremely competitive,” Robinson said.
This season she’s LSU’s top woman runner.
Which is all Robinson could ask for at this point as he tries to make LSU cross country relevant.
“One of our goals that we’re trying to achieve with coach Robinson is that we want to be an NCAA track and field team that can score in every event,” Shaver said. “I’ve been very pleased with the effort he’s put in.
“We have brought in more distance runners, men and women, for official visits this fall than I can ever remember. And high-quality people and he’s been working it really hard, so hopefully we’re going to see improvement.”
LSU has one of the top track-and-field programs in the nation, boasting 31 national titles in men’s and women’s indoors and outdoors combined. But rarely have those teams prospered from points scored by long-distance runners.
That’s where Robinson comes in. He’d coached at UNLV and was at Ohio State when the job opened up and it was a chance to get closer to family in Texas, Jasper on his wife’s side and Dallas on his.
“LSU is one of the premier track-and-field programs in the nation and you always want to be a part of something that’s in a winning culture and come and learn and find out what it takes to be successful.
“And I like challenges and I knew LSU was not known for its distance program,” Robinson said. “I knew what I was getting myself into and it would be a big challenge and I wanted that challenge to see what I’m made of.”
So far things are going well.
“The girls are doing extremely well for where we were at and what we’re doing here,” Robinson said. “Obviously in some of the races I’ve wanted them to do better. You know how coaches are, you get kind of greedy, right? But with the girls we have on the team I have to be pleased because all the girls have run personal bests this season. If you’ve run as fast as you’ve ever run that’s all a coach can ask from the kid.”
Robinson won the 800 meters eight times in USA championship meets, four indoors and four outdoors, the last in 2009.
“The guys have done decent, but they’ve been more up and down,” Robinson said. “Some races they’ve done well and some races they haven’t. We’re better than last year. We just need to get them all to run their best races on the same day and that’s been a big challenge for the guys, for some reason.”
It will all be about recruiting, of course, because Louisiana, for many of the aforementioned reasons, simply doesn’t produce a ton of high-level Division I long-distance talent.
“We’re starting to build the culture,” Robinson said. “If I can get some kids in who are already closer to the level we need them to and get them all on the same page at the same time, we’ll be all right.”
Not that it matters to Schuetz.
Heat? Obscurity? Whatever.
“I love it,” Schuetz said. “I think all the hard work and effort you put into it each and every day, being tired all the time are worth it in those few minutes when you make a PR or have a blowout day, it’s a feeling of happiness you can’t compare to anything else.”