Rising to the Occasion
December 22, 2004 06:13 PM | General
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| Davis |
College, in many cases, has a tendency to make or break an individual’s character. Those away from home for the first time either wither away from the lack of parental comfort or flourish in the face of new challenges.
Few ever questioned Jennifer Davis’ ability to succeed athletically at the college level. The Romney, W.Va., native knew, however, that her success would not be measured exclusively by her athletic achievements.
When Davis came to WVU to run track and cross country she was unsure whether she could handle the responsibilities of a student-athlete at the collegiate level.
Davis expects perfection in all that she does and being an average runner and student weren’t going to cut it. It was all or nothing and with only 24 hours in a day, she was uneasy about her immediate future.
“I ran low mileage in high school so when they wanted me to run 50-some miles a week here I was a little overwhelmed,” Davis recollects. “I had to adjust to not having my mom cook for me, having to wake up and go to my classes from Towers and being a student-athlete. I had to learn how to do athletics and academics well.”
Three years later, the indoor track All-American doesn’t think she could handle being a student without the daily rigors of collegiate athletics. To say that she has risen to the occasion would be an understatement.
“Gosh, I can’t imagine how different life would be without running,” she says with a petrified look on her face. “I always wonder what I would be doing if I wasn’t running or trying to get homework in before meets. I wonder what it would be like to be a normal student and I don’t think I’d like it. I like to be busy.”
While college proved to be a perfect fit for Jennifer, the same couldn’t be said for her twin sister Susan, who fell on hard times as a freshman on Marshall’s basketball team. Jennifer, knowing Susan’s potential as a runner, began to play the role of Susan’s recruiter.
“When things started getting bad for her at Marshall I started telling her that if she was still interested in running she could always come here. I was pushing for her. She was having such a bad time there and I was having such a good time here so it only made sense.”
Jennifer’s recruiting efforts were successful and Susan joined the team in 2002. Although the two live together in Morgantown, the relationship they share is different from what they had as teammates at Hampshire High.
“When we were on the team in high school it was just her and me but here there are seven of us,” she says. “It’s been a little bit different because we weren’t used to the team aspect in high school. It’s a lot of fun to have Susan on the team though.”
The recent success of the cross country team is due in large part to the hard work that Davis has put in individually.
“I’ll run anywhere between eight and 12 miles per day,” Davis explains. “If we do eight-mile tempos, we do two-mile warm-ups, run eight miles and then have a two-mile cool-down.”
Davis put in her best summer of training to prepare for the 2004 campaign. Through just two meets, her hard work is beginning to pay serious dividends. She finished third overall at the Duquesne Duals (three places higher than 2003) and sixth at the Indiana State Invite.
“I basically just built a whole lot of miles,” she says. “I probably ran 65 miles a week and I ran a couple road races just for fun. We don’t do anything real specific over the summer so I did as much as I could on my own.”
West Virginia enters the 2004 season with each of its top seven runners returning for the second consecutive year. In 2002 and 2003, WVU was the first team not to make nationals. Davis, the consummate team runner, plans on making sure that WVU gets over the hump this season.
“My goal is for the team to be at nationals,” she states adamantly. “I really haven’t set any personal goals. Realistically, I’d like to help the team any way I can to make it to nationals.”
Davis knows the team’s window of opportunity to achieve that goal is slowly closing. This team’s goal is to not only make it to nationals, but to eternally leave its mark on the WVU cross country program.
“For every single one of us except my sister, every meet is our last one so we all want to compete really well and do our best,” she says. “We want to be the best cross country team in West Virginia history.”
Don’t let her innocent smile and hospitable manners fool you. When the sound of the starting gun echoes through the rolling hills on a crisp fall morning, this girl is all business.
Jarrod Sudduth is a student assistant in the WVU sports communications office.
