BLOG 8: Green ready to end cross country career with a bang

By Sandy Gholston

Ferris State runner Jackie Green is looking for a big performance in the 2008 NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Cross Country Championships (Photo/Sandy Gholston)

BIG RAPIDS – Like most seniors student-athletes, Jackie Green would prefer to spend less time pondering what it will be like when it’s over and more time working hard to go out with a bang.

Green, running in her senior season on Ferris State University’s women’s cross country team, is facing the reality her competitive running career nearing an end. But, she is not sad right now. Instead, Green is enthusiastic. Considering this fall’s NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Championships will be held right here in Big Rapids at Ferris’ Katke Golf Course (Saturday, Nov. 8), the high-energy Portage native could hardly be more excited for herself and her teammates to showcase their abilities in the season’s biggest meet.

“We’re real excited about having the opportunity to host regionals right here on our home course,” said Green, who placed 21st overall in 23:24.7 at the 2008 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championships in Sault Ste. Marie. Her efforts helped lead Ferris to a third-place finish in the league. “We have a strong conference and a strong region and we know we’re going to have to be ready to run when that (regional) meet gets here. We’re excited about our team with Tina (Muir, leading the way) and the depth we have with so many good runners who are getting better and better this season.”

Green may have been born to run in a sport known for its physically and mentally challenging characteristics. Having developed an affinity for the sport, a grueling athletic venture that has proven a perfect outlet for her competitive instincts to be unleashed, Green has been in a cross-country comfort zone throughout her college career. She was well prepared. Running for Portage Northern High School in the Kalamazoo area, with a number of large schools that made for a lot of competitive meets, Green found herself tested time and time again – long before she arrived on the FSU campus at the start of her college experience.

“Running against that competition definitely prepared me for what I’ve had to face in college as a cross country runner,” she said. “We were in a lot of meets, in high school, where we were going against some big-time competition and that’s something that prepares you. Because there were so many great runners I ran against I didn’t finish real high in a lot of races, but I still think that the strong competition I went against got me ready for college.”

Green’s passion for running began in fifth grade: “I had a teacher who was all about running 5Ks and 10Ks. He was a really good runner and in gym class we had to run a one-mile run and he would get us all pumped up for it and I did really well so my dad encouraged me to try cross country when I got to sixth grade.” She did and the rest, as they say, has been history. Time has had no negative impact on her passion for running and competing. In fact, Green’s drive for running still has a strong heartbeat as she now races in the twilight of her cross country career at Ferris.

“I just like the sport and really I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s something that is just a big part of my life,” said Green, who is one of two Bulldog seniors (Saginaw native Mikinzie Stuart is the other). “I really admire the other runners I’m competing against. I see them working so hard and I know what they’re going through and what they’re putting into it.”

So much of cross-country running comes down to one thing: guts.

Green, who still has plenty to achieve as a college athlete, remains inspired by a quote from Steve Prefontaine, a high-level distance runner who died in the mid-1970s from injuries suffered in a car accident at the age of 24. Said Prefontaine, “I’d like to work it out so in the end its a pure guts race cause if it is I’m the only one who can win it.”

Green also is fond of and lives by another Prefontaine quotation, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

For more on the regional meet, visit: http://www.ferris.edu/sports/mcc/08region/homepage.htm

If you have any questions, ideas or comments feel free to contact Sandy Gholston at sgholston2@netzero.com