This Week:
21st Annual Roy Griak Invitational
Falcon Heights, Minn.
Les Bolstad Golf Course
9 a.m. - Women’s Maroon III Race
9:45 a.m. - Men’s Maroon Race
10:35 a.m. - Women’s Maroon II Race
11:20 a.m. - Men’s Gold Race
12:10 p.m. - Jack Johnson Women’s Gold Race
12:55 p.m. - Boys’ Gold High School Race
1:40 p.m. - Girls’ Gold High School Race
2:25 p.m. - Boys’ Maroon High School Race
3:10 p.m. - Girls’ Maroon High School Race
Golden Gopher Watch List — Sept. 21, 2006
• Minnesota Hosts 21st Annual Roy Griak Invitational - The Minnesota men’s and women’s cross country teams will host the 21st Annual Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 23, at the University of Minnesota Les Bolstad Golf Course in Falcon Heights, Minn. The meet is one of the largest in the nation each year.
• Record Number Expected to Compete in 2006 - The 2006 Griak Invitational is expected to set several competition records this year. Approximately 350 teams are expected to compete with 4,000 student-athletes entered in the Griak’s nine races. The records, both set in 2005, are 310 teams and 2,887 runners.
• Gopher All-Americans Lead the Way - Both the Golden Gopher men’s and women’s teams will look to their All-Americans - Emily Brown, Ladia Albertson-Junkans and Antonio Vega - to lead the Maroon and Gold to top finishes at this year’s Griak. The Gopher women finished second a year ago, while the men were seventh.
• Want Even More Information? - Check out Minnesota’s website gophersports.com for further information on the Griak Invitational, including a list of competing teams, course maps, admission prices and parking instructions.
Minnesota Hosts 21st Annual Griak Invitational
The Minnesota men’s and women’s cross country teams will play host to the 21st Annual Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 23, at the University of Minnesota Les Bolstad Golf Course in Falcon Heights, Minn. A record number of athletes are expected to compete in the event this year, making the Griak annually one of the largest cross country meets in the nation.
Roy Griak - A Minnesota Legend
The Roy Griak Invitational is named after a living legend, former Golden Gopher cross country and track coach Roy Griak. Griak has spent the last 42 years with the Minnesota Athletics Department, 33 of those coaching. Since his retirement from the coaching ranks in 1996, Griak has served as the administrative assistant for the men’s cross country and track programs. Griak, who has attended 20 of the 21 Invitationals, will celebrate his 83rd birthday on Oct. 5.
Details, Details: Admission, Parking, Etc.
Ticket prices for the 2006 Griak are $5 for adults and $2 for students. Children under 6 years of age are free. No pets will be allowed on the course. Spectator parking is available on the St. Paul Campus with free shuttles available to and from the course.
And the Winner Is...
Team and individual results of the 2006 Griak Invitational will be placed on the Golden Gophers’ website gophersports.com as quickly as possible following the completion of each race.
Another Record-Setting Griak is Expected
Entries indicate the 2006 Roy Griak Invitational will be the largest in the 21-year history of the event. An anticipated 4,000-plus athletes will compete over the nine races. The records stand at 310 teams and 2,887 finishers in 2005.
Murray, Miles Are Honorary Referees in 2006
The Roy Griak Invitational will have two honorary referees oversee race day. The honorary referee for the collegiate races will be retired Arizona cross country coach Dave Murray. Murray was honored as Pac-10 Cross Country Coach of the Year eight times and District VIII/West Region Cross Country Coach of the Year six times. He was also named the NCAA Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year in 1984.
The honorary referee for the 2006 Griak Invitational high school races is Wayzata’s Bill Miles. Miles is in his 31st season with the Trojans with four state cross country titles on his coaching resume.
Griak History
The meet was first contested in 1986 and was named the Minnesota Invitational from 1986-94 and the Norstand Invitational in 1995-96, until it was renamed the Roy Griak Invitational in 1997. The meet has grown from 220 finishers in 1986 to a record 2,887 competitors in 2005.
Women’s Race Honors the Late Jack Johnson
The Griak Women’s Gold Race has been renamed the Griak Jack Johnson Women’s Gold Race to honor the late Jack Johnson, a long-time equipment manager for the Golden Gopher who passed away last February.
The Griak Gold Race Field
The Griak Gold Races have once again drawn several of the nation’s top teams. Overall 28 schools have entered both the men’s and women’s races. A total of 36 teams will run in the Men’s Gold Race, equalling the record for the most teams set in 2001. Among the field are eight teams (Wisconsin, Arizona, Kansas, Arizona State, Iowa, Minnesota, Butler, Virginia and Loyola) that competed in the 2005 NCAA Championships.
The Griak Jack Johnson Women’s Gold field is 29 teams strong and includes nine teams (Arizona State, Minnesota, Northern Arizona, Baylor, Butler, Rice, Virginia, Marquette and Michigan State) that advanced to the NCAA Championships a year ago.
The Returning Champions
Arizona State is the defending champion in the Women’s Gold Race, but a new individual champion will be crowned since 2005 Griak medalist Amy Hastings (Arizona State) has graduated. The Men’s Gold Race will crown both a new team and individual champion. BYU, the 2005 champion, is not entered in the field and Wisconsin’s Simon Bairu has graduated.
The Golden Gophers
Minnesota is poised for both its men’s and women’s teams to contend for top Griak finishes. The Golden Gopher women enter the race ranked No. 16 in the nation, perhaps a bit low since Minnesota returns a powerful squad led by All-Americans Emily Brown and Ladia Albertson-Junkans. Brown led the Gophers with a ninth-place finish at the 2005 Griak but could contend for medalist honors this year. In Brown’s opening race of the 2006 season, she posted a time of 20:48.26, the fastest time on the Les Bolstad course by a Minnesota runner and a full 10 seconds faster than last year’s winning time at the Griak. The Gopher women also have depth, though somewhat inexperienced depth, at the top of their lineup. Look for true freshman Elizabeth Yetzer, and redshirt freshmen Jamie Cheever and Heather Dorniden to push into Minnesota’s scoring five. Cheever and Dorniden earned All-America honors on the track last spring with Dorniden winning the national title in the indoor 800 meters.
The No.23 ranked Gopher men are paced by All-American Antonio Vega. Vega, a senior, looks to make up on lost time after missing the 2005 Griak due to injury. Sophomore Chris Rombough earned all-region honors a year ago and is expected to run at the lead of the pack with Vega this season. Other Gophers expected to contend for scoring positions are senior David VanOrsdel, junior Justin Grunewald, sophomore Ben Puhl, redshirt freshman Matt Barrett and true freshman Mike Torchia.
Griak High School Champs Now Running for the Gophers
For the first time in Griak history, both the boys and girls champions from the previous year’s Griak are running for the Golden Gophers. In 2005, Mike Torchia captured the Griak Boys Gold Race with a time of 15:34 while competing for Rochester Lourdes. Elizabeth Yetzer, then a member of the Lakeville North squad, won the Griak Girls Gold Race with a Griak-record time of 17:46.
Torchia is the first Griak high school champion to join the Gopher men’s team. Yetzer is the fourth Griak high school champion to later run for the Gopher women (Anna Gullingsrud, Victoria Moses and Stefanie Zeihan).
Griak Notes of Interest
• Only three runners have been able to win the Griak Men’s Gold Race title twice. Providence’s Ben Noad won back-to-back Griak titles in 1997 and 1998 while BYU’s Kip Kangogo won in 2002 and 2003. Wisconsin’s Matt Tegenkamp won the title in 2001 and again in 2004.
• The Griak Women’s Gold Race has also had only two repeat champions, Fran Ten Bensel (Nebraska) in 1991 and 1992, and Kim Smith (Providence) in 2003 and 2004.
• Other two-time Griak champions are Vladimir Golias (Central Missouri State) - Men’s Maroon in 1997 and 1998; Sarah Anderson (Wisconsin-Superior) - Women’s Maroon in 1997 and 1998 and Jonah Kiptarus. Kiptarus won the 1994 Men’s Maroon title as a member of the Barton County squad, then returned as a Nebraska runner to win the 1996 Men’s Gold crown.
• Minnesota has two Griak titles to its credit, both on the women’s side, with wins in 1988 and 2000. The best finish for the Minnesota men was third in 1997.
• The only Golden Gopher to win the individual title was Rasa Michniovaite in 1998. The highest finish from the Golden Gopher men’s team was a sixth-place showing by Andrew Carlson in 2004.
• Brigham Young’s Kip Kangogo set a new Griak record over an 8-kilometer course, winning in a time of 23:38.9 in 2002.
• The Women’s Gold Race was lengthened from 5K to 6K in 2000. The 2004 champion, Providence’s Kim Smith set the 6K record with a time of 20:10.
• Wisconsin leads the way with 11 Griak men’s titles. The women’s event has had 11 different teams win in the Griak’s 19-year history with Arizona State and Providence each with four team titles leading the way.
• Wisconsin is the only school to win the men’s and women’s Griak titles in the same year, doing so in 1997.
• Of the 31 men’s teams that competed in the NCAA Championships in 2005, nine of them ran in the Griak Invitational. Eleven (11) women’s teams that competed in the Griak also advanced to the 31-team 2005 NCAA Championships.
• Roy Griak has missed only one Griak Invitational in its 20-year history. In 2000, Griak missed the meet to attend a once-in-a-lifetime reunion of World War II Army veterans. Griak will be an award presenter at the meet again this year.
• Minnesota women’s head coach Gary Wilson in is his 22nd year with the Golden Gophers. But several coaches bringing teams from the state of Wisconsin have ties to Wilson from his successful coaching stint at Wisconsin-LaCrosse prior to coming to Minnesota. Wisconsin-LaCrosse’s men’s coach Don Fritsch, Wisconsin-Platteville’s Tom Antczak and Wisconsin-Whitewater coach Jeff Miller are former athletes of Wilson’s at LaCrosse.
• Four teams have used Griak Gold Race titles to help propel them to NCAA Division I team championships: the Wisconsin men in 1988, the Iowa State men in 1989, the Villanova women in 1989 and the Providence women in 1995. Wisconsin was the 2005 Griak runner-up, then went on to win the NCAA title.
• Six individuals won Griak titles in seasons in which they won the NCAA crown: Villanova’s Vicki Huber in 1989, Iowa State’s John Nuttall in 1989, Wisconsin’s Kathy Butler in 1995, Providence’s Keith Kelly in 2000, Providence’s Kim Smith in 2004 and Wisconsin’s Simon Bairu in 2005.
• The most athletes to compete in any single Griak race was in 2001, when 508 athletes competed in the Women’s Maroon Race. The race was split into Maroon II and Maroon III the next year (2002). This record will likely be broken in 2006.
• Iowa State won the Men’s Gold title in 1989 with 15 points, the only perfect team score in Griak history.
• Griak individual titles have been decided by just one second a total of nine times in the past 20 years. The most recent occurrence in the Gold Races was in 1999 when Sheela Agrawal (Duke) edged Lisa Aguilera (Arizona State) for the Women’s Gold title. Minnesota’s only Griak medalist, Rasa Michniovaite, also won her race by just a second in 1998.
• The two high school races were added to the Griak Invitational in 1994 and split into Gold and Maroon Races in 2004.
Griak Champions — Women
Arizona State 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005
Nebraska 1986
Iowa 1987
Minnesota 1988, 2000
Michigan State 2002
North Carolina State 1993
Oregon 1989, 1994
Providence 1995, 1996, 1998, 2004
Villanova 1989
Virginia 1991
Wisconsin 1992, 1997
Griak Champions — Men
Adams State 1992
Brigham Young 2005
Iowa State 1989, 1990, 1993
Oregon 2002
Providence 1998, 2000
South Florida 1991
Wisconsin 1986, 1987, 1988, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001,
2003, 2004
Griak Invitational Participation
Numbers reflect full teams and actual race finishers, not entries)
Year Teams Runners
2005 310 2,887 9 Races
2004 275 2,627 9 Races - 2 H.S. Races added
2003 242 2,310 7 Races
2002 220 2,071 7 Races - W. Maroon III added
2001 240 2,233 6 Races
2000 212 1,922 6 Races
1999 188 1,718 6 Races
1998 149 1,434 6 Races
1997 162 1,602 6 Races
1996 154 1,653 6 Races
1995 144 1,514 6 Races
1994 96 1,040 6 Races - 2 H.S. Races added
1993 63 575 4 Races - M. Maroon added
1992 68 628 3 Races
1991 65 565 3 Races
1990 56 491 3 Races
1989 41 385 3 Races - W. Maroon added
1988 36 350 2 Races
1987 35 310 2 Races
1986 27 255 2 Races
Totals 2,783 26,570
Courtesy: University of Minnesota
