Sunday, December 17, 2006
It wasn’t enough for Scott Simmons to win four national titles. He went and greedily won a fifth straight NAIA cross country national championship – the past three at Virginia Intermont – and he shows no signs of letting up.
The Cobras won the championship Nov. 18 in Louisville, Ky., with some new faces and some familiar ones. David Cheromei won the individual title and junior-college transfer Daniel Kanyaruhuru followed in the fourth-place spot.
"All the championships [I’ve won] are different," Simmons said. "We planned for, hoped for, but we didn’t have any guarantees that we would win another championship."
It wasn’t even close this year, as VIC accumulated 67 points to runner-up Concordia’s 136.
That was just the first of Simmons’ postseason victories. Outside of his coaching duties, he trains two professional runners. One is former VIC multi-distance champion Fernando Cabada and the other is Fasil Bizuneh, who made his way to Bristol from the west coast.
Training the two elite athletes becomes a job all its own for Simmons. He boarded a plane for Japan, following the cross country championship to guide Cabada in his first marathon on Dec. 3.
Cabada’s run at the internationally acclaimed marathon at Fukuoka, Japan was one to remember for the rookie. Simmons helped him notch the fastest debut for an American this year.
The former VI harrier clocked a 2 hour, 12 minute and 27 second effort for a ninth-place finish. It was the seventh fastest marathon by an American at Fukuoka. The next weekend, VI’s Kanyaruhuru was a top-10 finisher at the U.S. Club Cross Country Championships and Bizuneh won the Dallas White Rock Half Marathon in a personal record time of 1 hours, 2 minutes and 59 seconds.
"We’re able to train Fernando and Fasil with guys like David Cheromei," Simmons said on mixing the college athletes and professionals. "It works out good for both sets of runners."
Bizuneh and Cabada are basically the founding members of a long-term project for Simmons. The three of them make up the American Distance Project.
The purpose of the unfunded group is "to focus talent, time and resources towards the achievement of international and national success, including World and Olympic medals, U.S. titles and American records."
Like many other distance projects that pop up around the country, ADP is not yet funded. Bizuneh left the Big Sur Distance Project, eventually training with Cabada under Simmons’ tutelage. Cabada is sponsored generously by Reebok, but Bizuneh’s sponsorship is still up in the air according to Simmons.
"Fasil doesn’t need to be pursuing distance running," Simmons said. "He has a degree in chemical engineering. But while he’s young, he wants to take a shot to pursuing a career in distance running."
While most of Simmons’ projects don’t seem to make it to the mainstream until the results do; ADP is another dream that he hopes will develop in time. He touts the Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee area as "offering ideal training venues and a temperate climate." He ultimately wants to purchase land in Abingdon near the Virginia Creeper Trail and build a training/regeneration lodge.
The lodge if built could include such high tech regeneration tools such as water massage therapy, laser therapy and a salt cave.
"Recovering from a hard workout is as important as the workout," he said. "From a modern perspective, these tools would help a runner improve."
Following Christmas, Simmons will return and begin working on a first NAIA Indoor Championship, nearly the only running accolade he hasn’t earned in the NAIA.
VI Coach Keeps His Mind On His Feet by Seth Bartee, Bristol Courier
CoachBlog
“We planned for, hoped for, but we didn’t have andy guarantees that we would win another championship” - Simmons on Virginia Intermont’s 3rd consecutive NAIA XC title
