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On any athletic team, the captains often implicitly set the tone for the rest of the players. From the beginning of the 2009 Cross-Country season, John Mering PO ’10 and Brian Gillis PO ’10 have set an example of coming to practice each day ready to work hard in order to reach their goals. What is interesting about this duo is that, although they may have different approaches to both running and life in general, their styles complemented each other to provide leadership to a cohesive and determined Sagehen team.
The different personalities that Mering and Gillis bring to the team are immediately discernible when interacting with the two.
“Well, I’m 6’1” and weigh 164 pounds, at least according to my driver’s license,” Mering said. “My favorite food is root beer floats. It’s been very disappointing for me that there is no longer ice cream in Frary this year. You just can’t make a fro-yo float.”
My interview with Gillis, on the other hand, began with some pondering and beard scratching before he began reflecting on what he believes is the importance of leadership to the team.
“When I was a freshman, the attitude that the captains had towards the season had a huge impact on my own attitude,” Gillis said. “John and I are both conscious of that and have, from the beginning of the season, made it clear that we are out here to make things happen.”
Perhaps the most striking difference between Mering and Gillis lies in their attitudes toward running.
For Gillis, college running is simply one stage in his life as a runner.
“I have a lot of goals for running after college,” he said. “I really want to run a fast marathon. Having goals for running in the future takes some of the pressure off this year, I guess.”
Mering, on the other hand, does not foresee a drive to run once he leaves the competitive collegiate setting.
“For me, running is really all or nothing. I won’t run at all after college. ...Well, maybe a little bit,” Mering said. “I’ve always lacked the ability to do things in moderation.”
These differences carry over to race-days. Gillis tends to focus on the season as one process, with a race just the culmination of a few weeks of hard training. Mering puts more emphasis on getting fired up on race mornings. Both approaches, however, reflect the importance of being confident when the starting gun goes off.
For Gillis, confidence comes from approaching each run of the season with race goals in mind.
“I’m more of a believer in the importance of the way you train on a day-to-day basis, rather than what you do in the seconds or minutes leading up to a race. I don’t really respond well to “Hoorah” pump-up speeches, so I leave that to John.”
“Personally, I always take a 30 second cold shower when I wake up on the morning of a race,” Mering said. “Then I eat a power bar before heading off to meet the team at Rains.”
Once with the team, Mering has found race-day strategizing to be particularly effective at gearing up the team and sparking confident attitudes. “We’ve had some great success with the play ‘Sagecock 1,’” he revealed. “It gets the guys focused and ready to just get out there and get the job done.”
Younger team members recall Mering’s enthusiasm on race-days as being a pivotal part of their experience.
“I remember fondly the predawn breakfast before my first collegiate cross-country race,” Paul Balmer PO ’12 recalled. “Towards the end of the meal, John pulled over the whiteboard, on which a complex girl’s soccer play had been drawn. He erased it and drew ‘Sagecock 1’ on the board for us all. When we got to the starting line a couple hours later John called the play right before the gun went off. I get pumped up pretty easily, by pretty corny devices, so a play call in particular puts me in the racing mindset.”
Although admittedly not one to stress the necessity of pre-race pump-ups, Gillis fully supports his co-captain’s tactical planning.
“‘Sagecock 1’ is what we use when we want to put it on the line. We tried ‘Badcock 23’ at UC Irvine this year when we wanted to work on running as a pack, but I think we are going to stick with ‘Sagecock 1’ from now on, as we’ve had a lot of success with it in the past.”
Perhaps what really brings Gillis and Mering together, more than any race-day strategy, is what they seek in a race experience.
“The best thing in sports is when you can share success with your teammates,” Mering said. “I don’t consider myself a cross-country runner, but that is the draw of the sport for me. You can put it all on the line for a common interest.”
For both runners, their best races are ones in which their success was crucial to their team’s.
“My favorite race ever was probably anchoring the mile at the Pomona-Pitzer Invite in track sophomore year,” Gillis said. “The women’s team had run first. They beat CMS in an exciting race that came down to an inspiring mile leg run by Alicia Freese [PO ’10]. When I came across the finish line ahead of CMS it wasn’t just me beating a CMS runner, but it was part of the whole team’s effort.”
Mering also recalled his best race as anchoring a leg of a track relay. During the race, Mering ran an 800-meter leg in 1:52 to win the relay and also set a school record in the event.
“When I started my 800 I was in fifth or sixth place,” Mering said. “My coach had told me before the race that I needed to win this. Being able to work my way up to first and then celebrate the win with the team was amazing.”
As Mering and Gillis get ready for SCIAC championships this Saturday they will envision coming away from the race with a performance they can celebrate as a team. Each co-captain may go through their own form of preparation, but both will do so with the goal of winning SCIACs and being able to enjoy their success with their teammates.
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