You knew this would come up eventually. 

 

Once Edward Cheserek broke away from a pesky Patrick Tiernan to seal his third consecutive NCAA cross country title, the question was unavoidable— is Edward Cheserek the greatest collegiate cross country runner ever? His third straight title was unprecedented, and so, we have to talk about this, right? **Thinks** Ok, yeah let’s do this.

 

It’s a topic that borders on taboo, as the three other GOAT candidates— Henry Rono, Gerry Lindgren, and Steve Prefontaine— are all legends many generations removed from their time, and thus, immortalized in running lore. Sports heroes are like fine wine— tales of their triumphs become better with age, and so a modern athlete crashing the all-time club while he is still competing goes entirely against the grain. It’s not logical, but King Cheserek doesn’t have the benefit of nostalgia like his predecessors, so he’s fighting an uphill battle already. However, it’s a battle he’s prepared to win by the time his career wraps up next year, as Ches is all but assured of becoming the first to go 4-for-4. But is it that easy? Is the measure of GOAT-ness just the accumulation of the most titles? 

 

I don’t think it should be purely that simple, especially since the four athletes we’re dealing with here all reached their peaks in different periods. Sure, there’s a little overlap with Lindgren and Prefontaine, but as is the most common and blatant fallacy with every “greatest of” debate in sports, the athletes up for discussion rarely, if ever, face each other, and so we’re operating with a healthy dose of conjecture. There is no definitive answer without bias being heavily involved. But as fans, we all have an opinion in the matter regardless of the potency in rationale, and I’ve tasked myself with naming a GOAT in this article and so I’m going to do it.   

 

Before we go any further, it’s important to note that Rono failed in his attempt to three-peat back in ’78 after taking a wrong turn on the course, which obviously dashed his chances at a third straight title, and subsequently, a 4-peat since he came back and won in ’79. Lindgren didn’t race at the NCAA XC Championships in ’68 as he opted to focus on the Olympic Trials, or else he would most certainly own four straight crowns. And a freshman Pre had the misfortune of facing Lindgren in his senior campaign, so he was doomed from the start.   

 

These circumstances do not take away from what Cheserek has accomplished in the least, but it does show that an argument centered around the Oregon junior being superior to his fellow greats simply because of this arbitrary measure of longevity is greatly flawed. Ches would still be one of the best all-time right now if he had placed second at NCAAs as a freshman, but given the tremendous weight that championships hold, it’s completely possible that I wouldn’t be writing this article if that had occurred. So, in the same token, I can’t just proclaim Cheserek the greatest collegiate cross country runner ever just because he didn’t happen to make any directional errors (Rono), skip a season (Lindgren), or be beaten by another all-time great as a freshman (Pre), each being separate circumstances that felled the greats before him.  

 

But, of course, championships are most important, and so one can only qualify for this discussion if they own three NCAA XC titles. But how do I break this current tiebreaker while we wait another year for Cheserek to render this argument pointless when he wins title #4?

 

The answer to this debate has to be pulled from another place. And that place of course is track performances, the best resource I have in figuring out who among the four would win an All-Star race for all the GOAT marbles. Because in the end, that’s what we’re really here for— we want to know who is the greatest NCAA XC runner ever, no matter if one man won three straight titles and the other three pieced them together non-consecutively.

 

With this as our final basis of judgement, Henry Rono’s ridiculous 81 day span where he broke four World records— 5k (13:08), 3k steeple (8:05), 10k (27:22), and 3k (7:32)— tells me that he is still the “greatest” we’ve ever seen and would win my mythological heavyweight clash between all four greats on the cross country course. Sure, Rono was 26 when he ran all those times, but he was still in college at the time, and subsequently, at his peak, was better than Pre and Lindgren ever were, and as it stands, still greater than Cheserek currently is. 13:08 and 27:22 is not outside of Cheserek’s ability, but Rono’s 7:32/8:05 combo convinces me that he possessed a range that Ches cannot at this moment equal. 

 

Of course, this will all matter little next fall, as King Ches will undoubtably go down as the greatest NCAA cross country runner in history when he wins his fourth straight title in 2016. For most, this fact alone will seal the deal. However, if we’ve learned anything here, it’s that greatness is much more nuanced than meets the eye, and because of that, the argument should live on.