It’s a brutal reality that affects athletes in every sport- some of the most talented among us simply cannot avoid perpetual injury. If a team is lucky, their best athletes are not also their most fragile, but for those with such misfortune, injuries are like an annual tradition of misery and disappointment. In collegiate distance running, the injury bug has set up shop in Palo Alto, California for the last two years and gone to work on two of the most talented runners in the entire country. 

 

With their red hair and identical appearance, brothers Jim and Joe Rosa have stood out in elite distance running circles since their high school days in New Jersey, but as their respective Stanford careers enter the twilight phase, Rosa sightings have been fleeting. Even more rare than either brother racing has been the pair toeing the same starting line, an unfortunate situation for coach Chris Miltenberg to say the least. 

 

As such, a theme of this NCAA cross country season has been the untapped potential of the Stanford men, as their talented roster is among the very best in the country but has yet to fully assemble. We ranked the Cardinal squad 2nd in the pre-season as they returned three All-Americans from last year’s runner-up team at NCAAs, a top-five finisher from 2013, and brought in the most coveted recruit in the 2015 class with the hopes of stopping Colorado in their quest for an NCAA three-peat. However, as the season moves to its championship portion, Stanford still has not put all of their pieces together, leaving onlookers in the dark about who will make up coach Milt’s roster at PAC-12s and beyond. 

 

Without the help of the Rosa twins and freshman Grant Fisher, a depleted Cardinal roster stumbled to a 21st place finish at Wisconsin last weekend, which showed just how badly Milt needs the aforementioned trio in order to contend in 2015. It is believed that Fisher will make his highly anticipated Stanford debut at the conference championships, but as has become a common narrative around Palo Alto in recent years, the health of brothers Jim and Joe Rosa remains in limbo. 

 

The two 5th year seniors have each battled injury issues and missed significant time for two years now, but it’s the production that they have managed when healthy that always makes Stanford such a popular pick entering the fall. In 2013, Jim had a breakout junior year that culminated in a 5th place finish at NCAAs, and the following year it was his brother’s turn, as Joe was 3rd at PAC-12s and finished 33rd at Nationals. Unfortunately for Stanford, each brother’s best season came while the other was on the shelf, and at this point it doesn’t look like that will end in 2015. The last time Jim and Joe ran in the same cross country race was the 2012 NCAA XC Championships, and so far only the latter has competed in 2015. Stanford needs both of them at their best to contend for a national championship, but that opportunity may not ever come to pass again.

Jim Rosa's last cross country race was the 2013 NCAA Championships, where he was 5th

When Jim took a huge leap forward in 2013 by finishing 5th at NCAAs, he credited his big improvement from the year before (Rosa was 166th at NCAAs in 2012) to lifestyle changes that were more conducive to running success. “I’ve made a lot of changes in terms of habits and stuff. Started living more like an athlete than I had in the past…freshman year, I started living a lifestyle that wasn’t as disciplined as I had been in high school, I’d be going to bed at 4am everyday, doing stupid stuff, wasting time,” he said. 

 

But while Jim experienced his greatest NCAA triumph, brother Joe was out with an injury. The roles would reverse the following year.

 

The NCAA can be a rude awakening for prep phenoms like the Rosas, as even high school stars can take their lumps at the next level. The twins each won national titles before arriving at Stanford, so understandably when Jim struggled early in his collegiate career he didn’t approach it with optimism. 

 

“I was running terribly and wasn’t really into the sport,” he told GoStanford.com back in 2014. Rosa credited Miltenberg for changing his mindset when the coach arrived in 2012, who noted that the twins didn’t have to put in the extra work to succeed when they were high school. “In high school, they trained really hard when they were training,” Milt said in the same article. “They weren’t in tune with the other 22 hours of the day or the things they needed to be doing.” 

 

Milt helped zero in the twins’ focus when he arrived in Palo Alto, and that clearly paid its dividends. But the brothers still have yet to become the powerful 1-2 punch in cross country that many figured they would develop into at Stanford, and their mounting setbacks at the tail end of their careers makes you wonder if old habits truly die hard in this case. If we really have seen the last of the Rosas together on the XC course, that’s a damn shame. They are each top five caliber guys at NCAAs if healthy, and as such, Stanford’s title hopes hang in the balance.

 

It would be unfair to simply assume that the brothers have slipped back into the bad habits that limited them early in college, but the fact remains that Jim has not run a cross country race since that frigid November day in Terre Haute two years ago and Joe missed the entire 2015 track season, plus his 2013 XC campaign. Even the most vigilant prehabber can suffer injuries from time to time, but the disappearing act of both Rosas since 2013, in addition to their past struggles with non-running training, suggests that more than just really bad luck is at play here. At a certain point, one can only stay motivated for so long when constantly returning from an injury.

 

11 months after leading the Stanford men at the 2013 NCAA Championships, Jim underwent knee surgery and has run just two track races since- the MPSF 5K in February, and then the Pan Am 10K on July 21st. Rosa’s late summer race in Toronto seemed to indicate that he’d be back for cross country, but we’re still waiting for his season opener with less than a week until PAC-12s. His last NCAA race was the 2014 outdoor 10K, where he finished sixth.

 

Joe recovered from a 2013 stress fracture to have an outstanding 2014, earning All-American honors in both indoor and outdoor, as well as cross country. But another injury popped up early this year that kept Rosa off the track for both indoor and outdoor in 2015, a setback that he still may be overcoming based off his absence at Wisconsin. Fortunately for the Cardinal, Joe was second at the Washington Invitational on October 2nd, so there is hope that he can still contribute this season. 

Joe Rosa recorded the highest XC conference finish of his career in 2014 by placing 3rd at PAC-12s

A lineup without the Rosas at full strength dooms Stanford’s NCAA title chances, if you couldn’t see that already by watching Wisconsin. The 2014 Cardinal squad ascended to 2nd at NCAAs without Jim Rosa because Harvard transfer Maksim Korolev filled his role, but with Korolev’s graduation, Stanford needs the 2013 Jim Rosa to reemerge. Even the addition of a healthy Jim wouldn’t have pushed Stanford ahead of mighty Colorado last season, but the stars appeared to align for 2015 with three of their top five from last season returning, plus Rosa and all-world recruit Grant Fisher making them a legitimate threat to CU’s reign. As of now, however, the twins’ health remains the biggest mystery in the 2015 NCAA puzzle, which will be a lot closer to being solved after conference weekend. 

 

No matter what has caused Jim and Joe Rosa to have such difficulty staying healthy, they certainly deserve to line up next to each other on November 21st in Louisville. Their last cross country race together was on that very course three years ago, back when Colorado was just starting to build their empire, a time which must seem like an eternity ago for two guys that have spent so much time on the sidelines. Now, Colorado is threatening to win their third straight title as two of the most capable men of stopping this look to offer their resistance for the first time as a duo. Stanford isn’t the only team capable of pushing the Buffaloes to the brink, but two healthy Rosas on this Cardinal team, which showed their potential at NCAAs a year ago, is the best bet. 

 

There’s no doubt that the brothers’ appearance or absence this season completely alters the landscape of the NCAA. We saw last weekend what Stanford is like without them, and you have to wonder if we’ll see the Cardinal with them in 2015.