Zoe Nelson was going to her dream school to be a student-athlete.
At Flathead High School in Kalispell, Mont., Nelson won the Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships in 2002 as a high school sophomore, and finished eighth in her junior and senior years. In her senior year of track, Nelson was a triple state champion in the 800m, 1,600m and 3,200m. She also excelled in the classroom, graduating as valedictorian.
Then-Oregon women’s coach Marnie Mason was recruiting Nelson, but she had an easier sell from people closer to the situation – her parents. Bill and Brooke Nelson attended Oregon during the days of Steve Prefontaine, and Zoe was subjected to his legend early on.
“I (came) here almost every summer. I spent a lot of time in Eugene,” Nelson said. “It was my dream school. I always wanted to come to Oregon.”
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the golf course: Oregon track and field and cross country coach Martin Smith was ousted, and on July 13, 2005, Stanford’s Vin Lananna – with his five cross country national championships in tow – became the new head coach of the Ducks, not two months before cross country season was slated to begin.
“From the beginning I was really looking forward to working with him,” Nelson said. “I’d heard a lot of really good things about him.
“From when I got here, it definitely had the feel of a new program, with a lot of people excited about building it up, really talking about getting it back to how it used to be in the Prefontaine days.”
In 2004, the Oregon women’s cross country team finished seventh at the Pacific-10 Conference meet, one of the worst team performances in 30 years. With Lananna settling in, that wouldn’t last long. Nelson finished 16th at the Pac-10 meet the following year – second-best on the Ducks – to help Oregon to a third-place finish.
“My freshman year, we weren’t anywhere close to qualifying for nationals,” Nelson said.
The road to the NCAA Cross Country Championships wouldn’t get any easier the next year. Nelson recorded top-three team finishes in every event, but the Ducks finished fourth at the Pac-10 meet and were denied a chance to appear at the NCAAs for the first time since 1999. Still, the team was considered very young – Dana Buchanan was the only runner in the top five who wasn’t an underclassman – and had considerable potential to grow under Lananna’s tutelage.
Youth was served, of course, in 2007. With Sarah Pearson being the only senior among the Ducks’ top seven, Oregon procured a second-place finish in the Pac-10 meet to Stanford (which has won the past 12 Pac-10 championships in women’s cross country) and followed that up in the NCAAs with a surprise second-place finish. Two Ducks were named All-Americans – appropriately enough, a freshman and a sophomore: Alex Kosinski and Nicole Blood.
Nelson finished 24th overall at the Pac-10s (fifth on the Ducks) and 135th overall in the NCAAs (sixth).
“It was nice to finally make it to nationals. It was a fun experience,” Nelson said. “We exceeded our own expectations of ourselves. To go there and having expectations of maybe making the top eight, top six. It was definitely cool.
“To go from (fourth in the Pac-10s) my sophomore year to getting second at nationals last year is quite the turnaround.”
The program appears to have entered yet another phase of the turnaround this season. The Ducks were ranked No. 1 in the nation heading into the cross country season and decisively won the Bill Dellinger Invitational, the first meet with the full squad participating. Currently ranked No. 2 in the national polls, eight Oregon women will run in Saturday’s Mike Hodges Invitational in Clackamas (including Nelson) as preparation for the Pac-10s, to be hosted by the Ducks on Oct. 31.
Within the new phase of the program, Nelson finds herself in a precarious spot. She is the only person on the team who has been around for the entirety of the Vin Lananna era at Oregon and has seen the rise to success.
“I am one of the older girls now. I end up kind of a leader in some ways,” Nelson said. “But everyone’s kind of a leader in different ways. Everyone kind of has their area of expertise.”
The Ducks’ roster includes four other seniors: transfers Melissa Grelli (Georgetown), Mattie Bridgmon (Eastern Washington) and Lindsey Scherf (Harvard) and Tamara Starodubtseva, who competed at Lane Community College for two seasons.
It is possible that Nelson may not make it back to the NCAA meet. At the Bill Dellinger Invitational, however, Nelson finished in 27th place out of 83 competitors – but failed to score for the Ducks, who placed five women in the top 10 and the seven scorers in the top 22 spots. (Nelson finished eighth on the team.) The Dellinger went a long way in showcasing the women’s team’s depth – one reason why they are still No. 2 – but should Oregon make the NCAA meet, Nelson may become a victim to the Ducks’ greatest strength.
Nelson did not attempt to set specific individual goals as the season began. Still, with the team in a more welcoming position in her final year, she takes it all in stride.
“It’s hard to get specific knowing we have a whole group of girls (where) anyone could be in our top seven,” Nelson said.
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