After finishing eighth at the Big 12 championships last season, the men’s cross-country team has set ambitious goals with a new coaching staff for the upcoming season.

The team is entering this season ranked eighth in their region, and new head coach Martin Smith and the entire cross-country team will be disappointed if they finish in the same spot.

“I’m not going to guarantee anything, but as a professional coach I’ll be extremely disappointed if we can’t build the men’s and women’s teams to be consistently top 10 at the national level,” Smith said.

The team had a strong mid-season in 2012, and plan on building on that momentum throughout the entire season. 

“I think it’s a good balance of older more experienced runners to teach the younger guys, and for the younger guys to come into their prime,” said senior Martin Coolidge.

Junior Alex Dillenbeck agrees that this is a time that underclassmen should take advantage of.

“This year, it’s really about the class below us kind of growing into their own,” Dillenbeck said. “We’re not an old team, but we’re not a young team either.”

Smith was hired in June to take over as the new head coach for the team, and the transition is going smoothly.

“So far everything has been going really well,” Dillenbeck said. “He’s an old school kind of coach and

everyone has really bought in to the new program.”

The team has set two high goals for themselves: finishing top three at the Big 12 championships and placing top 10 nationally.

“We’re just going to really work hard,” Smith said. “To be very honest I am very determined and am very committed and I think it’s a realistic goal, and we’re going to hold ourselves accountable.”

Coolidge and the rest of the cross-country team are equally as driven as Smith to reach those aspirations.

“That’s what we’re set on and everything is revolving around those two goals, everything that we do,” Coolidge said.

Even with the coaching transition, coach Smith and assistant coach Jeremy Sudbury think that the goals are achievable.

“Jeremy and I are very aware and sensitive that there is a new coaching transition and we need to be patient, but not compromise what we want. And how you blend that up is the art of coaching,” Smith said.

While the team has very ambitious season-long goals, there is one bottom line; to grow.

“We just want to grow as a unit overall, to really come together and put in all the hard work as a team,” Dillenbeck said. “You want to see improvement every year.”

Coolidge agreed and reinstated the importance of the team effort in the sport of cross-country.

“Cross-country is really all about the team goal, and I think the team goal is just being successful at the conference at a national level, those are the team goals, as well as my personal goals,” Coolidge said.