Hooked on success

It only took Gregg Gensel one race to take the cross country bait – hook, line and sinker. “I’m not saying this because I’m bragging, because I’m not that good of a runner, but I won my first race and so basically, I was hooked,” USU’s head track and field and cross country coach said. “It’s like golf, you take one good swing and 18 holes of bad swings, and that one good swing, if it comes at the right time, you’re going to keep coming back. “That’s the same thing with running. If you have early success, you’re going to want to reproduce that success.” But if it wasn’t for an assistant basketball coach at his military high school in Europe, he may never have found cross country. Maybe he would have been a football player, as that’s the sport running stole Gensel away from. “I didn’t really know what (cross country) was, but I liked (the assistant coach), and I didn’t really like the team concept of getting whooped every day in football,” he said. “And I’m not saying I couldn’t take it … but I was just drawn to this. And it turned out being my lifelong goal rather than just a short-term thing.” Utah State should be very thankful running turned into a lifelong goal for Gensel. During his tenure as coach – 19 years as the men’s coach and 14 as the women’s – the Aggies have won a total of 19 conference championships, including last year’s sweep of the Western Athletic Conference Championships in cross country and a win in men’s outdoor track, 130 conference individual champions and 28 runners picked as All-Americans. Personally, he is a 17-time conference Coach of the Year. Just last year, Gensel was named the Mountain Region Men’s Track Coach of the Year, and he won his second consecutive WAC Cross Country Coach of the Year. Individual awards aren’t what motivates Gensel. He doesn’t even take credit for them. “It’s a team effort,” he said. “It’s not because I’m some great guru or something like that. I would have to point to all my coaches and all of my athletes as the reason I get those awards.” What does motivate Gensel is success, but it’s a different kind of success than the championships he’s brought to USU. “Student athletes, when they succeed in the classroom, when they succeed on the field, in track, or cross country, or throwing, whatever it may be, I’m excited,” he said. “And that’s also the beauty of coaching track and field and cross country; it’s an individual team sport, so you don’t have to win to have success. You see the improvement of the athletes and you’re instantly gratified … If they improve, that’s success.” For Gensel, it really is all about his athletes. But with a nickname like Papa G, maybe kids is a more appropriate term to describe the relationship he has with his runners. Stacie Dorius has been under Gensel’s tutalidge for three full years now and is heading into her senior season in cross country. Through it all, she said Gensel has always been approachable and someone she could go to with anything – running related or not. According to Dorius, Gensel’s also got a soft heart and isn’t too hard on the runners, but he let’s them know if they’ve screwed up. Junior runner Seth Wold said Gensel is “just one of the guys” and agrees he has a good relationship with his runners. Like any family, things aren’t always rosy. Dorius admits she has had minor run-ins with her coach a few times. And dealing with his runners can also be a frustrating part of Gensel’s job. “It’s like raising teenagers,” Gensel said. “They think they know best. I have a lot of experience and I like to share that with them, but they don’t always listen. So what I have to do is find the happy medium where they listen enough to keep them on the right track to become better at what they do.” Another part of dealing with student athletes is helping runners be successful on the track and in the classroom, something very important to Gensel. “The thing I want is for the athlete to have individual success,” he said. “And if it means they can’t come to practice because they have a class or a lab to go to, so be it. We’ll just switch when practice is … This isn’t a win-at-all-costs attitude.” Many of Gensel’s runners have been able to balance athletic and academic successes. He has had 288 academic all-conference selections as a head coach. And as long as that success continues, expect to keep seeing Gensel at Aggie track and cross country meets. “I’m happy doing what I’m doing,” he said. “And the reason I’m happy is the kids are finding success on a daily basis, weekly basis, yearly basis. Whatever that success is, that’s what keeps me coming back. When they stop having that success, then I’ll stop being happy about it probably, and it won’t take long after that before I’ll say, ‘This is probably not what I want to be doing.'” -da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu