At the 49th Great Cow Harbor 10K in Northport Saturday, the Island’s crazy-popular race with just shy of 5,000 participants, pros and otherwise, drawn from all over the country, plus a $34,500 purse, three of the top 10 women were former N.C.A.A. Division 3 athletes. Division 3. That means the real scholar-athletes, non-scholarship, for the love of the sport, the way it should be, the way it used to be, no offense to those D-1 ball hogs supping at the “name, image, likeness” money trough.
Let me count the ways. Or runners. In second, in a smoking time of 32:26, good for $4,000, Kassie Parker, 27, out of Iowa and the Corn Belt’s Loras College, where she was a two-time D-3 cross-country national champion. In sixth place, earning $600, in 33:39, from Westfield State in Massachusetts, age 30, Jessie Cardin, a three-time D-3 all-American and a 2024 Olympic Trials qualifier in the marathon. And in 10th, meaning just in the money to the tune of 200 bucks, in 35:40, Penelope Greene, 23, a D-3 national champ on the track in the 5K and the 10K for SUNY Geneseo.
This, in other words, is for those parents out there with kids who might run in college. It’s not “only D-3.” Your child doesn’t have to have body punished, spirit diminished, enthusiasm for the sport drained by the pressure of what becomes a job, or principles compromised by a university administration that will “take care of” those pesky classes and grades.
The kid can be a student. One who has practice for a couple of hours a day. Later, the graduate can still turn pro, as Parker and Cardin seem to have done.
And anyway, the gap between D-1 and D-3 is narrowing. Times-wise and otherwise. For one thing, there’s now a “D3 Glory Days” podcast, website, newsletter, and YouTube channel that’s quite well run by a couple of former DePauw (Indiana) University runners, Stu Newstat and Noah Droddy, who also do knowledgeable announcing duties when the N.C.A.A. streams the national championships.
Lamenting past inadequate coverage, they say, “D3 has always had strong talent and is continuing to get faster. By telling these stories, we hope to show that running D3 is a valid first choice, not an alternative or last resort.”
And then a race like Cow Harbor, which ends with something of a dockside block party, offers perks of another sort, to all comers. Beer at 9:30 in the morning never tasted so good.