Division Doesn’t Matter: Just Ask Ella Baran, Kassie Parker & Missy Rock

EDITOR’S NOTE: We published this story back on February 11, but felt it was prudent to dig it back up – and give an update – with it being D3 Week. What we wrote still rings true as the outdoor season continues.

“Just because we’re not running for scholarships in NCAA DIII, we can still run with the best. […] It’s not easy coming from DIII. You’re looked at as a second-hand athlete, but we continue to prove we have A-plus talent.”
NCAA Division III legend and 14-time NCAA champion Missy Rock (nee Buttry)

Calls and texts flooded Missy Rock’s phone late Saturday afternoon.

By then, Rock (nee Buttry) already heard the news: Ella Baran broke her longstanding NCAA Division III record in the mile by three seconds at the Dr. Sander Columbia Challenge in New York; Kassie Parker came within 0.09 seconds of doing the same to her all-time divisional best in the 3000 meters at the Notre Dame-hosted Meyo Invitational in Notre Dame, Indiana.

“It makes me really excited, actually,” said Rock, who set both of those standards 17 years ago and is now an assistant cross country coach at Bethel University (Rock’s husband, fellow NCAA DIII legend and Olympic gold medalist Andrew Rock, is the head track & field coach). “Those records meant a lot to me when I set them. Seeing Ella and Kassie going after those times is truly a testament to their talent and most importantly, their hard work. It takes dedication to do that.”

Back in the winter of 2005, Rock was in the midst of her victory lap around NCAA DIII.

Earlier in the fall, Rock became the first athlete to win three consecutive individual titles at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, regardless of division or gender. Then, in the winter, Rock set the mile record of 4:43.92 during her two-title outing at the NCAA Indoor Championships, which came not long after she lowered her all-time best in the 3000 to 9:13.02* in a solo effort at the Iowa State Invitational. The former Wartburg Knight capped her sensational career with two more titles at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, giving her 14 across all three sports combined.

“I wouldn’t have been able to win all of those titles without an incredible support system,” Rock said. “I still had to run those times and win those races, but my coaches, my teammates, and my family all had as much to do with my success as I did. It goes so much deeper than the athlete.”

Fast forward to the present day and both Baran and Parker are blazing their own trails in Rock’s signature events, not only in NCAA DIII but across the entire collegiate landscape. Case in point, both Baran and Parker were among the top-10 performers on the All-College Descending Order List from this past weekend in their respective events: Baran sat seventh in the mile at 4:40.53; Parker found real estate as the eighth-fastest over 3000 meters at 9:13.10.

Did those performances by Baran and Parker shock their coaches? Depends on who you ask.

“Ella has shown consistent progress for the last two years with her workouts,” Johns Hopkins head coach Bobby Van Allen said. “The only thing missing was the large gap of time missed due to COVID shutting things down. Her workouts on the track really picked up from where we left things in the outdoor season, so I knew she was fit and certainly capable of achieving that time.”

Baran ended her outdoor campaign with two strong runner-up finishes at the NCAA Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina: the first in the 1500, where she PR’d at 4:23.28 and finished behind Emily Pomainville, who set the NCAA DIII record in the event two days earlier; the second was in the 5000, less than three hours later, with another PR of 16:30.93.

Confidence carried over into the fall, where she paced the Blue Jays to their seventh NCAA title in the past 10 years with an individual top-10 finish. From there, Baran posted back-to-back wins to begin the current indoor season – which included a PR in the 3000 of 9:36.90 – and then turned heads as the only collegian in the elite mile in New York this past weekend.

Several hours later and 700 miles west, Parker toed the line in an uber-talented field at Notre Dame. The Loras standout was one of six All-Americans from the fall in the race (and the only non-NCAA DI athlete in the mix), but there was one notable difference: Parker captured the only individual title out of the group at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in November.

“After we saw what she did this fall, we knew we had to challenge her and give her these opportunities,” Loras head track & field coach Matt Jones said. “We knew Kassie was in a pretty good place from her workouts, but that? It shocked us … in a good way. A really good way.”

That was 9:13.10, blowing a pre-race goal of 9:25 out of the water.

That was a fourth-place finish, beating two of those aforementioned five NCAA DI All-Americans (both of whom were among the top-25 individuals in Tallahassee, Florida).

“There can’t be a lot of politics with it,” Rock said of winning head-to-head matchups. “The stopwatch doesn’t lie. Division doesn’t matter, especially when you’re on the same start line.”

As an NCAA DIII coach and a divisional legend, herself, Rock sees this as a boon.

“It opens everybody’s eyes,” Rock said of these performances. “Just because we’re not running for scholarships in NCAA DIII, we can still run with the best. For me, to see those girls step to the line and run fearlessly, that’s incredible.

“It’s not easy coming from DIII,” Rock continued. “You’re looked at as a second-hand athlete, but we continue to prove we have A-plus talent.”

Both Baran and Parker will get another shot at leaving their mark this weekend: Baran will compete in the 3000 at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational in Boston; Parker ventures three hours west to Ames, Iowa, for the 5000 at the Iowa State Classic.

*Upon doing research for this story, it was learned that Buttry’s all-time, all-conditions best of 9:13.13 was incorrectly reported for years. Buttry won the 3000m at the 2005 Iowa State Invitational in 9:13.02, while 9:13.13 was the former facility record, which Buttry broke. Furthermore, Buttry’s best time on a 200-meter track as a Wartburg athlete was 9:20.85, coming at the 2003 UNI-Dome Open. That has been installed as the NCAA DIII record with her 9:13.02 going to the all-time, all-conditions list.