Stanford Had Opponents Seeing (Cardinal) Red

Seeing red – Cardinal red – in the Men’s 10,000 Meters at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships became common in the late 1990s. 

After all, Stanford put together matching 1-2-3 sweeps in the 1998 and 1999 10K to become the first program with more than one such collection in meet history (all events, men and women). 

But 2000 was special – both in the 10K race and the entire meet. Incredibly, Stanford sent six runners to start the 10K, the first track final on the Cardinal’s quest to improve on team runner-up finishes the previous two years. 

Brad Hauser, the 1998 NCAA 10K champion, led Stanford to what looked like yet another 1-2-3 finish. Jason Balkman, second in the 1999 sweep, followed closely – but Brad’s twin brother Brent began to stagger approaching the finish line while in third place. Brent – the only Cardinal runner who was part of both the 1998 and 1999 sweeps – somehow finished, falling across the line as Stanford went 1-2-4 for 23 team points, one digit less than what a 1-2-3 would generate. 

Would the point difference matter? 

No. As it turned out, that was about the only thing that went wrong for Stanford in 2000. 

Brad completed a 10K-5K double victory as the distance-strong Cardinal went 1-4-6 in the 5K (Brent taking a career-best fourth in that event ahead of Jonathon Riley) as well as 1-2 in the 1500 with Gabe Jennings and Michael Stember, who was also fourth in the 800. The only other points for Stanford came from Toby Stevenson’s second in the pole vault. 

With 72 points, Stanford was able to finally overtake powerful Arkansas (59), winners of the eight previous team crowns. It was the Cardinal’s fourth team title — first since 1934. 

It was also the first track & field NCAA championship for head coach Vin Lananna, who told Sieg Lindstrom of Track & Field News: “We decided that we were going to make our own definition of what success was going to be for us this weekend. We weren’t going to pay attention to what anybody else was doing.”