Huber Three-Peats In 3000 Meters

While Vicki Huber’s prime event is no longer part of the program at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the rich tradition of middle distance runners at Villanova is not complete without her. After all, she has more NCAA titles than any other Wildcat, including the storied men’s program.

Six of Huber’s seven individual NCAA track titles came in the 3000 meters, an event she conquered like no other collegiate woman. Huber swept NCAA indoor/outdoor titles three times from 1987-89, setting some records and winning margins that will likely remain – at least outdoors since the event was discontinued in 2001 when the women’s steeplechase was introduced.

Huber became a major force as a sophomore, winning the 3000 at the 1987 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in a collegiate record of 8:54.41. It was a PR by more than 12 seconds from when she won her first national title a few months earlier in the indoor version (Huber clocked a 9:06.45).

Virtually untouchable in 1988, Huber completed the first women’s indoor mile/3000 double at the NCAA Championships as she broke and then bettered the meet record in the mile to 4:31.46. That mark, however, was shy of the collegiate record 4:28.31 she clocked earlier that year at the Millrose Games and would stand for 21 years until Colorado’s Jenny Barringer ran the current record of 4:25.91 in 2009 (Barringer was the inaugural winner of The Bowerman).

Outdoors in 1988, Huber lowered the 3000 CR twice, first to 8:53.07 (in an early-April race she won by more than 30 seconds) and then a dominating 8:47.35 NCAA victory by almost 12 seconds. Then in September, Huber was sixth in the Seoul Olympics at 8:37.25 – still the all-time best by a collegian regardless of time of year.

Huber – who grew up some 15 miles from the Villanova campus in Wilmington, Delaware – finished her collegiate track career with a 9:06.96 win at the 1989 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships. The time was not fast, thanks to being held at high altitude in Provo, Utah, but she was an incredible 20.30 seconds ahead of her nearest pursuer in a margin of victory that will forever remain as the meet’s largest.

The chance to leave her mark in cross country beckoned Huber back to Villanova in the fall of 1989 and she might have saved her best for last. Huber won the individual title at the 1989 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships by a still-standing meet record of 26.92 seconds and led the Wildcats to their first NCAA women’s team title in any sport.