History repeats itself……..Records are made to be broken just ask Craig Virgin.

By Randy Sharer

There is plenty of evidence to support the validity of these clichés until we get to the intriguing case of Craig Virgin, who 30 years ago made history only he could repeat.

     It was March 9, 1980 and the venue was the Longchamp horsing racing track in Paris where 25,000 spectators turned out to watch people, not ponies, run in the world cross country championships. The 7.2-mile event is regarded as the toughest footrace because it brings together stars from the mile all the way to the marathon. No American man had ever won in the event’s 77-year history, but the 24-year-old farm boy from tiny Lebanon, Ill., changed that in dramatic, come-from-behind  fashion. He won again in 1981 at Madrid, but no American has won since. (Two women have, Doris Brown Heritage and Lynn Jennings.)

So who is Craig Virgin and how did he do what no other American male has?

In brief, Virgin, now 54, is the Steve Prefontaine who lived.

Virgin, like many others, idolized the legendary Prefontaine, who died tragically at age 25 in an auto accident in 1975 when he held every American record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. The charismatic Prefontaine’s potential for more greatness remains frozen in time. Fans speculate he would have won the 5,000 at the 1976 Olympic Games. Being robbed of Olympic opportunity is something Virgin can identify with. Prior to 1980, every world cross country champion had gone on to win an Olympic medal. Virgin didn’t get that chance because the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. He posted the fastest 10,000-meter time in the world in 1980 with an American record 27 minutes, 29.16 seconds, the No. 2 time ever behind Kenyan Henry Rono’s 1978 world record of 27:22.47. 

    Virgin was one of the few distance running prodigies to avoid physical and mental burnout long enough to become world champion. Even though his high school didn’t have a track, he set 12 age-group world and national class records. His two-mile time of 8:57.4 as a sophomore in 1972 is still the national record for 15-year-olds. He broke Prefontaine’s national high school two-mile record of 8:41.6 with an 8:40.9 in 1973. No one ran faster in a race limited to high school runners until German Fernandez clocked 8:34.40 in 2008. Virgin broke 9:00 15 times in high school, a national record he shares with Eric Hulst.

     But enough about track. This story is about cross country, a sport so different from track that cross country runners get miffed when friends ask how the “track meet” went. Cross country was Craig Virgin’s first love. “It’s a wonderful, cathartic experience, a pure feeling being out in the country, especially in the fall when the weather is cool and the leaves change,” Virgin told Marc Bloom in Running Times magazine.

     A junior high basketball coach suggested Virgin give cross country a try when he got to high school. His first practice consisted of a five-mile run over a third-of-a-mile loop. He lapped the entire team. In his first race, he won. In his first sectional, he failed to qualify for the state meet, a setback that lit a fire. Virgin threw himself into year-round training and went unbeaten the next season until finishing sixth in the state meet. He won his next 48 high school cross country races in a row, setting course records in 47. His final record, a 13:50.6 for 3 miles, remains the Illinois state meet course record.

      At the University of Illinois, Virgin won 31 of 35 cross country races including the 1975 NCAA title. Between his high school sophomore season and his senior year in college, he won 95 of 100 races in cross country. He was the top American in eight NCAA national meets. In 1979, he broke Prefontaine’s national record in the 10,000 with a time of 27:39.4 that sent him into 1980 with momentum and monster goals. Self-coached at that time, Virgin logged 100-mile training weeks to strengthen one of the greatest oxygen-burning lung capacities ever measured, a VO² reaching 92.0.

       In his first world cross country meet in 1978, Virgin finished sixth. He fell early in the muddy race of 1979, but hustled back for 13th. When he stepped to the starting line in 1980 at Paris, he was concerned about a sore hamstring, but otherwise ready to conquer the world. Before the gun fired, the antsy runners false started. Officials controlled them with corralling ropes, but when the gun went off again, Virgin was facing the wrong way and was nearly trampled. “I do remember somebody grabbing me and that kept me from going all the way down on my face,” he said. “By the time I got my balance and took off, there was just a wall of humanity in front of me.”

     The leaders in the field of 190 men from some 30 nations passed the first uphill 800 meters in 2:02 despite running on shaggy turf. On the second of five laps, Nick Rose of Great Britain, the rival Virgin respected more than any other, built a 30-meter lead over two-time defending champion John Treacy of Ireland. Virgin surged on that lap, swerving through traffic like a NASCAR driver to climb into 25th. He could see the leader and instantly recognized the loping style of Rose, a Western Kentucky University alum who finished second to Virgin in the 1975 NCAA cross country meet.

    By the end of the second lap, Virgin was ninth, but Rose had lengthened his lead over 1977 champion Leon Schots of Belgium. Virgin joined Schots and Alex Antipov of the Soviet Union in the chase group on the third lap. Virgin then had to weigh the pros and cons of drafting off others in the safety of the pack or setting off on his own to catch Rose. “I finally said ‘I didn’t come here to hand this to Nick on a silver platter,’” remembers Virgin, who sliced Rose’s lead to 20 meters with a lap to go. “He looked back, saw me and then took off. At the time, it was very discouraging.”

   On the last backstretch, Virgin was rejoined by Schots and West Germany’s Hans-Jurgen Orthmann, who had beaten Virgin seven years earlier in a 3,000 meters at a junior US vs West German dual meet. “I forced myself to stay on their shoulder or a step ahead over the next half mile and during that half mile, I was able to recover,“ Virgin said. With 900 to go, Rose dug deep, but his spurt to counter Virgin’s surge had come at a price. With 350 left, Orthmann lifted and took the lead, but he had moved too soon.

   “Whether it’s sports, business or love, timing is everything,” Virgin said. “I timed that last lap-and-a-half better than what anybody else did. Part of it was instinct and part of it was practice.” Virgin had trained on the last, 700-meter straightaway several times in the previous two days, noting landmarks for “gear change No. 1, gear change No. 2 and then, if necessary, a final Hail Mary gear change.” Virgin’s biggest gear took him past the fading Rose with 150 remaining and then reeled in Orthmann at the 70-meter mark. As Orthmann glanced over his left shoulder, Virgin passed on the right and sprinted through the finish chute, making peace signs with both uplifted hands.

    “It was not peace at all,” revealed Virgin. “It was Winston Churchill’s V for victory. I had two Vs, one for Virgin and one for victory and that became my signature salutation for many races to come.” Usually a front runner, Virgin later called his kick that day one of the best of his career. His time for the 11,590-meter course, which included several steeple chase barriers, was 37:01.1, 1.2 seconds better than Orthmann and 4.7 ahead of Rose. The crowd mobbed Virgin, making him feel, at least for a moment, like a rock star. He helped the U.S. team place second, one of five runner-up efforts he would be part of.

     Years later while working as a motivational speaker, Virgin would show the video of that 1980 race. Each time, his amazing sprint finish caused the audience to erupt in applause as if the race had just finished. “There are moments of truth in every race,” Virgin tells them. “I had several in that race where, thank God, I made the right decision rather than giving in to discouragement.” 

     Greg Meyer, the 1983 Boston Marathon champion and another of Virgin’s college rivals, doesn’t believe Virgin’s two world cross country titles get the historical credit they deserve. “Frank Shorter would shoot me for this, but I think Craig’s two world championships exceed Frank’s (1972 Olympic marathon) gold medal in terms of what it accomplished. Frank happened to win a major media event no different that I did in Boston. But in terms of pure athletic endeavor, the world cross country championship is a tougher accomplishment.”

    Virgin’s college teammate, Mike Durkin, a two-time Olympian in the 1,500, has a theory about his friend.

     “I do not think that Craig was the most physically gifted runner in terms of leg speed or strength,” Durkin said, “but he could push himself through shear willpower to levels that very few people on the world class level could achieve. His mind was a very powerful instrument and he had desire.”

     In 1982, Virgin was traveling to Rome in an attempt to win a third consecutive world cross country title when a kidney infection forced him to withdraw. Born with congenital urological disease, he almost died as a child. Surgery at age 5 failed to fix the problem, but an antibiotic kept him alive for eight years until he could have life-saving reconstructive surgery at age 13. That operation came just months before he began his running career on August 3, 1969, a day after his 14th birthday. In 1994, two years after he had retired from elite racing, his right kidney was removed.

   Time has continued to march. Many of Virgin’s marks have slid down the all-time lists. His 2:10:26 marathon to finish second at Boston in 1981, which made him the sixth fastest American ever then, now ranks 24th. History has given other accomplishments more shine. Virgin qualified for a record 11 U.S. national cross country teams and ran in nine world championships, a record he shares with Pat Porter. Virgin was the first American 10,000 runner to qualify for three Olympic teams. His third-place finish in the 1976 NCAA cross country meet in 28:26.53 for 10,000 meters behind Rono and another eventual world record holder from Kenya, Samson Kimombwa, was fast enough to have won every other year except 1979 when Rono clocked 28:19.6.

    Flash forward 30 years and we find Rono and Virgin on Facebook exchanging memories of past battles. Virgin, who was inducted into the U.S. Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2001, continues to follow the sports of track and field and cross country from his home near Lebanon (population 3,523). Just last November he was in Terre Haute, Ind., watching the NCAA cross country meet, chatting with well wishers including 1964 Olympic 10,000 champion Billy Mills. It was at the 2008 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., where Virgin met girlfriend Karen LaPorte Fox. As kismet would have it, she was in the crowd in 1973 when Virgin broke Prefontaine’s national high school two-mile record. Another love of Virgin’s life is his 9-year-old daughter, Annie, already a veteran spectator of Illinois’ annual state high school cross country meet at Peoria’s Detweiller Park. Since 1972, the state’s best boys have ventured to the park where America’s only world champion made a mark that has stood the test of time.

     Randy Sharer, a sports writer for the Bloomington (IL) Pantagraph newspaper, has written about track and cross country since 1981. E-mail him at rlsharer@aol.com. In his spare time, he is currently writing a book about Craig Virgin. For more, visit www.craigvirgin.com.