VOL 78 /10
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
BY ROBERT DOWNS
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
PHOTO COURTESY OF UMD
Name: Eric Atkinson
Year: Senior
Hometown: Spooner, Wis.
Major: Biology
Favorite athlete: Steve Prefontaine (international track star)
"He's a stud," said freshman cross country runner Dillon Johnston. The stud he was referring to is senior captain Erik Atkinson.
Atkinson is definitely backing up that description by showing that he's the runner to beat, week after week.
He was awarded the North Central Conference (NCC) cross country athlete of the week award for the second time this season, due to his superior performance at the Jim Drews/Tori Neubauer Invitational on Oct. 13.
Atkinson said he is able to perform well because of his hard training. "In every race you get to a point where you say 'wow, this is starting to hurt really bad,' and you could quit at any point," he said. "At that point, I just force myself to go a little harder and put in a burst ... to just keep my legs going."
Atkinson pushed through the pain to finish fifth out of 510 runners with a time of 25:19, which helped the Bulldog men's cross country team place No. 6 in the United States Cross Country Coaches Association's (USCCCA) North Central Region Poll. With his continued success, Atkinson has high hopes for this season.
"The biggest goal for the team and me is getting back to nationals," he said. "It's a lot more fun if you're at nationals with a team, than by yourself." In 2006, Atkinson was the only individual qualifier from UMD to reach the NCAA Division II Championship. In 2003 and 2004, the entire Bulldog team qualified for nationals in back to back seasons.
Atkinson chose to attend UMD because of what UMD had to offer athletically and academically. "[UMD] was the right size for me. I like running on trails and I knew that they had a lot of trails around here," he said. "My favorite part of running cross-country is running the trails every day.";
As is the case with most cross country runners, Atkinson's favorite athlete is Steve Prefontaine. Prefontaine at one point held every United States distance record, and Atkinson said that he is part of the reason he started running. After college, Atkinson wants cross country to continue to be a big part of his life.
"I definitely plan to keep on running and everything. I'll probably be upping it to marathons and stuff like that," he said. "As far as a job, I'm hoping to teach Chemistry or Biology at a high school and coach cross country and track."
