It was originally a joke between four freshmen and their head coach.
Philip Vukelich | Argonaut
Idaho coach Wayne Phipps
Now, Wayne Phipps has a dynasty on his hands, and his trophy case has become increasingly congested.
Four years ago, the Idaho cross country coach was only messing around when he toyed with the idea that his four freshmen would leave the University of Idaho with enough bling to wrap four of their fingers from winning WAC Championships.
Saturday in Seattle, when senior Hannah Kiser crossed the finish line 20 seconds ahead of the next best competitor, it was a sign the No. 4 ring was on its way — that maybe Phipps didn’t truly realize how special that group of freshmen really was.
Yet those four certainly weren’t Phipps’ meal ticket, although he may have been able to use them as exactly that and come out with the same result on Saturday.
Idaho won its fourth consecutive title — a first for any Idaho women’s team in history — by 25 points.
The quest for No. 4 was not easy though, and Phipps had to rely on much more than his elite 2009 recruiting class, one that comprised of Kiser, Emily Paradis, Holly Stanton Browning and Alycia Butterworth.
A close conference meet in 2012 was just another addition to Phipps’ sterling resume.
After Idaho’s top three runners finished in the top 10, the Vandals left the streak up to Halie Raudenbush, a true freshman who failed to finish top-50 in the state of Idaho as a high school senior.
But Phipps knows how to pick runners and surely, Raudenbush was a diamond in the rough. She passed two runners to finish No. 16 overall. The Vandals won the race by three points.
One year later, with probably the best team he’s had since taking over the cross-country program in 2000, Phipps ran into the problem most coaches would envy. With exponential depth on his squad, he had to cut one of the primary contributors to the 2011 and 2012 championship squads, where Butterworth finished fifth and eighth respectively.
But the depth on the 2012 roster forced Phipps to leave Butterworth out of the seven-athlete lineup. Even with two sophomores and two freshmen, not a single Vandal would finish outside of the top 25. Texas-Pan American, Chicago State and Cal State-Bakersfield wouldn’t place a single runner in the top 25.
It’s just proof that Phipps will never refrain from rebuilding, even with one of the deepest rosters on the West Coast.
The Vandal men, who boasted the top three finishers at Saturday’s meet, are a perfect example of that. A year after losing his top two runners, Phipps put on his best John Calipari impression, and reloaded.
What he came up with gave the Vandals a second-place finish in Seattle. Two Idaho rookies, freshman Nicholas Boersma and junior Cody Helbling, would take the top two spots while sophomore Santos Vargas slipped into third.
Nineteen years later, we can be sure that Wayne Phipps hasn’t overstayed his welcome.
And while the Big Sky won’t agree, he’s welcome to stay for 19 more.
Theo Lawson can be reached at [email protected]