Trailblazer: BYU runner Rohatinsky was unbeaten as he raced to NCAA championship

PROVO — The 2000 NCAA Championship meet is one BYU cross country runner Josh Rohatinsky would just as soon forget.

The Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year was seen as a potential all-American heading into the meet in Iowa, but a cold snap the day of the race dropped the temperature to minus-20 degrees. Rohatinsky, seemingly more affected by the cold than other runners that day, stumbled across the finish line in 230th place.

"Obviously, he was more disappointed than anyone," said BYU coach Ed Eyestone. "I just grabbed him and said, 'Don't worry, you'll be able to win this thing some year."'

An LDS mission, a redshirt year and three all-American seasons later, Rohatinsky made good on his coach's prediction with an amazing run at this year's NCAA Championship meet in Indiana, capturing that long-awaited national title by an eight-second margin and capping an undefeated senior tour.

Now, Rohatinsky chuckles as he remembers what his coach said that miserable day his freshman year.

"At the time, I thought (Eyestone) was just trying to make me feel better," he said. "Obviously, I wanted to do better than I did ... but I didn't really think about winning the championship at that time."

But for all the years of hard work and preparation, Rohatinsky's finest moment almost never materialized. Just one week before the NCAA meet, he completed just half of his Monday practice run before returning to the locker room with a rapidly developing case of the flu.

It got worse that night and continued on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, it began to clear up and he could engage in a light workout, but with the meet just four days away, coaches didn't know if he could recover and rehydrate in time.

"I knew I was going to be able to compete, but it was pretty bad," Rohatinsky said. "I don't get sick that often, and a week or five days before the meet, it got really bad. Once I started to feel a little better, I tried to put it out of my head and tell myself it didn't matter."

Eyestone compares Rohatinsky's performance at the national meet to another that is indelibly pressed in the minds of Utah sports fans — Michael Jordan beginning Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals at the Delta Center barely able to stand because he had been ravaged by the flu but willing himself to 38 points and a decisive 3-pointer with 26 seconds left in the Bulls' victory.