The VMI Athletic Media Relations office conducted an interview with VMI Cross Country Coach Paul Spangler, whose team is preparing for this weekend's NCAA Regional meet in Louisville, Ky. The text of the interview is below.

"First off Coach, congratulations on being named Women's Big South Coach of the Year."

Coach Spangler: "Thank you."

"It was certainly a big conference meet for the team, especially on the women's side. Talk about the women's success for a moment, if you would."

Coach Spangler: "We've had a great year. Coming in, I knew our women's program would be better than we were last year, but to achieve what we did this year...Well, I didn't think we'd end up as good as we did. Obviously I underestimated our girls' ability. From the beginning, we ran really well, and at every meet, we seemed to surprise both ourselves and the competition. We went into the conference championships and did what we'd done all year, and came out with a runner-up finish, the highest finish ever for the women's program. To do that with Runner of the Year Hannah Granger and Freshman of the Year Jenna Moye is a great accomplishment, and to do it with four freshmen in our top five is even more impressive."

"Talk about Hannah for a second, and how she's grown and matured into a better runner this season."

Coach Spangler: Early in the year, I talked about her and said she had a lot of room for improvement. A lot of our physiological testing showed that she had a lot of areas where she could get stronger and improve on her power, and if she did that, she'd be hard to beat at the conference level. She really showed that improvement this year, going undefeated in conference and being named Big South Runner of the Week three of the six weeks. Really, she won the conference meet with a fair amount of ease after taking control halfway through the race. She's made a lot of progress this year physically, but also mentally. She handled the pressure going into that meet very well. The thing about Hannah is, she's a pretty aggressive runner. She does not like to lose, and she is not intimidated easily. She'll get in there, mix it up and really compete. If she wants something bad enough, she'll fight for it. That's an attribute that's really hard to teach, and is one thing that's helped make her as successful as she is.

"We're looking forward to regionals, which are being held in Louisville this year. First off, what do we know about the course and facility it's being held at?"

Coach Spangler: "Well, it's a pretty fast course. It's one of the faster courses in the NCAA. We raced at the Paul Short earlier this year, and the times you run at Paul Short are comparable to what you should run at Louisville. It's a fast course, and it's 6K, not 5K. I think that's an advantage for us, because most of our girls are better suited for 6K. This race will be a chance for our girls to not only get some 6K PR's, but to PR through 5K as well."

"Switching gears in a way, before we finish up with the women, talk about the men and what they're gonna look to do this weekend to rebound from a disappointing conference meet."

Coach Spangler: "We had high expectations going into the season, and even going into the conference meet, we had a few guys who expected to do better than they did. We'll be a little shorthanded this weekend for the men, our 1-2-3 will not run at regionals. Andrey's run a 3:45 that equated to a 4:02 mile as a high school senior, and he's got a little bit of knee pain. It's nothing serious, but we don't want to risk it for this meet and potentially hurt his track season. Another one of our freshmen has some obligations he has to deal with, so we're going to let him do that. It'll be a good opportunity for some of our other freshmen to get experience at the NCAA level, and for our upperclassmen who didn't perform as well as they would have liked at conference to finish the season on a strong note. They've looked good in practice this week, so I'm excited to see what they'll run on Saturday."

"For those who watched this past football luncheon on 'Roo-Tube (Nov. 4), you gave a brief talk at that and mentioned some interesting goals for the women's team. Talk about those for a moment."

Coach Spangler: "We want to finish top-15 in the region, which would be a very good accomplishment. Some of the teams I think we're capable of beating are Clemson, Elon, Appalachian State, Wake Forest and others. I think we can go in there and knock off some big name schools, just like we have all year. I told the girls that we can't hide anymore, and everybody knows we're pretty good. I love it when coaches go up to the results board at a meet and say, 'VMI, wow, where'd they come from? They're pretty good!' That puts a smile on my face. What we've got to do is have our top five run well. At the conference meet, four of the five ran well as one girl was sick. She still did a good job, but instead of being our #3, she was the #5 runner. At the Appalachian State meet, we, again, had four of the five run well. I think if we put five girls out there who run well, we've got a chance to take a step forward and surprise a lot of teams. Top-15 is a goal, will it be easy? No. Is it attainable? Yes."

"Certainly appreciate those goals Coach, lofty ones without a doubt. Final question: We've been dealing with a lot of rain here in Lexington, and the weather is starting to get colder. Has this affected the runners at all, and if so or if not, what is the team doing to train when it's this rainy?"

Coach Spangler: "Well, we like rain. I like rain. Is it going to affect the way you train? Probably not, unless it's just coming down in buckets. We're not doing anything different now than we did when it was 75 degrees and sunny. Sure, bad conditions can affect you mentally, but you've got to understand that our athletes attend a military school, so they're extremely tough. When we go into a meet with tough conditions, whether it's cold, windy or wet, are they gonna affect the performance of everyone? Yes, but I've found they affect us less than they do our competition, so I actually like difficult conditions. This weekend, there's supposed to be good conditions in Louisville, as they're not getting the rain we've gotten here.

Regardless, I think we've got a chance to do well on the women's side. Going into the meet, Hannah's got a chance to be All-Region if she runs well and can finish in the top-25, which we've never had a woman do. Actually, I can't remember the last time we had a male do that. Anyway, she's got a chance to finish top-25 and earn that All-Region honor. To make it to Nationals, you really need to finish in the top-10 to get a selection. If Hannah had the race of her life, she could do that, but it's not something she should go into the meet expecting. In the same instance, if Jenna Moye has a great race, she could finish in the top-25, but it's more realistic that a good race puts her in the top-40. I think our best race as a team is yet to come, and hopefully it's this weekend."

"Coach, exciting words there, and we certainly appreciate your time this morning."

Coach Spangler: Thank you.