INTRODUCTION: Heading into the 1,500 meter championship race at outdoor NCAAs in 1987, Tom Tuori '87 had a strong resume: five All-America honors in previous seasons. He also faced a noble foe in that title race - Arnie Schrader of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, who had won the last two national titles in the outdoor 1,500. The first man across the finish line in '87 was Tuori - and his title run came a day before he would earn his degree at Rochester. Seventh of a Series.

By Dennis O'Donnell, Director of Athletic Communications

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What does it mean after all these years to be a national champion in college?
It is the achievement from my time at UR that I am most proud of and it is a source of wonderful memories even now, 30 years later.  The win -- coming a day before graduation, in my last college race against my main adversary, after a year and a half of injuries, illnesses and other setbacks, and two years after I almost won the 1500 my sophomore year -- was just about the perfect way to end my UR career.  I couldn't have scripted a better ending.  All of the losses and struggles that preceded that race made the victory that much more satisfying.   
 
When you think about winning the individual title, what comes to mind?
I typically think back to the moments immediately after the race.  I remember crossing the line and thinking . . . we (Coach Hale and I) finally did it!  Then Josefa Benzoni appeared on the track within seconds and hugged me, and was so happy for me that I just assumed that she must have won too. (I started my race without knowing whether she won or came in second -- that was how close her race was. I was at the other end of the track warming up for my race when she finished and couldn't tell if she won or lost.  She lost by only a couple tenths of a second in one of the gutsiest and toughest races I have ever seen anyone run, at any level of competition.)  Josefa's pure joy at my victory is probably what stands out the most in my mind.  I cherish that memory as much as I do the victory itself.
 
You came into NCAAs at North Central College with a pretty strong resume: five All-America honors including two outdoors in the 1,500 and one indoors in the 1,500. How did you approach the race in terms of training and then on race day itself?
I was injured on and off from December of my junior year all the way through February of my senior year.  It was very frustrating and I came close to giving up running.  I finally got healthy in February of my senior year, trained hard for a month, and thought I could win the indoor nationals my senior year.  Then I got sick right before nationals and came in 4th in a race I was convinced I would have won if I was healthy.  It took me a month or more to recover.  By then it was April of my senior year. Coach Hale and I decided that there wasn't time to "cross train" for different races -- the 800, the 1500, the 5000.  We only had time to prepare for the 1500.  We focused completely on 1500 training -- which consisted primarily of 400 meter (one lap on the outdoor track) repeats in the 57 to 59 seconds per lap range.  We would typically do 8 or 10 repeats.  I trained with the 800 meter guys -- Ben Goldthwaite and Chris Delcorso mainly -- and their support was invaluable.
 
Back then we didn't travel to big invitationals.  Our outdoor season was a bunch of home dual meets, and then the State Meet.  Coach Hale made me run time trials in several of the dual meets to prepare me for a hard 1500 at nationals.  By the time nationals came around, I had run 3 races at around 4-minute mile pace for three-quarters of a mile (before slowing at the end).
 
Our strategy on race day was to push the pace from the start and run 4-minute mile pace for as long as I could maintain it.
 
Just before your race, you watched Josefa Benzoni in the women's 1,500. That was a heck of a race, wasn't it?
As I mentioned, Josefa ran one of the gutsiest and toughest races I have ever seen. She ran hard the whole way and she led from the start until the last 15 or 20 meters. You rarely see someone successfully use that approach in a middle distance championship race.  It is the hardest way to win and Josefa came about as close to winning as you can without actually doing it. 
 
I was going to use the same general strategy in my race.  But something unexpected happened.
 
Any nerves when you stepped up to the starting line? The field included the two-time defending national champion in the 1,500.
Yes, I was very edgy, since this was my last race representing UR and my last chance to win nationals after several near-misses.  There was a lot on the line.  Coach Hale and I were pretty sure it was going to be a two-man race -- me and the two-time defending champion, Arnie Schrader from Wisconsin-Stevens Point. 
 
Arnie was and still is one of the all-time great Division III distance runners.  I had the utmost respect for him.  Still, I thought I could win. And I was pretty sure I would have won a few more nationals against him during my junior and senior years if not for a series of injuries and illnesses that prevented me from training consistently. I also knew that this time I was healthy, prepared, sharp, and rested.  I was very confident in my fitness and my ability to respond to whatever happened during the race.
 
How did the race go?
The race unfolded in a way that Coach Hale and I did not see coming.  Our plan was for me to push the pace -- at around 4-minutes per mile -- and see if Arnie would try to stay close.
 
So, the gun went off and I fought hard to get into the lead.  Then I settled in to a 59-second per lap pace (just under 4-minute mile pace).  I noticed something funny. Arnie was on my outside shoulder in lane 2 pushing to take the lead, despite how fast we were running.  I consciously kept the lead for the first 500 meters and I forced Arnie to run farther in lane 2.   Then I dropped behind him and let him take the lead. 
 
It dawned on me then what he might be trying to do: run the Division I qualifying time (I believe it was 3:43 or 3:44) and win the race so he could run at the Division I nationals a few weeks later (you could do that back then). I assumed he was running for time and may not have thought anyone in the race could stay with him.  When I realized what was going on, my confidence soared because I knew he would be doing the hard work of pushing the pace in the middle of the race. 
 
I let him hold the lead for the next lap and a half.  I would drop behind him on the turns (to avoid running farther in lane two) but would get up on his shoulder on the straight-aways to let him know I was still there.  We went through 2 laps just a little slower than 4-minute mile pace.
 
With a lap to go, I took the lead. I increased the pace just a little, so he would think this was my big "move".  Then I went into an all-out sprint on the backstretch, with about 250 meters to go.  I didn't know it at the time (I did not look back!), but he never countered that move and I entered the final straight-away with a 10 or 15 meter lead.  He never closed the gap.
 
I finished in a new UR school record and new personal best by almost 2 seconds.  My time was the equivalent of a 4:02 or 4:03 mile.
 
What kind of a greeting did you get from Coach Tim Hale when you crossed the finish line?
Coach Hale couldn't get down to the track, but Josefa Benzoni was at my side almost as soon as I crossed the line. As I mentioned, it was a wonderful moment and one I'll never forget.
 
I met Coach Hale a few minutes later, after I collected my warm up gear and left the track.  He gave me a great big bear hug and had a grin from ear to ear.  It was a very special moment.  There is no way I would have accomplished what I did at UR without Tim Hale.  So the win was really a win for both of us.  We were a team and we both won that day. 
 
There are people in your life that you will never be able to fully repay for all they have done for you.  No matter what you do for them, the scales will never be balanced.  Good parents are an example.  So are good teachers and good coaches. I feel that way about Coach Hale.  He did more for me than I could ever do for him.
 
And how did it feel to stand on the awards podium in the spot reserved for the national champion?
I was thrilled to finally be standing on the top step -- since I had come so close in the preceding two years. And it was an honor to have Coach Hale hand me the first-place plaque.  This may be hard to understand, but I also felt a little sad that Arnie Schrader didn't end his stellar career with a victory.  It almost didn't seem right that he was on the second place step. (He probably should have run the 5000 meters, where he had the fastest time in Division III that year by almost 30 seconds.)
 
You flew home that night and graduated the next day. What do you remember about that?

I can't recall why it took so long, but we didn't land in Rochester (nationals was in the Chicago area -- just a 90 minute flight away) until 1 or 2 am.  My best friends had driven to Chicago to watch the race and they were still on their way home.  I didn't expect anyone to meet us at the airport. But Linda Hale (Coach Hale's wife) met us there and she had a bottle of champagne.  It was such a surprise and was so thoughtful. To this day, it still means a great deal to me. 
 
I was in a fog the next morning. I was very tired and emotionally exhausted from the stresses of the day before. My parents came in from Syracuse and we went to the engineering graduation in the Palestra. I hadn't given any thought to media coverage or the fact (long before there was an internet) that word of my race might have gotten around to the UR community.  But there was a short article in the Democrat & Chronicle that morning -- and people used to read newspapers back then. I was very surprised at all the attention I received at the graduation ceremony.  I really felt the support of the University community as a whole, which is not something that I even thought about before that day.  (The Sports & Recreation Department -- including John Reeves (the Athletic Director), other coaches, athletes on other UR teams, and administrative staff -- had always been incredibly supportive.)
 
What led you to attend the University out of Henninger High School in Syracuse?
Three words: GENEROUS FINANCIAL AID.
 
I came from a large family and we didn't have a lot of money. I also have a brother (10 months younger) who was the same year as me in school.  So we were going to be in college at the same time.  None of the other schools that accepted me provided anywhere near the financial aid I needed.  If not for the financial aid package from UR, I would have gone to community college for a year.
 
As a student and as an athlete, I was an underachiever in high school. I wasn't recruited much and I wasn't good enough for a Division I scholarship.
 
I accepted UR's offer without ever seeing the school.  In fact, if my high school track coach (Jerry Riordan, a Syracuse legend) hadn't suggested that I apply to UR (he said it was "a school where doctors' and lawyers' kids go . . ."), I never would have ended up at UR or with the life I have today. It was an accident of history.  
 
You graduated with a degree in Environmental Engineering in 1987. Why did you choose that as your major?
Math and science came pretty easy for me in high school and because of my family background, I felt I needed to do something "vocational" at UR.  So, I chose engineering, and chemical engineering seemed like the most interesting option available at UR.  But I hated the subject matter and the fact that I was limited to just a handful of social science and humanities electives. 
 
I wanted to change majors half way through my junior year, but I still needed to graduate in 4 years.  So the only option available was to create my own interdepartmental engineering program -- I called it "Environmental Engineering".  Environmental issues seemed more interesting to me than purely technical engineering work.  The switch allowed me to take some biology and geology courses with an environmental focus, along with a few more electives. I really enjoyed my last 3 semesters at UR. I made the switch at the time when the environmental regulatory scheme in the U.S. was just taking shape and becoming more robust. From that standpoint, it was good timing.
 
Are there any courses that you really enjoyed? Or any professors whom you really appreciated?
Absolutely: Professor Larry Lundgren in the Geology Department.  He was a great teacher and the courses I had with him -- especially "Environmental Decisions" in my last semester -- really had an impact on me and they convinced me that the decision to switch majors was the right one.  I also loved, loved, loved the sociology courses (one with Professor Murphy) and philosophy courses I took (with Professor Conee and Professor Holmes).  I should have been a social science major!
 
Where did your career path take you after graduation?
During the first year after graduation, I worked at UR (as assistant women's cross country coach, assistant women's track coach, and in the dining center), took a graduate course, and was training for the Olympic Trials. (I qualified for the 1988 Olympic Trials in a race in Boston a few weeks after graduation. It was my first race against national and world-class non-collegiate athletes.  I ran 1500 meters in 3:41, which is the equivalent to a 3:57 or 3:58 mile.)
 
I was in great shape in the spring of 1988, but I pulled a hamstring a couple months before the Olympic Trials.  I knew I wouldn't recover in time to compete seriously at the Trials. So I took a job as an environmental consultant at one of the local engineering companies.  By the time the Olympic Trials came around, my hamstring had healed, but I was not in very good shape.  I decided to run in the Trials anyways -- just for the experience, after doing an 800 meter time trial at around 4-minute per mile pace.  The very next day -- less than a week before the Trials -- I was in a construction accident that could have killed or paralyzed me.  I never ran in the Trials and was only healthy on and off after that.  So I didn't have much of a post-college running career.  Which means my race at nationals in 1987 and the race a few weeks later where I qualified for the Olympic Trials were probably the pinnacle of my athletic career. I didn't know it at the time of course.  Which is why the nationals race means even more in retrospect.
 
I worked in the environmental consulting field for a total of 15 years before deciding to go to law school in 2003. (I attended UB Law School and graduated in 2007.)
 
I have worked at Harter Secrest & Emery, where I am surrounded by other UR alumni, as an environmental attorney since 2007. 
 
And lastly, was there anything you took away from your national championship experience that helped you after graduation?
I think the most important take away was validation of all the effort I put into running and the decision not to give up despite the frustration with injuries and other set-backs. I learned to suspend disbelief in things that might not seem possible at the time: I went from being injured until January of my senior year and almost quitting, and then getting very sick in March, to winning nationals in May and qualifying for the Olympic Trials a few weeks later.  I might have hoped for that kind of turn around, but I don't think I really believed it could happen.  Winning nationals proved it was possible. 
 
The way the race itself unfolded also taught me several valuable lessons: 
 

1. Sometimes the wisest approach is to sit back and see how things unfold before pushing ahead with your preconceived plan for how things "should" go.  Had I blindly stuck to my pre-race strategy, I might very well have ended up in second place. 

 

1. A close corollary is that sometimes you need to abandon your plans and jump at un-planned for opportunities that come your way.  When I look back at my life, many of the very best things that have happened to me -- including how nationals unfolded in 1987 -- were not planned, but rather were the result of seizing unplanned opportunities and wringing the most out of them.