It is easy to respect a man with 39 ACC Championships and 32 ACC Coach of the Year Awards. It is easy to admire a coach whose players, years after performing for him, gather to run a 240-mile relay race just to honor the program they credit for making them into men. With a laundry list of accolades and players who still feel close to his program, cross country coach Rollie Geiger meets and exceeds the criteria for success in his field.
On Sept. 17 and 18 a team of 11 former N.C. State runners competed in the Reach the Beach Relay. Guys like Gavin Gaynor, Robert Howell, Chris Dugan, Michael Brooks and Jose Gonzalez, who came all the way from Spain for the race, got together with former teammates and even N.C. State alumni who they barely knew to run a relay race from Cannon Mountain, N.H. to Hampton Beach, N.H. “Wolfpack Go Early” finished fourth overall and won the Masters Division for men over 30.
“The weekend reminded me of the strong brotherhood that is Wolfpack XC. I think of you older guys often and recall the suffering and celebration we shared together that will bind us forever,” Gaynor said in an email. “It gives me great pride to see that the next generation shares the same bond.”
The oldest and youngest members of that team graduated 13 years apart, but they all shared a common bond created in Rollie Geiger’s program.
Robert Howell ran for Wake High School and knew of coach Geiger’s reputation and program. While being recruited, Howell informed Geiger that he could not pass up the academic opportunity to go to school at Princeton University. Geiger respected that decision, wished him well and began calling coaches at Princeton to give Howell a chance to run for their school. Howell later jumped at a second chance to run for Geiger, transferring after his sophomore year.
“He was a runner’s coach and a real people person,” Howell said.
One of the most important and effective aspects of the program is the focus placed on the athletes to be students. 15 of the athletes coached by Geiger have received NCAA postgraduate scholarships and 14 have received the James-Weaver-Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarship.
“We stress academics in the program,” Geiger said. “We find that if you are committed to putting in the work for this program, then you are going to be committed to your academics too because it is important to you. They go hand in hand.”
When it comes to the technical aspects of coaching, the record shows Geiger’s talent in the area of training his teams. Howell said Geiger’s meticulous attention to detail and long-term concern for his runners over the course of the season and their careers made his time at State unforgettable.
“All I had to do was show up and run hard,” Howell said. “Geiger works just as hard, if not harder than the runners he trains to make sure they have the opportunity to be successful.”
Geiger said he makes an effort to adapt his plans from year to year.
“I spend a lot of time writing programs,” Geiger said. “When I sit down and make up the game plan it’s a different game plan each year. You have to change as a coach and try to make the program better.”
The key to success, however, is not in the mechanics of the program.
“Those athletes have to bite into it,” Geiger said. “Trust is huge. If the athletes in your program feel that you care about them as individuals, the rest of it takes care of itself.”
The athletes coached by Rollie Geiger learn more than how to perform in the arena of sport, Geiger said he hopes.
“Hard work doesn’t guarantee success, it guarantees you the opportunity to be successful” Geiger said.
These lessons, coupled with the demand of the program, create successful individuals on and off the field. Not only are the members of Wolfpack Go Early All-ACC athletes, All-Americans and ACC Champions, many become teachers, coaches, architects, lawyers, accountants, engineers and military officers. Those men also become fathers, husbands and contributing members of society. And most importantly, they become more than teammates – they grow to become like brothers to one another.
“At the end of a championship, I cherish the interaction I see between the athletes and their families and their team, them up on the podium,” Geiger said. “For me, I don’t want to be up on the podium, I want to sit back and take it in, because I know 10 years from now they’ll still remember it. They’ll be brothers for life, and that’s what coaching is about. It is about relationships. I want them to have that opportunity and to be successful. That’s what coaches do, because I know later on in life they will be successful. And hopefully this program will help them do that.”
Rollie Geiger began coaching men’s and women’s cross-country in 1979. He continues to coach men’s cross-country, but turned the women’s team over to Laurie Henes in 2006. In his time as men’s and women’s head coach he led those teams to a combined 33 ACC Championships, two women’s NCAA National Championships, 19 individual ACC Championships, 161 All-ACC honors, 47 All-American honors and 21 top-10 national finishes. Geiger began coaching Track and Field in 1985. In that sport, his teams have won six ACC Championships and 128 All-American citations.
