Almost gracious hosts

For about an hour, the men’s and women’s cross country teams thought they would host the Old Dominion Athletic Conference Championship Meet.

A legal misunderstanding would have barred Lynchburg College from a portion of land that was to be used for the 2003 ODAC meet. According to Dr. Jack Toms of Lynchburg College, school administrators produced legal documents from 1984 that excluded LC from using land that the cross-country course is on.

EMU head track coach Paul Johnson secured the course located at Peak View Elementary School. Lynchburg would still host the meet, but the move would be an advantage to the Royals. The Peak View course is the closest thing to a home course for EMU, and travel time to Lynchburg would be unnecessary.

Toms later addressed ODAC coaches in an e-mail saying Lynchburg College "President Garren has given me the green light to host the championships at Lynchburg College as planned. He will deal with the problems later."

Several Royals’ ran season best times at the Virginia State Championships two weeks ago. In the same meet, EMU outpaced Washington & Lee University, a team expected to finish behind Roanoke College and LC at the conference championships. Should the Royals repeat the effort of the State Championships, they would travel to Emory University in Atlanta, GA. for the Southeast Region Championship Meet. An EMU team has not advanced to that meet since 2000.