North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Competitive Hill Leads Pack
10/15/2009 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. –This is how competitive NC State sophomore cross country runner Ryan Hill is: as a senior at Hickory (N.C.) High School, he refused to talk to his primary competition, a kid from nearby Mooresville named Patrick Campbell before any of the eight meets in which they met during their senior years.
The two were a cross-country phenomenon, both earning All-American honors, something that has happened only once before in the history of North Carolina high school athletics.
But to Hill, Campbell was the bad guy, the competition, the guy who wanted to be in front of him. So he had no desire for pre-race chit-chat or any other pleasantries en route to his three consecutive NCHSAA state championships.
Within a week of each other after their senior campaigns, however, they both committed to run at NC State under highly successful veteran head coach Rollie Geiger.
Now, the two runners are inseparable. They lived together in the dorms last year and now share an apartment off campus.
"It changes everything when you're teammates," Hill says.
Geiger loves that competitive spirit. He's always looking for guys who could be, to make a cross-sport analogy, hard-hitting linebackers.
"It doesn't matter who you are as his opponent, but on that day if you're against him, he doesn't want to lose and he wants nothing to do with you," Geiger says. "I don't think it matters whether it is his mother, his girlfriend, his coach or his roommate, he just wants to win.
"His competitive spirit is off the charts."
Hill, now a sophomore, earned last year's ACC Rookie of the Year and All-ACC honors by finishing 13th at the ACC Championship. Hill was 27th at the 2009 NCAA Southeast Regional, a respectable finish for a freshman.
He did not compete for the track and field team this spring, taking his redshirt season after making the U.S. Junior World Cross Country Team. He spent that time preparing for the IAAF World Cross Country Championship in Amman, Jordan. He was not especially pleased with his 62nd-place finish there, but figures all college races should be relatively easy after that.
"There won't be any bigger race than the world championship, so I'm not really intimidated by any race now," Hill says. "That was a good experience for me."
After spending three weeks training in Colorado with his Wolfpack teammates during the summer, Hill returned to Raleigh excited about the prospects for the 2009 cross country season. Competing as an unattached individual, he won the 5,000-meter Wolfpack Invitational, setting the Wake Med course record with a time of 14:35.
Two weeks later, he won the 8,000-meter Paul Short Run at Lehigh University in a time of 23:40, earning ACC Men's Performer of the Week honors.
Saturday, Hill leads the youthful Wolfpack - which has only one senior, accomplished runner John Martinez, on the roster - into the NCAA Pre-National race in Terre Haute, Ind., featuring the nation's top 72 men's teams and 75 women's teams.
While it won't be as big as the World Championship, it will be an opportunity to see how much he has improved since his freshman season.
"My freshman season was okay, but Coach Geiger usually keeps you a little reined in your first year, so you won't get hurt," Hill says. "He turns you loose a little more in your second year."
Hill hopes he can continue to do well for NC State, the school he has loved since he was first aware of colleges. Born in Raleigh, Hill and his family moved to Hickory when he was 10. He always wanted to come back to the school where his mother, Ruthie, received her masters degree, following her undergraduate studies at Meredith.
He briefly considered going elsewhere - specifically to Virginia or Louisville - but followed his heart to the Wolfpack.
"It was good that the school I loved had a great program in what I was best at," Hill says.
Now, he'll use his competitive spirit to help the Wolfpack reach its three annual goals: win the ACC Championship, qualify for the NCAA Championship and finish in the top 10.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
