In Greg Hipp’s two years on campus as head cross country and assistant track and field coach, he has brought NIU’s distance running programs to new heights.

The cross country team has set nine school records since Hipp joined NIU, and he has translated that success to track. NIU’s middle and long distance runners have tallied the highest point totals at the MAC championships in seven years. While competing at the Raleigh relays, NIU’s distance runners set a school record on the track. The 4×1500 relay team of freshman Hannah Savage, freshman Ali Olson, redshirt sophomore Meghan Heuer and junior Claire McAuley ran 19:33.00, breaking a record set in 2010. Heuer has already qualified for May’s MAC outdoor championships in the 1500 meters.

Hipp said there were plenty of things that needed to be improved in order for the distance running program to become a success.

“When I arrived there was just a lot of things that needed to be changed…just the culture of the team, the level of training and the expectations of that with the girls, and then of course you just needed to recruit a little but better as well,” Hipp said. “[Just] to have a bit more depth and give ourselves a chance to compete at a much higher level.”

McAuley said a lot has changed since her first year on campus.

“I’d say we’re training a lot harder now…our training is a lot different,” McAuley said. “There’s a lot more structure to our training. We all have a common goal that we want to achieve again. We’re just all more of a unit as a team, which plays a big part in what we want compared to when I was here as a freshman.”

The distance running unit of 10 girls is made up of three juniors and one senior, so Hipp said the future of the cross country and distance running track teams looked bright.

“Well, we certainly have an opportunity to be a contender within the MAC and hopefully beyond that here a few years down the line,” Hipp said. “Whether we accomplish that or not just all depends on how this young group decides to respond to the new expectations. [We] just gotta develop the leaders and continue to work hard, and if we do that then there’s certainly the talent on this team to compete with anybody in the MAC after we’ve had enough time to improve.”