Princeton University Athletics
Miles Of Smiles
January 07, 2000 | General
Courtney Ebersole's run as a Tiger has had more ups than downs.
One look at Courtney Ebersole could almost convince anybody that running is fun. The Princeton senior regularly wears a little smile when she's covering 5k cross country courses or competing during the indoor and outdoor track seasons. "It just looks like a smile, but she'll tell you it's a grimace," Tigers' women's cross country and track & field coach Peter Farrell says.
At Annville-Cleona High in Lebanon, Pa., that style got her the nickname "Smiley." The name hasn't stuck through her years at Princeton, but her smile has. "It just looks like a smile. But if I'm having a good race, the smile becomes more real," Ebersole says. "It makes me smile more. I'd say every meet people say something, and I hear it. I've had officials at track meets ask me about it. I definitely get it a lot."
Ebersole came to Princeton highly touted and didn't disappoint in her freshman year. She won the 10,000-meter race at the outdoor track Heptagonals that year and looked primed to have a stellar career at Princeton.
"I was really pleased with my freshman year," she says. "I didn't know what to expect. I knew Peter would start us running in small meets. I ended up being top 5 all season long though. My favorite race all-time was at Heps freshman year. It never felt so easy again."
That's why Ebersole is so disappointed with her recent running, though she remains Princeton's No. 1 runner. At the cross country Heptagonals Oct. 28 in Van Cortlandt Park, N.Y., the senior was the Tigers' top finisher and 18th overall as the team placed sixth. But after the race, on a day that wasn't good for fast times, she wasn't smiling.
"I went out hard, I tried my best, I just wasn't strong enough," says Ebersole, who finished in 18 minutes, 37 seconds. "I've run almost 30 seconds faster on this course. With more training I should get better. It's hard when you come up as a freshman and do so well. Then you have high expectations.
"Sophomore year I pretty much cruised. It was my fastest year. Then last year my times weren't that far off, but they didn't really improve. A lot of that had to do with injuries."
Injuries have been a big part of the rather short runner's long career. As a high school sophomore, the 5' 2" Ebersole encountered tendinitis in her knee, but was healthy the rest of her scholastic career. At Princeton it has been a different story.
Tendinitis in the knee came back after her sophomore year of cross country. Then, in the summer before her junior year, she had post-tibial tendinitis, which starts in the foot and eases up the leg. Finally, after her junior year of cross country she got a stress fracture in her femur.
"I ran through it for some time," Ebersole says. "I felt pain in my femur for quite a while. Then one day I was out on a run, and had to stop running and walk. That's when I went to see someone. It was a grade-3 stress fracture. Grades go from 1 to 4 so it was pretty serious. That's my problem, I don't know when to stop. I couldn't run at all. I biked or ran in the pool."
"She's such a tough, hard worker," Farrell says. "We've tried to convince her to back off on her intensity. She's one of these people who won't take a day off."
It didn't take long after she began running before Ebersole developed her all-out attitude. She started running in seventh grade, and in a couple years she was hooked.
"After ninth grade I started to really like running," the psychology major says. "I started running a lot on my own. I realized you have to work really hard to be good. Since ninth grade I've been running every day. But I feel like if something hurt now, maybe I'd take a day off and bike."
This cross country season, though, Ebersole has been back to her hard-driving ways, but the results haven't quite been what she wants. She placed third in the team's first two meets of the season as Princeton won both meets.
"In both meets she dueled it out in the end but just got out-kicked," Farrell recalls. "For her sake, she has to take it out in the beginning more. She drives herself. I think that with a little more seasoning, she'll be back up there. We're just waiting for another breakthrough from her."
For Ebersole, her difficulties in cross country action this season haven't diminished the pure pleasure she gets from the sport.
"I am enjoying this year," says Ebersole, who favors the 10,000-meter track race because of the increased distance. "I still like to run, even though I'm not as fast as I want to be right now."
"I'm looking for bigger things from her this year," Farrell says in reference to the indoor and outdoor track seasons. "She's never lost her competitive edge. She really wants to excel. She's learning to better control how to do that.
"I think of some of the races she's run and they make you so proud. She had a bad knee her sophomore year and missed from the end of cross country to February. She missed all of indoors, but she wanted to run Heps. People on the team who didn't know her, and were new, were watching and all of a sudden there she was in the 5,000. She got herself ready in one month and finished third in the 5,000 indoors. She's that kind of runner. She locks on and keeps surging."
That style should suit her well in the Tigers' upcoming races. Ebersole will get her last crack at making cross country nationals, a goal she has held since missing it by one second as a sophomore, Nov. 13 when Princeton lines up at the District II Regionals at Lehigh. There, she'll be racing head-to-head with some of the top runners on the East Coast.
"I prefer it that way," Ebersole confirms. "I thrive on competition. So when someone's ahead of me, I can't stand it. I try really hard to get ahead. I have to start my kick sooner than most runners do since my kick is my weak point.
"I have to give it everything. This will be my last year on a college team. I still feel like I'm coming back [from injuries]. I'm really excited because the last couple seasons, I've run and been injured. It didn't happen after track this spring. I had the whole summer to run. I feel like I'm in better shape. Even if I'm not running as fast yet, I'm still enjoying it."
For Ebersole, that is reason enough to smile.
by Justin Feil