CROSSING

NOT ANYMORE. These days Erassa is taking the lead.

After a stellar spring on the track — highlighted by three Big 12 individual wins to lead the Cowboys to their first-ever indoor conference title — the Oklahoma State senior has unfinished business.

THIS FALL WILL MARK ERASSA’S FINAL CROSS COUNTRY SEASON IN THE SIGNATURE DAY-GLOW ORANGE SINGLET. Despite etching his name throughout the OSU and Big 12 track and field record books, he still has something to prove as a collegian.

“Cross country’s a glaring hole on his résumé right now,” says Dave Smith, OSU director of track and feld and cross country. “He’s done really well at the Big 12 and regional levels, and this is his final year to prove himself at nationals. KIRUBEL IS TRYING TO BECOME ONE OF THE BEST DISTANCE RUNNERS IN THE NCAA, and cross country is a huge part of it.

“Cross country measures different things than the track measures, and I think it’s very important to him as he tries to take his career beyond OSU and run professionally.”

The top 40 individual finishers at the NCAA CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS earn ALL-AMERICA HONORS. In two starts at nationals, Erassa has finished 102nd (2012) and 83rd (2013). Despite the team taking the national title in 2012 and finishing third a year ago, Erassa has been disappointed with his personal performance.

“He’s performed exceptionally well in almost every race — except for the two times he’s run at the cross country national championships,” Smith says. “I think he might not have seen himself as a long distance runner, and that’s part of his maturing process. If you want to be a great runner, you can’t pigeon-hole yourself into thinking you’re a middle-distance guy or a track guy or a cross country guy. You’ve got to approach it as, ‘I’m a great runner, and it doesn’t matter what the race is, I’m going to go out and perform well.’”

Erassa agrees with his coach’s assessment.

“I HAVE TO PROVE TO MYSELF,” HE SAYS. “I HAVEN’T BEEN ALLAMERICA IN CROSS COUNTRY YET, BUT I’M CONFIDENT I CAN COMPETE WITH THOSE GUYS. Running is running. ”

ALL-IN

With the graduation of AllAmerica teammates Tom Farrell, Shadrack Kipchirchir and Joe Manilafasha, the veteran role is squarely on the shoulders of Erassa, along with fellow senior Shane Moskowitz.

“This is my last cross country season so I have to make it count,” Erassa says. “I’m going all-in. I’ve got to be a leader.

But like Dave always says, it doesn’t take only seven guys to win the national championship, it takes the whole team. You never know what’s going to happen during the season. Someone may get injured so everybody needs to be accountable to each other.

“We have really, really talented guys, and I believe we can do big things,” he adds. “But it’s not going to be easy. We’ve got to work hard. At the same time, we’ve got to be smart about it. We’ve got to train smart, and everybody has to come together and be on the same page because cross country is not an individual sport.”

Smith says Erassa has noticeably matured over the last year.

“He came to OSU as a 17-year-old and didn’t turn 18 until after his freshman year so he was a young guy,” Smith explains. “He had some typical 17-year-old issues and some that were beyond what most of our kids have. But he grew up and became independent and gained confidence in himself and confidence in his abilities on and o the track.”

Erassa’s mother left Ethiopia in 1996 and traveled to the United States, hoping to establish a better life for her children, who remained in the capital city of Addis Ababa with their father.

“My mom went to the U.S. when my twin sister ( TIYO) and I were three years old,” Erassa says. “She had to stay here five years to get her paperwork, and by the time she came back to Ethiopia, we were eight. From there, the process took around about two-and-a-half years before we were able to come to the U.S. My mom wanted us to have a good life for the future and better opportunities. When we got our visa, I was happy that we were going to come to the U.S., but I wasn’t ready to leave my country because I had made a lot of friends there, and I love my country. I remember it was a very sad moment for me. I was crying. I couldn’t even get on the plane. My dad said, ‘You’ve got to go. It’s okay, you’re going to come back.’”

Leaving their father behind, Erassa and his sister landed with their mother in ATLANTA, Georgia, in early 2004.

“When we got here, it was a cold-weather day,” Erassa recalls. “I remember being at the airport, and when we got outside it was like 19 degrees. I had never been so cold! Where I lived in Ethiopia it’s always around 70 degrees. I thought, ‘This is going to be interesting.’”

As a sixth grader, soccer bridged the cultural divide between his homeland and life in America, but then he discovered a new sport: basketball.

“I always loved to play soccer, but when I came here I started watching basketball games on TV. I had known about MICHAEL JORDAN back home, but when I saw LEBRON (James) play, I thought, ‘This guy can be the greatest.’ BASKETBALL BECAME MY PASSION.

“In middle school I loved basketball. I would go to the court and just play by myself. I remember waking up at 5:45 a.m. and going down to the basketball court until 10. My mom would always come to the court: ‘My son, what are you doing? Come home.’”

When Erassa reached high school, he tried out for the basketball team.

“I made it to the final cut, and the coach said I had the ball skills but didn’t have the communication skills because I never played with a team. No one had ever taught me how to play. So I didn’t make it. I cried. After that I just played soccer.”

As a freshman, Erassa did make the GRAYSON HIGH SCHOOL varsity soccer roster, and his running ability was immediately evident.

“The soccer coach knew that I was fast on the field, and he told the track coach that I should join them after soccer season,” Erassa says. “There was only two weeks left of track. I practiced one week and found out that running is so hard. They took me to a high school meet, and I ran the JV mile. I broke five minutes — I ran 4:59 — and I was on the ground just throwing up everywhere. I thought, ‘That’s it. Next year I’m going to play soccer. This is not going to happen again.’”

Then Erassa saw a familiarlooking figure. He’d never met the cross-town competitor, but there was something about him.

“They were running the two-mile, and this guy was on the track going past me. He looked Ethiopian. After he finished the race, I went up and asked him his name. He said, ‘ GIRMA’ (Mecheso) ... ‘I’m Kirubel. I just ran the mile. Are you Ethiopian?’ And so we talked in our language and exchanged numbers.”

Suddenly, running didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“That summer, my high school coach would come by my house and take me to cross country practice on the trails at the park. We were like 15 minutes in, but it felt like 50 minutes. ‘Are we done yet?’ And then I tripped on a root and dislocated my elbow. That was my first week of actually training. My elbow is still crooked.”

During his first season of cross country competition, the sophomore was still green when it came to racing, and perhaps a bit naïve.

“My teammates told me to go out with the leaders,” he says. “They were actually joking with me, but I went out to the front. I remember we came through the first mile in 4:55. After that I was just exhausted. I ran 17:18 for the 5K in my first cross country race.”

By the time spring arrived, Erassa had a decision to make: soccer or track?

“A lot of people told me I had to run track. Don’t play soccer. For me it was the hardest decision ever. I chose track. At that moment, I knew that I was capable of making improvement and doing special things. So I called GIRMA . I remember talking to him a lot on the phone, just hearing his life story (see POSSE vol. 6, issue 2). I was scared, actually, when he told me about his training. How can you run for three hours? He told me to go home and run extra after practice. So I listened to him. Girma was pretty much my second coach at that time. He said, “You’ve got to be honest with me and be willing to listen to me, and I will help you out.’ I said, ‘Okay, and whatever college you go to, I’m going to follow you. I promise you. Just coach me.’ At that time he was my idol, the guy I looked up to.”

Mecheso was two years ahead of Erassa and accepted a scholarship to Auburn University. After earning All-SEC honors as a freshman, Mecheso transferred to Oklahoma State.

“When he got to Auburn, to be honest, I was like, ‘I’m going to be at Auburn.’ But he wasn’t comfortable there and asked to visit other schools. He ended up here at OSU.”

Smith says he was unaware of the promise Erassa made to his mentor.

“I didn’t really know that when I was recruiting him,” he says. “Kirubel never mentioned that to me. But I know he looked up to Girma. He’s someone who had a similar life experience. He respected him and saw him as kind of a mentor or big brother figure in his life. As he’s grown up and matured, he’s started to become very independent and now stands on his own two feet.”

On Track

In Stillwater, Erassa has left his own mark, with PERSONAL BESTS IN THE INDOOR MILE (3:58.24), 3,000 meters (7:49.17) AND OUTDOOR 5,000 METERS (13:27.55) THAT PUT HIM AMONG OSU’S ALL-TIME GREATS. He’s anchored THE COWBOY DISTANCE MEDLEY RELAY (1200/400/800/1600) THAT HOLDS THE TOP TWO SPOTS IN THE SCHOOL RECORD BOOKS.

This past spring, he earned USTFCCCA NATIONAL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK honors for an unprecedented triple at the Big 12 Conference Indoor Championships.

“Indoors he was a superman,” Smith says. “He was unbelievable at the Big 12 indoor meet. And then he went on to the NCAA Championships and fnished second in the 3,000 meters.”

Erassa almost didn’t get to race at nationals, where the top 16 times of the season automatically qualify. At the time of the Big 12 meet, Erassa sat comfortably in 10th place, with a time of 7:54.05. His coaches were confident he would move on.

Meanwhile, OSU was competing for its first-ever indoor conference title. Led by 5K champion Erassa, weight throw winner Nick Miller and a number of other key performances, Smith’s squad found itself in the overall lead after the first day of competition. On the final day, newcomer Tyreek Hill claimed the 200-meter title, and Erassa won the mile. The team race was going down to the wire.

“Kirubel has a natural anaerobic capacity that few runners have, and it’s really hard to develop,” Smith says. “And he has the ability to recover better than almost anybody I’ve ever dealt with. He can run a race at maximum e ort and an hour later be ready to run again. There are very few people who could triple the way he did at the Big 12 meet in the five (5K), the three races — and run it with such poise and control. No one’s ever done that in the Big 12 on the men’s side.”

As Erassa prepared for the 3,000 meters, he knew the team title was within reach. A win, with its 10 points, would clinch the championship for the Cowboys.

“Literally 10 minutes before the race, my teammate, Chad Noelle, looked up the NCAA 3K qualifying list on his phone. ‘Kirubel, you are 18th!’ He showed the results on the phone to our coaches, and they were shocked.”

“Nine people passed him that day at other meets,” Smith explains. “We didn’t think that would happen. So we told him, 10 minutes before the gun went o ,’ “If you want to go to nationals, you’ve got to run a qualifying time by yourself.’”

“Dave told me, ‘Forget everything, just focus now. Go do it. Chad will rabbit you.’ I just went from the gun. Boom! I ran 7:53 and ended up breaking the conference record.”

Erassa’s victory gave OSU 112.5 points, enough to claim the BIG 12 TROPHY by a narrow four-point margin.

“We pretty much knew right after I finished the 3K that we had won. We were excited. I love my team, and I’m really honored to have been in that position to help the team win our first indoor title. It was an unforgettable moment.

“Everybody did an amazing job,” Erassa adds. “The whole team executed well and did what we needed to do. It was special. I was very blessed to be a part of that team that day.”

“Kirubel ran three events and won all three decisively,” Smith says. “No one had ever tripled and scored 30 points for us at that meet before.”

Following his remarkable feat, Erassa was named 2014 Big 12 indoor performer of the year.

His time, however, was still two-hundredths of a second behind 16th place. Several days later he would get the news that two runners had scratched due to injury. He had punched his ticket to nationals after all.

Home Run

ETHIOPIA has always been on Erassa’s mind, but a recent trip to his homeland really put things in perspective. As a U.S. citizen, Erassa traveled to ADDIS ABABA in the summer of 2013 to visit family and friends and train with some of the country’s elite distance runners.

“He hadn’t been there since he was a kid, and I think that opened his eyes,” Smith says. “It changed him. HE CAME BACK FROM THAT TRIP WITH A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS AND A DIFFERENT APPRECIATION FOR THE OPPORTUNITY HE HAD and not wanting to let it slip by without taking full advantage of it.”

“Ethiopia is a unique place,” Erassa says. “It’s really special. It definitely changed my personality, my attitude, everything. It motivates you, just being there around those people. Running means a lot to them. They want to help their family. They want to have a better life. They want to help Ethiopia.”

“Kirubel was talking about being in camps with guys that were sharing shoes,” Smith recalls. “One guy would go for a run and come back and give them to the other guy, and he’d go for his run. And he might pass them to the next guy. Kirubel was telling them about how our student-athletes get new shoes every 300 miles here — and for some of the guys that’s every three weeks. A lot of shoes that we discard, they would be thrilled to get as hand-me-downs.”

“They’d be wearing shoes with holes in them and blow by me in practice,” Erassa says. “I was really inspired. There are so many runners there. That’s the thing that will change you because you’re looking at other runners as good as you, and they don’t have better shoes but they can still run crazy times. They just never had the opportunity to get out of Ethiopia.

“COMING BACK, I APPRECIATED EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE IN THE UNITED STATES. I am really thankful for the opportunity Oklahoma State has given me. That trip to Ethiopia changed my personality, how I approach running. Now I will go in the front, push it. Before, I’d sit in the back and would get scared of running too fast. To be the best you’ve got to push yourself to the limit and when you feel like you’ve reached your limit is the time to dig even deeper.”

“I think Kirubel is one of my top five all-time favorite athletes to work with,” Smith says. “He’s got a really kind heart. He’s a really good person. He cares about people. He’s a great teammate … and he gets true joy from his athletics and his performing and doing well, and it’s contagious.