Joseph Garza, For the Camera

Colorado's Jenny Barringer celebrates her second-place finish at the NCAA Championships on Monday. The CU men's team finished first and the women were second.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — After putting in a good day's work in an Indiana field Monday, the man who has cultivated a national power reflected on his program's latest accomplishment.

"This one was a little more special," Colorado coach Mark Wetmore said after his school won the NCAA men's cross country championship.

This one, he says. As in one of five. Most coaches would give their left arm for a national title. This guy can sift through a stack of them.

That's how life is at the top. Since 2000 the Buffs have won five cross country team titles. That doesn't include three individual titles from Dathan Ritzenhein, Jorge Torres and Kara Grgas-Wheeler.

When they haven't won a title in that time, the Buffs have never finished out of the top five in the men's team race. The women have only finished outside it once, when they were eighth in 2001.

Yeah, that's what makes a national power.

But for a program to reach that status it has to overcome the years when it's not overpowering. Neither the CU men's or women's team was favored in the NCAA Championships on Monday. The men were ranked No. 2 behind No. 1 Wisconsin. The women were ranked No. 6. The men left the course the true No. 1 in the country. The women rode in the van back to Indianapolis as the No. 2 team in the country.

And the men's team wasn't really considered a neck-and-neck competitor with top-ranked Wisconsin. The Badgers were only one spot ahead of the Buffs in the rankings but the announcer at Monday's meet told the crowd Wisconsin was the favorite. Colorado was listed in the "lurking" category.

Yet there the Buffs were, doing a little more than lurking at the end of the race. The Buffaloes didn't just beat the

favored Badgers. They won by 48 points. To put a blowout like that in perspective, it's like getting beat by 38 points at home in basketball.

The guys who sent this national trophy back to Boulder had to do it on guts, too. There weren't any stars on this team. Brent Vaughn was the top finisher, and he was 12th. He wasn't even the biggest star in his family, either. That went to his eight-week old daughter Ciara, who was rocking a full-body, cream-colored teddy bear outfit with a pink beanie.

The toughness wasn't reserved for the men's race. Jenny Barringer finished second overall and simply emptied her soul to get to the finish line before the third-place runner. One of the best sight in sports may be someone nearly passing out, screaming in excitement because they wanted to push themselves that far, and then realizing they pushed themselves even further.

Wetmore has made that type of hard work a signature of this program. It's a program built on talent, intelligence and guts. And those are three things that defined one of the Buffs in his time at CU.

It was that guy's display of effort and emotion that resounded the most to me in the muddy Indiana countryside Monday. Erik Heinonen came to CU after carrying one of the most recognizable running names in Eugene, Ore., a place so running-crazy its nickname is Track Town. His dad, Tom, was a legendary running coach at Oregon. His mom, Janet, is an accomplished runner and writer.

Heinonen had a stellar prep career at South Eugene High but was hampered by injuries in college and transferred to CU after two years at Oregon, where the injuries kept him from running. The injuries followed him to Colorado and really never allowed him to reach the level of success he could have had. His eligibility ran out after last season and he petitioned for a sixth year of eligibility.

He didn't have to do that, trust me. He had a 3.971 GPA going into this semester and has a future in anything he wants, including this writing racket. He has worked with us in the sports department the Daily Camera off-and-on, when his schedule allowed, and he has become a good friend of us all. We've watched as he grew more frustrated with his injuries.

But the Buffs had a chance at winning a team title this season. So Heinonen petitioned for one more season. He wanted one more opportunity to run so hard that he would collapse at finish line of the national championships.

He did that. And he collapsed again when the team results were announced. He was overcome with emotion and fell to his knees. His teammates quickly gathered on the ground around him and fought for places to hug their teammate.

Yeah, that's what makes a national power.