When Nicholas Wadas was a senior at Hanover High School, he chose Misericordia University because it offered both the major he was interested in pursuing and the fact that he would be able to participate in his favorite two sports, track and cross-country.
Fueled by a high desire from student athletes and an open-minded administration, Misericordia offered both track and cross-country Wadas’ freshmen year for the first time ever in school history. The first few years of the Cougars track program lacked actual track facilities, so they used the Dallas middle school track.

“I went to school at Misericordia for occupational therapy, but if I knew they weren’t planning on starting a track program, I probably would’ve gone to another school with track and with OT,” Wadas said. “Not because running was my number one priority, but I just couldn’t imagine not participating in college.”

“Back then, people didn’t go there because there to be a D-III athlete, they went for specific programs like physical therapy or nursing, and they also happen to play a sport. The year I got there, they had some good runners, but the previous years, their teams were horrendous.”

During his freshmen year, they went on to finish second in the PAC for cross-country, and then went on to win five consecutive PAC championships.

He believes the push for track and field in addition to cross-country had a snowball effect on his entire alma mater, as Misericordia then added a men’s and women’s lacrosse team, women’s golf.

Other than Misericordia, the only other colleges in the Wyoming Valley that offer track and field in addition to cross-country are King’s College, which offers a track and field as a club sport, and Keystone College, which Wadas believes has lower standards for students.

“Keystone has a track program, but they have kids who are not going to be able to afford Wilkes and not going to be able to get into Wilkes or Kings,” Wadas said. “If anyone from the valley wants to run in college and has a nonspecific major,

Misericordia is a recruiting matWadas believes team chemistry is somewhat of an issue, but dedication is another.

“I can’t make people try to like each other or try to get along,” Wadas said. “I think the other part is how much they are willing to give. I think some people are only willing to give this much. For me as a coach I know what they need to do to be successful. I think some of the people who are just OK with doing so-so, they think, ‘uh, I’m too busy for this,’ but are they really too busy? I don’t know.”

Wadas believes if the school really wanted to increase enrollment, they would take measures to already have a track team, just by noting the sheer magnitude of potential rosters.

While there are measures being taken to push for a new science building, Wadas has doubts that will attract more students.

“The school is dragging their feet hoping that some science building is going to pull in more kids, it’s not,” Wadas said.

“A law school is going to pull in more kids. A new degree is going to pull in more kids. A new sports program is going to pull in more kids.”

Wadas believes that funding is an issue at Wilkes as they love to push clubs, sometimes more than a varsity sport he notes.

“No offense to people who are in clubs, but this school is club crazy,” Wadas said. “Every school has a club. What are you going to say? Oh we have a Frisbee club that going to recruit people to come here? No offense to Frisbee but you are not going to come because of Frisbee. You could start a Frisbee club on your own. All you need is equipment.  A lot of these clubs get quite a bit of funding too. Cheerleading got $4,000 for new uniforms. I tell you what, I don’t get that much for uniforms.”

Wadas went on to say that cross-country is a sport that doesn’t need a lot of funding and noted that most programs with track and cross-country could combine their budgets into a fund as they can share uniforms, among other things.

Track and field is something Wadas feels strongly about and really believes it would increase enrollment.

“It’s 2011 and a lot of schools aren’t willing to step out of the box and offer nontraditional sports,” Wadas said. “Why don’t we have swimming? I think that’s ridiculous too. We should offer these sports to have 100 percent participation not have 100 people on a team and only play 12 of them, just because we want more enrollment. If you wanted a higher enrollment we would have track already.”
ch 10 out of 10 times. When I talk to potential recruits and they see Wilkes doesn’t offer track? They don’t really want to talk after that.”

Last year Wadas said that 40-50 people showed interest in running cross-country and after phone interviews only twenty of those people were very serious. One of those twenty included Tim Jurkowski, a freshmen nursing major, who was interested in coming to Wilkes. Wadas sealed Jurkowski’s decision to come to Wilkes by setting up an overnight with team captain Austin Loukas.

“It meant a lot to me,” Jurkowski said. “I didn’t visit any other colleges, so being able to come here and stay overnight in one of the dorms was huge impact. Having Austin [Loukas] give me a personal tour and meeting with the current team at the time was really cool and made an impact on my decision to come here.”

Jurkowski now holds the school record for the 8,000 meter race at 29:04, which was just set this weekend at the DeSales Invitational.

Another successful recruit, Dan Lykens already had Wilkes narrowed down as one of his top choices and ended up making the right move by simply checking the cross-country square on the his application.

“It’s funny, I was filling out my application for an instant decision on a car ride up to Wilkes, and I was like cross-country? I do cross-country in now, might as well check it off on the list, you know,” Lykens, the freshman mechanical engineering major with a minor in integrative media, said. “Maybe I’ll consider it. Coach was like you should do it, and I was like okay. I’m really happy that I did it now though.”

Even though bringing in two freshmen as top runners was a great addition for the team, Jurkowski and Lykens are only a few of the things that have fallen in favor of the cross-country head coach.

Wadas believes that not being able to train his team all year round is detrimental to his team’s full potential as athletes. For example Michelle Wakeley, a perennial all-MAC performer, lacks opportunity to compete all year long.

“If you look at someone like Michelle [Wakeley] who is first team all-MAC, she would have a good chance to go to nationals if she could train and compete all year with track,” Wadas said.

Another issue deals facing Wadas deals with is keeping his runners interested in participating.

While every year he is successful in putting together a full team together and has been improving his teams year to year, this year featured the loss of some members some due to workload, including the loss of one of the team captain from the men’s squad two weeks ago.

Wadas believes team chemistry is somewhat of an issue, but dedication is another.“I can’t make people try to like each other or try to get along,” Wadas said. “I think the other part is how much they are willing to give. I think some people are only willing to give this much. For me as a coach I know what they need to do to be successful. I think some of the people who are just OK with doing so-so, they think, ‘uh, I’m too busy for this,’ but are they really too busy? I don’t know.”

Wadas believes if the school really wanted to increase enrollment, they would take measures to already have a track team, just by noting the sheer magnitude of potential rosters. While there are measures being taken to push for a new science building, Wadas has doubts that will attract more students.

“The school is dragging their feet hoping that some science building is going to pull in more kids, it’s not,” Wadas said. “A law school is going to pull in more kids. A new degree is going to pull in more kids. A new sports program is going to pull in more kids.”

Wadas believes that funding is an issue at Wilkes as they love to push clubs, sometimes more than a varsity sport he notes.

“No offense to people who are in clubs, but this school is club crazy,” Wadas said. “Every school has a club. What are you going to say? Oh we have a Frisbee club that going to recruit people to come here? No offense to Frisbee but you are not going to come because of Frisbee. You could start a Frisbee club on your own. All you need is equipment.  A lot of these clubs get quite a bit of funding too. Cheerleading got $4,000 for new uniforms. I tell you what, I don’t get that much for uniforms.”
Wadas went on to say that cross-country is a sport that doesn’t need a lot of funding and noted that most programs with track and cross-country could combine their budgets into a fund as they can share uniforms, among other things.

Track and field is something Wadas feels strongly about and really believes it would increase enrollment.

“It’s 2011 and a lot of schools aren’t willing to step out of the box and offer nontraditional sports,” Wadas said. “Why don’t we have swimming? I think that’s ridiculous too. We should offer these sports to have 100 percent participation not have 100 people on a team and only play 12 of them, just because we want more enrollment. If you wanted a higher enrollment we would have track already.”