Here he was in America, beginning life at Berkeley like any other student. He was living in Unit 2, suffering through class registration and adjusting to students wearing pajamas to Crossroads, a phenomenon not seen in French schools.

Chevee was not a Cal athlete yet. His summer email to Bears’ cross country coach Tony Sandoval was lost in an inbox filled with 200 other emails asking for a tryout. Despite not hearing back from Sandoval, Chevee remained determined and decided to make a visit to Sandoval in his office.

“He shows up the first week of school and says, ‘I want to run cross country,’” Sandoval says. “He wasn’t a walk-on, he was a walk- in. He just walked in the door.”

Sandoval had informed Chevee of an open tryout coming up but was very straight with him — his chances of making the team were slim. Chevee had also not been running competitively since his time back in France, yet he still laced up hoping to fulfill his dream of running at the collegiate level.
All his life Chevee faced obstacles obscuring his path to becoming a collegiate runner. With every new hill or branch in his way, Chevee just kept running.

Back in France, Chevee ran around beautiful lakes near the France-Switzerland border. He ran short distances to the beach in the south of France near the Mediterranean. He ran in the fields surrounded by mountains covered in abundant snow in the other small French villages of his life. He ran and ran, and was good at it.

However, the academic culture in France put a strain on his ability to run. In America, sports and high school happily coexist. France, on the other hand, forces students to choose: school or sports.

“You can’t run and go to a good school at the same time,” Chevee says. “You have to make a choice and it’s very narrow. Once you’re in to a school, it is hard to change.”

In France, the last two years of high school are spent studying for entrance exams, leaving little time for athletics. For those students brave enough to try to balance sports and academics, there were clubs but no high school teams. Chevee was one of these bold students, joining a cross country club.

However, Chevee was the only member of his age group and was forced to train with older members, leaving him without runners his age. If academics didn’t act as enough of a deterrent, accessibility to mountainous trails in the area was limited, forcing to Chevee to run on flat, boring terrain. Yet despite all these obstacles, Chevee developed a passion for running greater than any deterrent.

He was faced with one of his most important life decisions at the time for college applications. He could continue along the path with many of his French peers and become an engineer or doctor at some high end college, or he could follow his running passion and come to the U.S. where universities couple sports and academics.

“I really didn’t want to give up running, and I didn’t want to go to a private school,” Chevee says. “It was hard to say, ‘Alright, let’s do it,’ but I made the decision.”

Without a recruiting network, Chevee made the decision to risk arriving at Cal and not even making a college team. On top of the risks, Chevee had to leave his family and old life behind. But here Chevee was, on the yellow Edward’s Stadium track facing one of the most important races of his life.

“I was a little nervous,” Chevee says. “If I didn’t make it, there were plenty of other things to do around Cal, but I really wanted to run.”

With one last look at the mountains, Chevee focused in. The whistle blew and only 12 ½ laps and 15:12 later, Chevee was back at the line, this time alone, in first place. Chevee put on a show under pressure and was invited to join the team. For many, 15:12 would be an amazing accomplishment, but it wasn’t in Chevee’s nature to settle so he began to push himself harder to be the best that he could be.

“It was a fine time at that point, but it’s not that fast,” Chevee says.

At the start of his first year, Chevee was 14th on the depth chart out of 20 and had a lot of ground to make up. As a non-scholarship athlete, Chevee pushed himself on and off the track, majoring in molecular cell biology.

Eventually Chevee’s determination paid off. He was placed in the starting seven for NCAA Regionals that year at Oregon, cashing in his best performance of the season. Over the years Chevee continued to improve, earning all-Regional honors twice. Chevee became such an important factor on the cross country squad that he was rewarded with a scholarship after his second regional honor, but more importantly he finally had a team and a cross country family.

“Its great to have a team, it’s so much better,especially since cross country is about the team,” he says. “We all help and push each other.”

As Chevee bolts through the red wood trees up in the Oakland hills, he reflects on his Cal career and realizes how happy he was that he decided to brave the journey and make the transition to a university that speaks a different language.

“The first year was kind of difficult because he never got any of my jokes,” Sandoval says.  “It took him a while to realize my sarcasm. Now he laughs at my jokes. They may not be funny but at least he acts like they are.”

The English language was once foreign to him, but running never was.

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As the rain fell down at LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind., an aura of dissatisfaction surrounded the team. However, a smiling coach Tony Sandoval provided the team with a different perspective.

“As the weeks and months go by the team will realize that it was a good performance,” Sandoval said. “Many people see the NCAA’s as the end. It really is the beginning for those who want to continue on and it’s a springboard for a number of seasons down the road.”

Not since 1990 has Cal had a female runner finish in the top 25 at NCAAs, but that changed when Cal had an unprecedented two runners in the top 25 this year. Senior Deborah Maier earned her second All-American honors with an 11th place finish this year, up 19 spots from her individual performance at last year at Nationals. Maier’s finish is the best finish for a Cal female runner since Kirsten O’Hara’s 11^th place finish in 1987. Behind Maier was senior Chelsea Reilly who was making her first appearance at the Championship. Injuries have plagued Reilly throughout her career, but this year she was determined and her persistence rewarded her with a 24^th place finish and All-American honors along with Maier.

Seniors Taylor Bryson and Taylor Dutch and freshman Kelsey Santisteban were the other three Cal runners to score, finishing within 14 seconds of each other. Bryson showed resiliency by rebounding from a poor showing at the West Regionals by improving her time by 41 seconds to finish 159th. Dutch began the race too aggressively and faded to 176th while Santisteban finished 179th to bring the total team score to 433.

The Championship had one of the fastest fields ever, with Georgetown claiming the team title by barely beating Washington and Villanova. Although Maier took the lead with only a quarter of the race left, she was out kicked by 10 runners as Sheila Reid of Villanova claimed the individual crown.

“One of the most competitive races I have ever seen,” Sandoval said. “To have that number of people break 20 minutes on this course is phenomenal. With 400 meters to go there was 15 people right there. It was a dead out sprint to the finish.”

A noteworthy accomplishment beyond finishing in the top 20 in the country is beating conference rival Arizona who had beat the Bears three straight times coming into the meet.

Despite the intensity of the race, the Bears avoided a let down and the top five athletes made sure they left everything out on the course.

“There are a lot of good teams that come to Nationals and in the heat of battle fall apart,” Sandoval said. “We didn’t fall apart. In 40 years I’ve only had one time where all five athletes ran their very best race. I am very proud of our athletes.”

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This year when Maier looks around, Infeld and Reid will still be among the other top national runners. Looking behind her, instead of the lonely grass that Maier saw last year, the space will be filled by her supportive teammates. In the crisp morning air, a gun will go off and Maier and the rest of the Cal women’s cross country team will set off hoping to top its best ever finish at the NCAA Women’s Cross County Championships.

“Having the team there this year as opposed to last year will not only be more fun, but it will also be more comforting on the starting line knowing we are all in it together,” Maier said.

The Bears will be competing in only their third NCAA Championship and first since 1988 when they finished ninth. This season the women started strong at the Griak and Wisconsin Invitationals and earned enough points to qualify for the National meet despite late season struggles. Considering their level of talent and success thus far, the Cal women feel they have the potential to finish in the top 10.

The Bears will rely on their seniors to once again lead the way and make the most of their last cross country race. Maier, who was an All-American last year, will vie for an individual title while seniors Chelsea Reilly and Taylor Dutch have legitimate chances to break the top 44 to become All-Americans.

“It has been four years of ups and downs, heartaches and excitements and this is the final examination,” Sandoval said. “Hopefully they get an A on it.”

Although the seniors have filled the top three spots of the seven-runner squad all season, they will need some help from their bottom four runners in order to place in the top 10.

The Cal runners who can possibly fill that number five spot are freshman Kelsey Santisteban, senior Taylor Bryson and junior Keena Kohl. While Santisteban has shown raw potential, Bryson and Kohl have improved every meet and will have a stronger sense of urgency as their Cal careers are coming to a close.

“Obviously everyone has to do their part, the top four have been pretty solid,” Maier said. “The difference between us achieving top 10 and maybe a little bit outside that will be our number five runner.”

Although the Bears were confident at the NCAA Regionals against decent west coast opponents, the Cal athletes will now be surrounded by 31 of the best teams in the nation, pushing and shoving for the team title.

“When you see the top runners in the nation lining up next to you, you’ll have some doubts in your mind,” Maier said. “But I’ll be thinking about all the work we’ve put in and how its not just about me, it’s about doing as well as I can for the team, because at nationals a few seconds can be 20 places.”

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“The women’s program has come a long way, especially since my freshman year when it was all about the men’s program,” senior Deborah Maier said. “They were the ones making it to NCAA, and the women really had not shot at all and didn’t have a lot of front runners. The berth is a testament to what a lot of hard work can do.”

A fifth place finish at the NCAA West Regionals helped Cal earn an at-large bid to Nationals on Nov. 21.

The women were led by Maier, who finished second and only six seconds behind the winner, making it the highest finish at an NCAA meet for a Cal female runner. Though Reilly had one of the best races of her career, finishing ninth, and Dutch ended at 26th, the Bears’ bottom three runners struggled.

“We were in good spirits and happy to have made it, but at the same time we realize that we still have some things to work on,” Maier said. “We didn’t quite have a number five runner that stepped up Saturday, the top four runners were solid, but our 5, 6, and 7 were a little bit further back than usual.”

The berth did not come as much of a surprise. Strong early year performances with a first place finish at the Griak Invitational and a seventh place finish at the Wisconsin Invitational made the team confident in its chances and more focused on the ultimate goal: the NCAA Championships.

“Unless a total disaster occurred, we were going to get in,” Sandoval said.

While the women move on, the men’s team swallows disappointment after failing to receive a berth. The men also finished fifth, beating No. 17 Oregon and No. 21 UCLA by a mere two points. Collin Jarvis was the Bears’ top runner, finishing the 10 km race in a time of 30:06, giving him a 12th place finish out of 172 runners.

Cal was on the brink of advancing to NCAAs for the fourth time in five years, but they fell one spot short. After a rough start, the Bears surged late, posting their two best finishes at the Pac-12 Championships and the West Regional, but it wasn’t enough.

“They came together at the very end to run their very best,” Sandoval said. “They put it on the line and came with their A-game. I told the kids to be proud of how they brought it together.”

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The meet, held at the Stanford Golf Course, determines which squads move on to the NCAA Championships. Two of the country’s 18 automatic bids will be awarded to the top finishers. There are also 13 at-large bids given to teams across the country to round out the rest of the 31-team field at the NCAA Championships.

Despite the slim odds of earning a berth, both the men’s and women’s teams are in positions to make it to NCAAs. If they succeed, this would be  first time ever that both teams qualify.

“This weekend could be a historic weekend for us,” coach Tony Sandoval said. “We’ve either had a men’s team or women’s team qualify for NCAA Championships. To be able to get both teams together to nationals — not many schools can do that.”

The men’s and women’s teams have at times been moving in opposite directions. The men have struggled with youth and inexperience but were able to put together their best race at the Pac-12 Championships, placing them just outside the top 30.

There is an added significance to this ranking: Generally, the top 31 teams go to NCAA Championships.

By placing so close to that margin, the Bears have certainly bettered their chances at prolonged postseason success.

The women, led by a strong group of seniors, have won big meets and been ranked as high as No. 10 in the country, yet a poor showing at the Pac-12 Championships dropped them to N0. 26 in the country.

Despite their divergent journeys, both teams will need to have strong performances to earn berths.

“There is the possibility this could happen, but the men have their work cut out for them,” Sandoval said. “They have to have all the stars line up and we have to have everyone run a great race.”

The men’s squad will run in a field which includes four ranked schools but they will have their sights set on UCLA, a team which leads Cal in points and has a good chance of earning an at-large bid.

However, the men’s race is increased from 8 km to 10 km for the West Regionals, a unique twist that may turn into an advantage for Cal.

“It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but that last 2k can decide the entire race,”  junior Collin Jarvis said. “Over 10k, we have more of an advantage over UCLA, because we have prepared ourselves more for 10k than 8k. If we are going to beat them, this weekend will be the right one to do it.”

The women will race against five other ranked teams. They are aided by the return of leader Deborah Maier, who missed the Pac-12 Championships due to an ankle injury.

One of the best cross country runners in school history, Maier is also the most decorated. She won All-America honors last season. In addition, she has earned All-Pac-10 first team honors two years running; no other woman runner has ever even earned that distinction once.

With the return of Maier to the lineup, the squad is confident in its ability to succeed at the NCAA West Regionals.

“I’m more confident this year than I’ve ever been that we are going to go to NCAA’s,” senior Taylor Dutch said. “All of the seniors feel that because this is our last season we want to make sure that we hold nothing back and do everything we can to run our best and have no regrets.”

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That’s when things began to fall apart.

The heat won the battle it had been waging on Reilly’s body and she began to fade. Runner after runner out-kicked her, resulting in a 20th place finish.

This was the story of the Cal women’s cross country team this past Saturday at the Pac-12 Championships held in Litchfield, Ariz. on the Wigwam Golf Course. The heat along with a variety of other factors led to a seventh place overall finish, nowhere near the potential of the No. 10 ranked Bears.

Before the race senior Deborah Maier decided to withdraw to heal an ailing ankle, leaving the team without its top runner over the past two years. In her absence, the Cal squad was led by Reilly, but the other runners struggled in the heat.

“Taylor Dutch didn’t run very well,” coach Tony Sandoval said. “She is usually very close to Reilly. Freshman Kelsey Santisteban also blew up in the heat, so I was disappointed in that regard. The heat was a major factor.”

The women’s race took place at 10 a.m., yet temperature began to sky rocket as the sun rose higher. After the race, the Cal women were not only shocked at their finish, but also many required medical assistance due to heat exhaustion.

“There was an element of emotional first aid particularly for the women’s team who was disappointed,” Sandoval said. “In the heat, Reilly had to be taken to the first aid, so did Kelsey, so it wasn’t a matter of looking at performance it was how they reacted to all that had happened.”

On the women’s side, No. 16 Colorado took the Pac-12 crown, followed by No. 2 Washington, No. 8 Stanford, No. 11 Oregon and No. 5 Arizona. Although the outcome would have been much different if Maier had raced, the Bears had the lowest finish out of the ranked teams.

While the women took a few steps back, the men’s team took a few big leaps forward towards overcoming their youth and experience by placing fifth overall and beating two ranked teams, No. 22 Washington State and No. 25 Arizona State.

“It was a great race for us,” junior Collin Jarvis said. “It wasn’t what we are 100 percent capable of, but it’s definitely the best race we have had all season.”

Jarvis paced the men for the fourth straight time, finishing 11th with a time of 23:34 over 8,000 meters. The men benefitted from a 9 a.m. start when temperatures were much cooler, allowing freshman Chris Walden and Maxime Chevee, who has been suffering from a knee injury, to finish 19th and 30th respectively.

“It helped the confidence level of our team,” Jarvis said. “We had a race that showed we are capable of doing it, we can go into regionals with a lot more confidence and a lot better idea of what we need to do.”

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Traditionally, the Pac-10 had some of the most talented programs and the addition of Utah and Colorado makes the conference even deeper. While Utah has built a respectable program, Colorado adds another national championship caliber program to the league. The Buffaloes’ men’s squad has won three cross country titles in the past decade (2001, 04, 06) and has a good chance to add one more this year. Colorado will be ushered into the conference with a tough challenge at the Pac-12 Championships, facing No. 4 Stanford, No. 20 UCLA, No. 22 Washington State, No. 23 Oregon and No. 25 Arizona State. On the women’s side, Colorado is ranked No. 16 and promises to challenge the field as well.

“If you look at the West Regionals historically, the top 40 places, you’re probably talking 30-35 of those people are Pac-12 people anyway,” Cal coach Tony Sandoval said. “There is just a smattering of people who come in to break up the elite Pac-12 runners, obviously those other conferences will start filling in people in the lower end of the race.”

The Cal men’s program stumbles into the Pac-12 Championships after a series of difficult invitationals and multiple injuries to some key athletes. The men’s team finished third in last year’s events thanks to a strong core of veterans runners. This year, the Bears are much younger and will have to shake off their bumps and bruises to pull together and overcome their inexperience.

“We haven’t had a good race yet this season where everyone puts it together and this is a good opportunity to do that,” junior Collin Jarvis said. “This is a smaller field so its not quite as intense at the start, but there will still be a lot of fast guys pushing the pace.”

The women’s programs in the Pac-12 are even stronger than their male counterparts this year with five squads breaking into the top 11. The Cal women’s cross country team, currently No. 10, will face off against No. 2 Washington, fresh off its win at the Wisconsin Invitational, in addition to No. 5 Arizona, No. 8 Stanford and No. 11 Oregon.

Considering her progressively higher finishes each year and the success she has had this season, senior Deborah Maier has a shot to become Cal’s first female to win a Pac-12 crown.

The veteran laden women have had a strong season thus far, finishing first at the Griak Invitational and seventh at the Badger Invitational. These finishes along with an appearance in the rankings bode well for the women’s chances at earning an invite to the NCAA Championships, but they will have to prove themselves in the next few meets to secure the berth.

“We’ve really proven ourselves in the past few meets that we are a force to be reckoned with,” senior Taylor Dutch said. “For the Pac-12 Championships, definitely top four or five is doable, but all teams are going to be really close.

“It’s going to be a showdown for sure.”

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“Imagine driving down the highway when there is light traffic and you need to get to class quickly,” coach Tony Sandoval said. “Now imagine there is lots of traffic and there is roadwork along the way. It makes things a lot more complicated.”

The field was not only large but also extremely competitive, with 19 ranked teams participating. No. 10 Cal finished seventh, beating 13 ranked teams including No. 2 Providence, No. 12 Oregon and No. 9 Iowa State, who tied the Bears for first at the Griak Invitational.

Maier finished third overall, only eight seconds behind winner Sheila Reid of Villanova and averaged a blistering pace of 5:22 per mile over the 6,000-meter race. Seniors Taylor Dutch and Chelsea Reilly finished 62nd and 65th, respectively, for Cal. Rounding out the scoring for the Bears were young guns Kelsey Santisteban and Elisa Karhu, whose performances put them in the top third of the race.

“One of the things we tried to impress upon the women afterwards was that we want to be unsatisfied but not dissatisfied,” Sandoval said. “We ran well and we demonstrated that we can handle the heat.”

On the men’s side, junior Collin Jarvis and senior Maxime Chevee led the squad to a 25^th place finish, beating No. 25 New Mexico and No. 28 Florida in the process.

Jarvis finished the 8,000-meter race with a time of 24:36, resulting in a 61^st place finish, while Chevee finished with a time of 24:45. The nine-second differential between Jarvis and Chevee may seem minute, yet Chevee finished in 89^th place, a gap that indicates how physical the race was.

Despite the strong performance by the upperclassmen, the younger and less experienced members of the team struggled against the toughness and discomfort brought on by the size of the field.

The men’s and women’s squad were able to run well enough to show that they have improved, yet at the same time there still remain things to work on other than their running.

“We made progress, but we need to work on the little things that we have a tendency to forget: sleeping right, eating well and warming up properly,” Sandoval said.

The Badger Invitational showed the squads more than just what they need to emphasize; it also acted as a first glimpse of what the NCAA championships will be like.

“The national meet is a different animal; until you’ve been there you can’t really prepare,” Sandoval said. “The Badger Invitational helped us take a step towards becoming better prepared. We did a good job of responding to the physicality, but now we can mentally prepare for nationals, so we aren’t overwhelmed by the physicality.”

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“I’ll be honest, the Badger Invitational is better than nationals in many regards,” Cal coach Tony Sandoval said. “It will be very competitive and the course is narrow so there will be some technicality and physicality to it.”

The Bears are coming off an impressive showing at the Griak Invitational two weeks ago in which a first place finish by the women led to a jump in the rankings from unranked to 10th in the nation. However, the rankings are insignificant to the team, which has its sights set firmly on the meet at the Thomas Zimmer Championship cross country course in Madison, Wis.

“The ranking has to be taken with a grain of salt because rankings are only rankings,” senior Deborah Maier said.  “The Griak was competitive, but the Badger Invitational is at a whole different level of competition. We have to expect that there will be pain and discomfort in the race and not just believe that we will get the same result.”

The Badger Invitational will contain a deep field of 40 teams in each race, including multiple ranked teams highlighted by the No. 1 Villanova and No. 2 Providence women’s teams along with five of the top 10 male’s squads in the country.

The women will once again be led by the All-American Maier along with a savvy group of veterans who believe that a respectable finish is within their reach.

“I think the women have a potential to be in the top 10,” Maier said. “Once we get going, if we have the right team atmosphere combined with the fitness, it will build upon each other and we can compete well.”

Coming off a meet in which their team was not at full strength, the men hope to have all their starters available this time around and will send their top runners up to Madison including junior Collin Jarvis.

“I’m really excited to see how our team does,” Jarvis said. “This is the strongest team we have put together thus far and the meet will be a good indicator if we are going to make it to nationals. I have really high expectations for my teammates and myself and I’m excited to see how it plays out.”

Sandoval understands that there are many strong individuals in the program this year, but he has been stressing a team focus that trumps individual accomplishment, a philosophy he hopes will play out in the Badger Invitational.

“We want them to run as a team, qualify as a team,” Sandoval said. “Our theme for this year is one vision, one heart, one mind, one team and we don’t talk about individual accolade. We talk about running as a group and getting this done as a team.”

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“The veteran women came out and performed, asserting themselves as a national caliber team,” coach Tony Sandoval said.

Senior Deborah Maier had a stellar day, winning the 6000-meter race by 12 seconds. The All-American was hanging in second at both the 1,000 and 3,000 meter marks, but she put it in high gear for the final 3,000 meters to finish with a time of 20:29.2.

“Deborah winning the individual title reiterates that she is one of the top runners in America,” Sandoval said. “She is a veteran, very savvy.  She ran into control early and then took control of the whole field at about 4,000 meters.”

It wasn’t just Maier; Cal’s four other top finishers helped solidify the victory. Chelsea Reilly finished 18^th with a time of 21:08.5 and Taylor Dutch finished 25^th with a time of 21:18.2.

“Both Reilly and Dutch have not had big cross country success thus far, so for them this was a huge step forward,” Sandoval said.

Also scoring was freshman Kelsey Santisteban and Elisa Karhu who finished 34^th and 50^th respectively.  After adding the places of each runner, the Bears finished with a team score of 128 to tie for the women’s title.

“This victory will earn us some respect, but it also validates that last year disappointment was for real,” Sandoval said. “Now it’s just a matter of keeping everyone healthy all the way to the end and garnering some national offers.”

The men’s team also had a strong performance in the 8,000 meter race, finishing ninth in a field of 24 teams despite being short handed.

Before the race, injury and sickness forced the withdrawal of starters Cody Schmidt and Chris Walden, yet their loss did not end up striking a huge blow to the men’s team.

The top two finishers for the men were junior Collin Jarvis and senior Maxime Chevee.  Although Jarvis finished 15th and Chevee finished 18th, their times were separated by a mere nine-tenths of a second, a testament to the team work of the two veterans, who ran together for the whole race.

The less experienced runners also rose to the occasion, with three — J.P. Slater, Simon Schmidt and Matt Peterson — finishing in the top 100.

“We expected Collin and Maxime to run well, but I saw J.P., Simon, and Matt move up and pass some people,” Sandoval said. “Today, the men showed they had the potential to be fourthor fifthat full strength; nevertheless the others did a great job stepping up.”

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