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MCCC to Add Women's Cross Country
9/2/09
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West Windsor,
N.J. - Mercer County Community College will make women's cross country
its ninth varsity sport, Athletics Director John Simone announced
today.
MCCC fielded coed cross country teams throughout the 1970s and '80s,
but the program has been inactive since 1989. The return of women's
cross country is a natural fit for the school considering the strength
of the sport at area high schools.
"The
high school cross country programs on the women's side are very
good in our area," Simone said.
"The college's is growing in terms of students and in terms
of penetration into the community. We're also seeing a rise in traditional
students coming to the college directly from high school and we
hope this helps to answer the need. It's also an admissions tool
for our college to attract young females who are looking to continue
their running in college."
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MCCC
Athletics Director John Simone
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Women's
cross country will begin as a non-scholarship sport with the plan to move
it to a scholarship sport in the future, Simone said.
MCCC officials will spend the current school year studying how to best
position the program for competition. A head coach's position will be
advertised on the MCCC website and the school will then begin to accept
resumes for interested candidates.
"It's almost like what the college did in 1997 with women's tennis,"
Simone said. "We studied the environment, and then we moved it forward
for implementation in the fall of '97. The whole idea behind this is to
continue our quest in Title IX opportunities for female student-athletes.
"One of the good things about women's cross country is that we have
an outstanding course both here and at (neighboring) Mercer County Park.
So we have the potential to do a lot of different things here, even host
invitationals."
MCCC is a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association,
Region XIX and the Garden State Athletic Conference (GSAC). The 17-member
GSAC has seven schools that are scheduled to compete in women's cross
country during the 2009-10 school year.
MCCC's sports for the current academic year are men's soccer, women's
soccer, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's
tennis and women's tennis.
For
more information, call (609) 570-3778.
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