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DECEMBER 2020 15 amazing at the time. When we showed up, every workout for us was so hard because we were not used to running in the summer. "We always came from the idea you took the summers off to rest up for the season. That's not what they did at Virginia. It was a real eye-opener when we got here and we started working out with the girls, who were all in incredible shape." Also part of that squad in 1981 was Dana Slater, who had twice earned All-America honors at Colorado in 1977 and 1978. She then took a few years off of school before transferring to UVA prior to the 1981 season as she returned to academics. The first workout took the squad to a dirt road out in the Virginia countryside among horse farms where they were set off on a 10-mile trek. Then-assistant coach Martin Smith rode alongside the runners in his Volkswagen Beetle as the athletes made their run, prepared to pick up those who couldn't finish the run on day one. "My sister and I made it about half way through the run," Lehane said with a laugh. "When we started out it was, 'Okay, run fast,' and it was like a 10-mile race. We were shocked at how hard the girls were running and we had our eyes opened. "We stayed with it and wound up get- ting into incredible shape. We worked hard with strength training. We raced hard, we trained hard and we ended the season win- ning nationals." The Cavaliers maintained a focus on win- ning the national title throughout the season while keeping an eye on projections for who was favored to win it all. The coaching staff kept the end goal as the priority. "Martin [Smith] kept reminding us that the polls meant nothing," Slater said. "He always said the only thing that matters is the last race of the season. Whoever wins nationals is what matters. "I remember crushing a team on our home course at Piedmont — and we crushed a lot of people that season — but he looked at his watch and told us we had five minutes to en- joy it and then he'd see us again at practice. It was a mindset of keeping us in check." Virginia didn't just win the NCAA cham- pionship that season, they placed three runners in the top 10 with O'Conner tak- ing third place and Lesley (Welch) Lehane and Lisa (Welch) Brady finishing fifth and eighth, respectively. In all, the Cavaliers had five runners fin- ish among the top 20 in the event and tallied a team score of 36. The 36 points remains the NCAA record for a team score at the NCAA Championships. "This was special," Smith told The Wash- ington Post at the time of the championship. "It hasn't sunk in on the young ladies yet. It will hit them sometime this afternoon." The squad wasn't satisfied after the 1981 season, however, and entered the 1982 cam- paign knowing it could win another team title and fully expecting to make that goal a real- ity. It wouldn't be an easy task because the Cavaliers were missing O'Connor and Brady due to injury. Despite that fact, Lehane said she was motivated to improve on her perfor- mance for her team and for personal reasons. "I was bound and determined to win that season," Lehane said. "My grandmother had passed away that summer and I was deter- mined I was going to win it for her." "We had a different kind of focus," Slater said. "The thing was that complacency can get you." One of the things Slater credited with helping the team bond and focus was the release of the third "Rocky" film. The whole team went to see the movie together and played "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor as one of the songs to remind them of their goals. Virginia again went through a successful season and, despite missing some of the key pieces from that first championship, managed to repeat. Lehane claimed the overall title, fin- ishing the race in a time of 16:36.7 to give the program its first NCAA individual champion in the sport. She was one of two top-10 fin- ishers, with Jill Haworth checking in fourth. Despite having only six runners available at the time, Virginia boasted four of the top 20 finishers with Slater crossing the line in 12th and Marisa Schmitt placing 18th. "It was an amazing experience," Lehane said. "It was thrilling. It's a huge high and you're really high for a long time. Then eventually you come back down to earth and reality is back." That two-year span of success for the Cava- liers saw Virginia runners garner 11 All-Amer- ica laurels with six athletes honored in the 1981 season and five in the 1982 season. In addition to the individual NCAA title that sea- son, Lehane also claimed the individual ACC championship while the program grabbed back-to-back league titles those seasons. Despite all of the success in competition, it was the relationships built over the course of the two seasons that were singled out as the best memories of the whole experience. So much so that the entire squad came back together on Grounds in 2002 for the 20-year anniversary of the 1982 championship. The team had agreed that either everyone returned or no one would. It was so im- portant that Slater, who was still living in Charlottesville at the time, skipped a trip to Belize to be a part of the reunion. "The camaraderie that you have with the team," Lehane said is what was most memo- rable for her time with Virginia. "We had all said we would come back and that we would run Piedmont again when we were 40. "We all looked at each other and just said, 'Nah, we're not going to do it,' but we did go out for a little run together the next day and Dana [Slater] said we may not go to Piedmont, but we needed to make good on our promise and run on the track right then." Slater echoed Lehane about the bonds the team held and stressed that was something that helped those Hoos achieve so much success. "What a wonderful group of women," Slater said. "That's all I can say. We were in- dividuals, but I had never been part of a team that was so focused and so highly motivated. There was no rebellion or complaining about something was too hard because we all knew [what we were capable of achieving]. We kept our eyes on the prize." "What a wonderful group of women. That's all I can say. We were individuals, but I had never been part of a team that was so focused and so highly motivated. There was no rebellion or complaining about something was too hard because we all knew [what we were capable of achieving]. We kept our eyes on the prize." DANA SLATER ON UVA'S 1981 AND '82 CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS Lesley (Welch) Lehane played a key role in Vir- ginia's back-to-back national crowns, finishing fifth at the 1981 NCAA Championships before claiming the program's only individual NCAA title in 1982. PHOTO COURTESY UVA