The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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28 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY TIM PEELER C State junior distance runner Katelyn Tuohy c o u l d n ' t h a ve b e e n much older than a fresh- man in high school when she completely wore her dad out. She and Patrick Tuohy were out for a father-daughter run in their hometown of Stony Point, N.Y., when he took a gulp of air, stopped on the path and said: "I'll catch you when you loop back around." They used to run together because Patrick didn't want his young daugh- ter running by herself in the park, but the former hockey player wasn't ex- actly built for endurance. When Katelyn charged up a hill on that hot afternoon, he knew she was off and running on her own, never to look back. "I think you are just a little too quick for me now," he said when she came back around, turning the paired runs over to his son Patrick Jr., who is two years older than his sister and became a college cross country runner at Ford- ham not long afterward. Scads of other runners have said the same thing about Tuohy, the tough- minded and accomplished Wolfpack runner who is the first athlete in school history to win NCAA championships in three varsity sports in her three years at State. And, despite the national and inter- national acclaim she's already received, Tuohy is really just getting started. "If she can stay consistent, stay healthy and keep working hard, she is going to keep getting better," said Pack women's coach Laurie Henes, who won an NCAA outdoor track and field title in the 5,000 meters during her running career and coached her daughter Elly to a title in the same event in 2021. That's a scary prospect for all the other runners in the country, with Tuohy set to make a hard turn into her claim for a spot on the 2024 USA Track and Field Olympic team, which will compete in the Paris Games next July and August. Tuohy opened the outdoor track and field season on the hottest roll of any Wolfpack student-athlete since golfer Matt Hill won eight tournaments in nine starts as a sophomore, including the 2009 ACC, NCAA East Region and NCAA championships. Tuohy finished off the last outdoor season by winning her first NCAA title, the 5,000 meters, a race that NC State women have owned through the years. Combining AIAW and NCAA cham- pionships, State runners including Julie Shea Sutton, Betty Jo Springs Geiger, Laurie Gomez Henes, Elly Henes and Tuohy have won it a total of eight times, more than any other program. Tuohy captured the 2022 individual NCAA cross country championship, leading the Pack to its second con- secutive title and fourth national cross country crown in school history. During the indoor track season, she set collegiate records in the mile and the 3,000 meters and won two more NCAA titles, in the 3,000 and 5,000, rounding out a four-month stretch that was un- like anything in school history. The only runners who are comparable are Shea and Springs, who combined for 11 titles between 1979-85, a time when women's athletics were transitioning from the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women to the NCAA as their governing body. Shea was part of two AIAW cham- pionship cross country teams, while Springs was a freshman on the 1980 cross country title team and in 1981 won the competition in the first NCAA championship event for women. Shea won seven individual titles (two in cross country, three in the 5,000 meters and one each in the 3,000 and 10,000), while Springs won four (two cross country and one each in the 5,000 and 10,000). With two years of eligibility remain- ing in outdoor track, including this spring, and two more in cross country and indoor track, Tuohy has already matched Springs and could top Shea if she stays on a similar roll. Expectations Fulfilled Only a few athletes in NC State his- tory have ever lived up to or exceeded the kind of expectations Tuohy had when she arrived as a two-time na- tional high school cross country cham- pion and a three-time Gatorade Cross Country Performer of the Year. She's been called the future of Ameri- can distance running since she was 15 years old. She was on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high school sophomore. Her backyard newspaper — The New York Times — has written about her multiple times, and her local newspaper in the lower Hudson River Valley has a reporter devoted to her every move. Her parents, Patrick and Denise Tuohy, worked with her high school coach (and Advanced Placement U.S. history teacher) Brian Diglio to keep her away from too much of the spotlight, but they could only do so much when the awards and championships began to pile up. When she decided to attend NC State late in 2019, she immediately became part N FULL SPEED AHEAD Distance Runner Katelyn Tuohy Is On Pace To Join NC State's Pantheon Of All-Time Great Athletes