by C.J. Bowles

Ben Koss was born for this.

No one forced him into it, but when his body refused to grow past his current 5-foot-9 frame, dashing his dreams of basketball fame, his path became clear. Koss had Husky cross country in his blood, but former UW track and cross country star Bill Koss did little to push his son into the sport.

"He never made me run cross country," the younger Koss recalls. "He just said,'Hey, you should try this. You might be pretty good at it.' He never put pressure on me; he just let me do what I wanted to do."

Bill's hunch was right. While earning a 3.7 grade point average at Capital High School in Olympia, Koss finished third, and then fifth at the state cross country meet in his final two seasons, while leading Capital to league and district titles.

Now one of two co-captains for Husky men's team this fall, Koss has maintained his excellence in college, both on the course and in the classroom. Achieving superior grades is difficult enough for the any student, let alone one who runs as much as 100 miles a week year-round.

Koss, however, doesn't see why it's such a big deal.

"I just try to balance everything out," he says. "Those things they teach everyone at freshman orientation, about time management and such? I actually do them."

The 2003 season marks Koss' third as captain. As expected, his mentality reflects that of a leader.

"At Pac-10s or Regionals, I don't care if I'm the first guy or the fifth guy on the team as long as we're successful," he says. "I'd rather be the fifth guy and have us qualify for NCAAs then the first guy and not qualify."

After nearly a decade of competitive running on tracks as well as cross country courses, Koss has come to know his strengths and weaknesses.

"I think I'm more of a cross country guy," he says. "I feel like in cross country I can use the hills to my advantage and push the whole distance. I'm a real long-distance guy."

Not only does Koss prefer cross country, he does not consider it as mentally tough as running a long-distance race on the track.

"In cross country, you just try to shut your mind down and look at the guy ahead of you," he says. "You have about a half an hour to run, so you can't think about it, you just have to race. You have to break it into two 5,000-meter races - get through the first 5K, then race the second 5K."

While many would consider the long distances grueling, Koss dominates, having placed 12th at the Pac-10 Championships his sophomore year and 14th last season.

"I has a big breakthrough last year at Regionals," he says. "I finished 23rd, and was the top guy on the team, whereas before that I'd been the third or fourth guy. It felt really good to work so hard for such a long time and finally get some reward."

Now, with only one year remaining in his Washington career, Koss is preparing himself for life after competitive running.

"I'd like to do a little traveling, maybe try a little coaching too," he says. "I'd like to stay in running a little bit, but I'm not going to do anymore competitive running for a couple years. I'm putting so much time into running now, I want to try other things."

But before then, there are goals to be accomplished, shoes to be filled.

"I have an article from The Daily about my dad that talked about how he kind of struggled his first couple of years here and didn't really find his niche on the team or anything," he says. "Then his senior year he kept working hard and had a huge breakthrough. It's kind of the same thing I'm trying to do."

Bill Koss plotted the course that Ben continues to follow, his eyes firmly locked on the runner in front of him.