Around the Game

Cross country teams kick off season\nThe men's and women's cross country teams will hold the Sam Bell Invitational Friday, at the cross country course located behind the IU golf course. The women's 4K race begins at 4:30 p.m. and is immediately followed by the men's race.\nCompeting against the Hoosiers in the women's race are five teams ' Eastern Illinois, DePaul, Missouri-Kansas City, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Illinois.\n"If we are going to be a team to vie for a spot in nationals and one that leads the Big Ten we need to have our top five runners grouping very well and the purpose of this competition is to see how well we can do that while returning to race mode," women's coach Judy Bogenschutz said. \nThe men's team will also run against five teams ' Eastern Illinois, Missouri-Kansas City, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Wisconsin's B team.\n"The key for us at this first meet is to not only give our top guys a workout, but also find out at what level many of our runners are at after both a summer of training and three weeks of practice," men's coach Robert Chapman said.\nThe meet is named after legendary IU coach Sam Bell, who coached the men's team from 1969-1997 and the women's team from 1981-1997. A total of 22 All-Americans and four NCAA champions ran for Bell at IU. The meet was named in Bell's honor in 1998 and was formerly called the Indiana Invitational.\nBoth IU teams placed 7th overall in the 1999 Sam Bell invitational. North Carolina State was the women's champion while Arkansas was the men's champion.