Hogs welcomed back at Chile Pepper

The Arkansas women's cross country team takes off at the start of the 25th annual Chile Pepper Cross County Festival Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013, at the University of Arkansas Cross County course located on the UA Agriculture Farm in Fayetteville. Lightning delayed the races by more than an hour and caused the 10K Open race to be cancelled.

The Arkansas women's cross country team takes off at the start of the 25th annual Chile Pepper Cross County Festival Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013, at the University of Arkansas Cross County course located on the UA Agriculture Farm in Fayetteville. Lightning delayed the races by more than an hour and caused the 10K Open race to be cancelled.

Monday, October 7, 2013

FAYETTEVILLE - Sometimes it takes the worst to appreciate the best.

Barring snow and ice, conditions were about the worst for Saturday’s Chile Pepper Festival, yet runners and fans participating in the daylong festival of high school, college, community and open cross country races at the University of Arkansas Agri Park Course seemed happier than hogs in slop.

The actual Hogs in the slop - Arkansas’ men’s and women’s cross country teams - seemed happiest of all.

Both Arkansas teams, because of scheduling date conflicts with the two biggest pre-NCAA Championship meets that draw enough of the nationally ranked teams they would have to defeat for at large NCAA Cross Country Championship consideration should they slip up at the NCAA Regional Qualifying meet, have had to send their best runners elsewhere in recent Chile Pepper past.

Chile Pepper, bigger than the Hogs in its 25 years of national high school and open running acclaim because of the accompanying community support that makes the festival truly a festival, kept rolling along. But the Chile Pepper board, started by Fayetteville restaurateur and diehard Razorbacks cross country/track booster Joe Fennel, missed the Razorbacks, and Chris Bucknam and Lance Harter sorely missed their Razorbacks regularly running at Chile Pepper.

So Chile Pepper moved its date up accommodating the Razorbacks teams to run Oct. 19 at the nationally attractive Wisconsin Invitational and still grant their wishes to run here.

Be careful what you wish for, Bucknam, coach of the Arkansas men, and Harter, coach of the women, must have wondered upon awakening Saturday morning. Torrential morning rain not only delayed the day-long program by 90 minutes but turned the course into a muddy moat and made the closest grass parking areas unusable.

Fans found themselves trudging a mile in mud while in vain trying to long jump mini swamps just to attend while temperatures dropped adding a chill to the misery.

But they kept coming.

“Every reason to discourage everybody,” Harter said. “The conditions, there is no parking. Hike your way in and we are still getting a huge turnout. And the cheer that occurred - I could hear when they [his Razorbacks won taking five of the first six places] were coming down the hill because the roar of the crowd descended the whole valley. That was really special.”

NCAA champion Kennedy Kithuka of Texas Tech and No. 21 Villanova were among the college men’s field.

Arkansas won 31-44 over Villanova and Razorbacks Kemoy Campbell and Stanley Kebenei gave Kithuka a good go before finishing second and third, respectively.

“We are thrilled to be back,” Bucknam said. “For the Chile Pepper board to be flexible enough to understand the predicament that Lance and I were in and to make a change to have us back, that’s why our guys ran hard.”

Fans and runners seemed to bond with their shared pain in the rain.

“The support we had here,” Campbell said. “Even though it was raining and pretty bad conditions, everyone came out and supported us. My teammates and I are thankful for that.”

Sports, Pages 16 on 10/07/2013