Brad Miller, school record holder in the mile run and one of Syracuse’s top distance runners, will miss the entire outdoor track season after suffering a stress fracture in his foot.

After running in the Big East championships Feb. 22, Miller started experiencing pain in his quad and stopped practicing. After two weeks of treatment and no improvement, Miller went through a bone scan and an MRI last week to determine the cause of the pain.

The tests showed no problems with his quad but instead revealed a ‘hot spot’ on Miller’s heel. That prompted further testing conducted last week, which proved that Miller, a junior, had suffered a stress fracture.

‘It’s a relatively minor injury,’ Syracuse track head coach Chris Fox said. ‘A lot of basketball players could probably play with this injury. We can’t tape it up and go run, because we’re running 12 miles instead of little 30-meter bursts on the basketball court. A lot of people could play through this, but we can’t in our sport.’

Fox said Miller could have probably returned to competition in about four weeks. But with the Big East conference meet only five weeks away, Fox opted to have Miller sit out the entire season.

Miller was unavailable for comment. He will spend the next month rehabbing, including work on an elliptical machine and in a pool, Fox said.

Fox estimated the loss of Miller to translate to about six to eight fewer points at the Big East Outdoor Championships, where the SU men’s team finished ninth with 55 points last year. It also significantly hurts the school’s 4-mile relay team, which placed third at last year’s Penn Relays without Miller on it.

But the Syracuse distance team, which started outdoor competition last weekend, will still be a strong contender in the conference, Fox said. Junior Kyle Heath currently has the top time in the nation in the steeplechase, Fox said, and freshmen Curtis Bixler and Pat Dupont are also expected to contribute as newcomers.

‘We’re OK,’ Fox said. ‘The guys will score their points.’

When Miller competes again, he will have two more seasons of both indoor and outdoor track; he’s redshirting the 2009 outdoor season and redshirted the 2007 indoor season.

For a distance runner, having a fifth year of eligibility can be huge, Fox said.

‘It’s the difference between a boy and a man,’ Fox said of the fifth year. ‘He could be running for a national championship as a fifth-year guy.’

Miller was coming off a successful fall in spring heading into the would-be outdoor season. In the fall, his cross country season was ‘as good as any cross country runner, probably, in the history of Syracuse,’ Fox said.

In the spring, Miller set the Syracuse mile mark, and nearly became the first SU runner to break the 4-minute mile, when he clocked in at 4:00.19 at the Boston University Terrier Invitational on Jan. 24. He went on to place third at Big East Indoor Championships, clocking in at 4:07.06.

But immediately after that, the pain set in. Miller was soon done for the year. Fox said a particularly harsh Syracuse winter forced his distance team to spend more time training on harder indoor surfaces, as opposed to the more forgiving grass or dirt trails. That led to an influx of injuries among the distance team.

He also noted that Miller’s strong work ethic led to an injury not uncommon for distance runners.

‘When you train at the level that Brad trains, or my top seven or eight guys, these things are going to happen,’ Fox said. ‘It’s part of the game. You’re pushing the limits.’

‘He just hurt himself. He could have stepped wrong on the ice, he could have stepped off a curb wrong. Is it freaky? Yeah, it’s a little freaky. But it’s not unexpected, at the level these guys are training.’

kbaustin@syr.edu

Published on March 31, 2009 at 12:00 pm