At 6-foot-3, Joe Dragon stands out from the rest of Syracuse’s cross country team. His lack of natural speed compared to other elite runners — like Justyn Knight, who won an NCAA individual title in 2017 — made him look different than every other runner, his former trainer Bruce Wask said.

Wask called Dragon an “aerobic engine.” Even while dealing with an Achilles injury and mononucleosis, his work ethic propelled him to a Foot Locker Cross Country Championship invite as a high school senior. It’s why he’s one of Syracuse’s most promising runners — and leaders — heading into 2019.

“He’s totally like a silent killer,” senior Aidan Tooker said.

Now in his fourth year at SU, he’s expected to be one of Syracuse’s primary options on a team that’s trended downward since its NCAA title in 2015. The redshirt junior was the Orange’s fastest male runners in last year’s NCAA championships, finishing 90th, and has consistently improved since redshirting in 2016. And through it all, he’s never regretted his decision to come to Syracuse — even though the results sometimes haven’t shown.

The high school state champion didn’t achieve collegiate success easily. Lost in a sea of 200 runners at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational 8K, Dragon, then a redshirt freshman, couldn’t locate the gaps he’d enjoyed as a high schooler.

Dragon finished the race in 95th place, 94 spots and over a minute behind Knight. Coming into the race, Dragon had recorded top-12 finishes in each the first two meets of the season, and Dragon’s collegiate career.

“It was just the most overwhelmed I’ve ever been in my life,” Dragon said. “I just remember being in the moment thinking, ‘What the hell.’”

Despite the setback, Dragon was undeterred because he’d dominated before. But he didn’t always think he’d be running for one of the top programs in the nation. His height pegged him as a basketball star at High Point (New Jersey) High School, and it wasn’t until his mother sent him to Xtreme Running Camp the summer before high school that Dragon began gravitating toward the sport.

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He didn’t want to be brought down by a team, Dragon said. Cross country fit that mold. Camps turned into running groups, like Wask’s Polar Bears Track and Field Club, who went onto become Dragon’s personal trainer during his senior year at High Point.

In the summer prior to Dragon’s senior year, Dragon went on an 18-mile run at a 5:44 mile pace, Wask said. But it wasn’t planned. He ran it spontaneously during a family vacation to Cape Cod as his brother rode his bike alongside him.

“[Dragon] was not the type of kid that you would have to pull into training,” Wask said. “He was the type of kid you would have to hold back.”

At times, Wask had to temper Dragon’s training to prevent injuries. When Wask first entered Dragon’s life, the high schooler dealt with a sore Achilles that hindered progression in his speed, an area Wask wishes they would’ve worked on more. At one point, they agreed to scale back their inclined training.

Their training made collegiate running a possibility during his senior year. Dragon remembers exactly where he was on his official visit on Friday, Oct. 16, 2015: milling back and forth between the start and finish line in Madison, Wisconsin — the host track of the Nuttycombe Invitational. Among the 36 men’s teams competing at the meet, one in particular caught Dragon’s eye: Syracuse.

“I remember watching them warm up before the race,” Dragon said. “They just looked so professional and composed and they had this game face that was just unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Wisconsin was Dragon’s third college visit, after he reached out to and set up visits with Penn State and Northern Arizona. He had received little interest from major programs during his senior year of high school. Before the meet, Dragon thought Wisconsin would be his last visit.

Syracuse ended up winning the meet by a whopping 85 points. Meanwhile Wisconsin, the school Dragon was visiting at the time, “tanked” into 17th place and their unprofessional reaction and demeanor paled in comparison to SU’s, Dragon said.

After SU’s victory in Madison, Dragon reached out to then-assistant coach and now SU head coach Brien Bell and they quickly arranged a meeting. Though his visit lasted only about 24 hours, Dragon became enamored with Syracuse’s competitive culture weeks before their first NCAA title in program history.

Dragon knew he would redshirt his first year, and even after that it wasn’t guaranteed that Dragon would crack the seven-man lineup. At a school like Penn State, Dragon acknowledged he could’ve started right away and made more of a name for himself. But for Dragon, his cross country career has never been about taking the path of least resistance.

“I love to just throw myself to the wolves,” Dragon said. “Coming here, I wanted to run with a ton of good guys and get better that way, and I didn’t want to be one of the best guys or even close to one of the best guys.”

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The year without racing also allowed Dragon not only to recover from his physical ailments from the year before, but also his mental fatigue. He watched the best collegiate cross country runner in Knight constantly, and relished opportunities to train with stars on SU’s title team, like Colin Bennie and Philo Germano.

He still takes that knowledge into every race three years later. And after the trio graduated, Dragon, along with other upperclassmen like Tooker, were tasked with leading a team with annual national championship aspirations. As Dragon idolized the championship-winning trio, a new crop of freshmen, including Dragon’s younger brother Matthew, watch Dragon.

“He, more than anyone else on the team, is so well regimented,” Tooker said. “Just a reliable older guy that young guys on the team can look up to.”

Cracking the seven-man lineup turned into cementing himself as a top-three runner in Syracuse’s rotation last season. And despite a 26th place team finish in the NCAA Championships, Dragon still led the pack of Orange jerseys to the finish line.

He realizes Syracuse’s postseason decline, that in his four years, his team has dropped an average of 175 points each season in NCAA championship totals. But 2019’s squad has continued to push Dragon to retain his spot at the top of the pecking order. For Dragon, no matter whether you’re the first or the seventh man in the rotation, there’s always pressure to score.

And Dragon’s primed to be at the front of the pack.

Published on September 12, 2019 at 1:13 am

Contact Alex: athamer@syr.edu