PROVO — Accompanied by an illustration of a broken stopwatch, the slogan on T-shirts worn by friends at the Mountain West Conference cross country meet earlier this month best describe BYU's Kip Kangogo: "You can't stop-stop Kip Kangogo."
So far this season, no other NCAA runner has stopped him — not even the defending national champion. In short, the 23-year-old sophomore from Kenya has gone from unknown and unheralded to unbeatable and unbelievable in one short year.
Understand that Kangogo has been running competitively and training for only two years now. That as a pudgy fellow a few years back he was often mistaken for a soccer player. That when he left Kenya, he knew nothing of BYU but was bound instead for Lethbridge in the Canadian province of Alberta. And that his preferred distance is 1,500 meters, a track event five to six times shorter than a college cross country race.
And that makes his feats this fall — including the recent Mountain West championship and runner-of-the-year honors — even more impressive.
"He's still very young in the sport," said BYU men's cross country coach Ed Eyestone. "He's got as much experience as most seniors in high school have."
When Kangogo ran as a youth, it was for the love of running or to pass the time while herding goats. He didn't compete in Kenya — simply because he wasn't as fast as the others.
But in 2000, he started running the 1,500 in small meets around Kenya, "just to see if I can run," he recalled, adding that when he started training as a hefty (for a Kenyan), 150-pounder with a 5-foot-5 frame, other Kenyans assumed he was a soccer player.
Quickly the times in the 1,500 meters (.93 of a mile) dropped to four minutes and below as Kangogo took motivation from watching Paul Tergat and other heralded Kenyan runners.
"Paul Tergat is my greatest inspiration," said Kangogo, who hails from the same hometown area as the world-class distance runner and has met Tergat. "One day I want to run like Paul."
And he might, given that they are from the same Kalenjin tribe, which Eyestone calls "genetically gifted" for running.
Rather than stay in Kenya, Kangogo ended up at Lethbridge Community College at the invitation of a friend, going from running in a country that straddles the equator to competing in cross country and track for a college whose mascot is the Ice Kodiaks.
Kangogo arrived in Canada 20 pounds lighter, and a friend thought the leaner look was the result of illness or disease.
Eyestone started receiving calls last fall from Lethbridge coach Bertil Johansson, a BYU alum, about this fantastic new freshman who was running 24-minute 8K races. The Cougar coach was interested and initiated contact — but he also was a little leery, uncertain of the quality of Canadian collegiate competition.
However, Kangogo ran sub-3:50 times in the 1,500 in the spring.
"Track times don't lie, and they indicated that this kid is really good," said Eyestone. "But with the track times out, he was no longer our little secret."
BYU had the lead, and it didn't hurt when Kangogo converted to the LDS faith. A 48-hour recruiting visit to Provo sold the Kenyan, who took note on the facilities, the caliber of the university and that "the high altitude was good for my training."
In the first cross country race of the 2002 season, BYU and Kangogo competed in the Griak Invitational in Minnesota, with the field including 2001 NCAA champion Boaz Cheboiywo of Eastern Michigan. Eyestone had cautioned Kangogo about the defending champ and expected his runner to make a debut closer to the pack.
But Kangogo stayed close enough to Cheboiywo, a fellow Kenyan.
"He caught him at 600 meters and then he put nine seconds on him in the final 400 meters," said Eyestone of Kangogo's time of 23 minutes, 38 seconds.
In last month's Prenational Invitational on the same Terre Haute, Ind., course that will be used for the Nov. 25 NCAA meet, Kangogo finished first in his race. In one of two men's races on the day, he followed Eyestone's instructions to run with the pack until making a surge for the final two kilometers to easily win. Colorado's Jorge Torres won the other race by a time that was 10 seconds faster, but strategies and times change from race to race in cross country.
Kangogo will face his toughest test to date in Torres as they race in regional competition Saturday in Albuquerque. One factor is that the regional race — as well as the NCAA event — is bumped up to 10 kilometers, a distance the Kenyan hasn't run in competition. The other is the strategy that Kangogo and Eyestone will settle on for regionals, since the national meet is less than two weeks later.
"We'll let them have the knockdown, drag-out at nationals," said Eyestone of the Kangogo-Torres showdown.
Eyestone expects those two to join Cheboiywo and another Kenyan — Alabama's David Kimani, who won the 2000 NCAA title — to be among the favorites for the NCAA meet in two weeks. And it could be that Eyestone, who with his 1984 national championship is the only BYU men's runner to win the NCAA cross country crown, could end up with an equally acclaimed protege on the team.
"Once he decides to go, it's a race for second place," said Eyestone, adding that Kangogo "is appropriately named — he likes to go and show people he can go."
E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com