SU’s most storied class in history leaves behind legacy for future runners
Colin Bennie, Philo Germano and the other freshmen ran three and a half miles in about 25 minutes. It was their first workout at Syracuse. And for Bennie, the 25 minutes were similar to his high school workouts. He remembered thinking it wasn’t so bad.
Then the freshmen learned they had just completed the warmup. The workout followed with six to seven miles at a five-minute pace.
“We were like ‘Oh my god! What are we doing?’” Bennie said.
Now at the end of their careers at SU, Bennie and Germano know what an SU practice entails. They and teammate Justyn Knight are graduating, but their impact on the program will remain. They’ve never lost to an ACC team in cross country — and there are 15 All-American titles between them.
Despite the success, Bennie, Germano and Knight were an unlikely trio. Knight was a prodigy, Bennie was a solid recruit and Germano was the walk-on. Still, all three contributed points in the cross country 2015 National Championship, SU’s first title since 1951.
“All of them together have almost been this three-headed monster that’s been around for the last five years,” SU assistant coach Adam Smith said.
Knight’s teammates called him the best runner to come out of Syracuse. Smith said Knight is a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Former teammate Martin Hehir said Knight is responsible for putting Syracuse on the map as a distance powerhouse.
Knight holds five Syracuse track records and two individual national titles (one in the 5000m outdoor, the other in cross country). He has earned seven All-American titles in track and three in cross country.
“He’s our Carmelo Anthony, our Jim Brown, our Ernie Davis,” SU head coach Chris Fox said. “He’s changed our program. Carmelo changed (the basketball team), they won a national championship with Carmelo. Justyn changed ours, he raised the bar high.”
As a sophomore, Knight led SU’s pack in Louisville at the 2015 National Championship. He finished fourth, beating his freshman year finish by 139 spots. While fourth helped the team win a title, Knight would go on to finish better than that his next two seasons. His junior year he crossed the line in second, and senior year he became the first Syracuse runner to win an individual title.
“Justyn is the super talent,” Fox said. “(Bennie and Germano) kind of epitomize the work ethic.”
Bennie and Germano spent the summer leading up to the national title in Syracuse training together every day. Bennie, who his teammates call the “silent assassin,” isn’t vocal but shows up when SU needs it. If Knight wasn’t at SU, Fox said Bennie would be the best.
In the 2015 National Championship, Bennie’s ran his fastest 10K ever to finish eighth.
“He was probably the most reliable person I think in my four, five years being here,” Germano said. “Whenever we needed anything done, Colin was there.”
Philo, who finished 39th in that race, was Syracuse’s fourth man. He kicked hard at the end of the race, passing 14 people and taking as many points off SU’s score. Nine points would separate Syracuse from second place.
Germano came in as a walk-on. He often asked Hehir questions about what he should be doing, what Hehir was doing, how to get better. He ran in three meets his redshirt freshman year but never for points. The next year, he was SU’s fourth man on the title-winning team. The year after that, he was an All-American.
“He had no real business being All-American by the time his junior year came around,” Bennie said, “relative to a lot of other guys who had come in here from other schools. He just kind of proved that you buy into the program and follow what the coaches are saying and put in the hard work, that it doesn’t matter who you are in high school because this is where it matters.”
During this year’s indoor ACC Championship, Germano ran the 5000m and was the runner-up to Knight. A few weeks later during the Bison Outdoor Classic, Germano ran the 1500m and finished third as Knight won again. Both times, the only runners ahead of Germano were his SU teammates.
Bennie, Germano and Knight continued what the runners before them started. Before the three started running cross country together in 2014, SU had won four Northeast Regional championships in five years. Bennie, Germano and Knight extended the success further. They transitioned the team into the ACC with four consecutive conference titles. With three top 10 finishes nationally, Bennie, Germano and Knight set the standard for future Syracuse runners.
“To know that we wrote history ourselves is really special,” Knight said, “and when guys come here from now on, when they get recruited, they’re always going to think of our class that won NCAAs.”