FAYETTEVILLE -- Contrary to the famed Thomas Wolfe novel, not only can you go home again, you can go home again and again.
Former Springdale High School runner Gabe Gonzalez just proved it.
Gonzalez, a fifth-year senior, started his college career at the University of Kansas in Lawrence before returning home two years later to run for Arkansas.
Gonzalez runs his last Razorbacks race in Wednesday's 10,000 meters at the NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore. He qualified for the 10k two weeks ago at the NCAA West Preliminary hosted by Kansas in Lawrence.
Advancing fourth of 48 in the West Preliminary 10K was a little nostalgic for Gonzalez.
"Lawrence is a great place, and I have a lot of great memories there," Gonzalez said, noting his admiration for Kansas Coach Stanley Redwine."So it was great to get my qualifier there."
Redwine was the first great quarter-miler for retired Coach John McDonnell's Razorbacks and an Arkansas assistant when McDonnell won the first of his 40 national championships.
He left Arkansas to become head coach at Tulsa in 1994 and has been at Kansas since 2000.
Redwine, a Razorbacks Hall of Honor inductee, is well-respected at Arkansas. And that includes Gonzalez, who chose Kansas over Arkansas coming out of high school but the Jayhawks had better scholarship opportunities.
"I had a good relationship and a lot of respect for Coach Redwine and still do," Gonzalez said. "But deep down I'm a hometown kid. I'm from Springdale, and I always wanted to be a Hog. ... I wanted to be great and I felt the right move was to come back to Arkansas. Coach Redwine understood. He said, 'We hate to let you go, but if you want to go to Arkansas, that's fine."
Gonzalez has lettered for Coach Chris Bucknam's Razorbacks six times since becoming eligible at Arkansas in the fall of 2015, helping the Hogs to the SEC triple crown in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track in back-to-back seasons.
Gonzalez finished fifth in the SEC Indoor 5,000, third in the SEC Outdoor 10,000 and ran a personal-best 29:01.62 10,000 in April at the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
But even a repeat of that 29:01.62 likely won't be enough to beat 13-time NCAA champion Edward Cheserek, the reigning 10,000-meter champ from Oregon who has a personal record of 28:30.18.
But it would beat most and score points for the fifth-ranked Hogs, who seek to defy the odds against Texas A&M, LSU and Florida, ranked top nationally though Arkansas beat them all winning the SEC Outdoor, and No. 4 defending champion Oregon.
"He made our top-10 list (Arkansas' all-time fastest 10K times) which is our goal standard for excellence," Bucknam said.
The chances of Gonzalez beating Cheserek are slim, but Gonzalez said he craves joining him as closely as he can.
"The plan is to go with whoever goes with him," Gonzalez said. "You want to show that you have the guts to go with those guys and score big points for my team. I need to be up there and go for it."
Sports on 06/06/2016