Former Glastonbury star Crevoiserat brings instant name recognition to UConn cross country team
Lindsay Crevoiserat has been at UConn for almost a month. Thank goodness for UConn garb because she only brought one suitcase of clothes with her from Iowa. Her dog is here, in Glastonbury at her parents’ house. Her furniture is still in Iowa.
But Crevoiserat, who was hired Aug. 15 as the UConn head cross country coach and assistant track coach, is diving right into her job. Three of the top local cross country runners — Hall’s Jenna Zydanowicz, Manchester’s Kate Hedlund and Rocky Hill’s Elizabeth Stockman — have UConn on their list of schools of interest.
Sometimes, the Connecticut kids just don’t want to go to school in their backyard. Zydanowicz, The Courant’s twotime female cross country of the year, was “lukewarm” about UConn, Hall coach Betty Remigino-Knapp said, but “when she met Lindsay, I think there was a change in attitude.” And now she’s considering it, among other schools. Hedlund and Stockman were both already interested but Rocky Hill coach Brian Graca wrote in an email, “she’s had good conversations with Lindsay and the feedback she’s given me is all positive; it’s on her short list.”
As a highly-decorated high school runner at Glastonbury, Crevoiserat, 26, has instant name recognition, mostly among coaches, but also among athletes. On the track, she was the 2009 national champion in the mile and the 2010 indoor national champion in the 5,000 meters and two mile. She set State Open records in the 1,600 and the 3,200 meters her junior year and again in the 3,200 her senior year. She was second at the State Open in cross country as a senior.
“I think it’s great she’s coming home,” said Remigino-Knapp, who coached at UConn from 1980-1996. “Here’s this young woman who was a national champion in high school. She has instant credibility. Everyone watched her grow up and run here.
“She knows all the coaches. That’s a huge piece of it. Boom — she just walks in and everybody knows her and respects her as an athlete.”
Greg Roy, UConn’s director of track and field and cross country, confessed he wasn’t thinking of Crevoiserat right away when he was looking to hire somebody.
“It was pretty ironic,” Roy said. “We probably talked to 25 coaches, getting recommendations, and I was talking to my son, who ran here and graduated in 2016. I told him what we were doing, how we were looking for the right person.
“He said, ‘You know Lindsay’s coaching?’ I said, ‘She is, isn’t she?’”
Crevoiserat was at Drake, working for Mark Carroll (the former Manchester Road Race winner). The UConn interview process went quickly, she was happy to come home and the best thing was, she didn’t need to figure out how things worked at UConn because she went there, initially choosing the school in her backyard over Oregon and others who were interested.
“It kind of made the whole interview process and coming back the first few weeks really easy,” Crevoiserat said. “It’s the same administration, lifting coaches, doctors, athletic trainers. Coach Roy was here, Coach [Rich] Miller was here.”
Crevoiserat did not stay at UConn, however. After the Huskies finished eighth in their first appearance at the 2012 NCAA cross country championships her sophomore year, Crevoiserat, a two-time AllAmerican, transferred when her coach, Andrea Grove-McDonough, left to go to Iowa State. Crevoiserat opted to go to Oregon.
At Oregon, she struggled and was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease after about a year.
“I had no energy,” she said. “I would be dead last in the first 100 meters [of a race]. I was thinking, ‘Well, I was all-American last year, why am I in the back?’ I was losing memory. My whole left side was gone. They had a massage therapist follow me around to get me on the [starting] line because they knew I could help the team.
“There were some days when things were coming along so there’d be a spark but then there would be times I’d be out for weeks. It took a few years. I was on antibiotics for a long time. It was a year of not knowing what was wrong. My immune system was shot so the next couple years weren’t great.”
After she graduated from Oregon in 2016, she had a season left of eligibility, so she ran for the University of New Mexico under Joe Franklin, whose Lobos have dominated their conference and won a women’s NCAA cross country title in 2015.
She knew she wanted to be a coach after she met GroveMcDonough at UConn.
“She impacted my life and made me want to be a coach and impact other athletes like that,” Crevoiserat said. “For me, I like having relationships, getting to know the athletes, knowing how to make them better, being relatable and friendly.”
She coached with GroveMcDonough at Iowa State before going to Drake. She wasn’t really planning on leaving until UConn called.
“Some people may say she’s young, inexperienced,” her Glastonbury High coach Brian Collins said. “Are there more people with more experience? Yes. But I think she’s a perfect fit for them.”
“She’s local, she’s been with some great coaches. All that experience, she has that passion. Her name is going to help get a lot of local kids. The people who weren’t really thinking UConn before, I think she’s a big draw, for Connecticut kids, New England kids.
“She’s going after the top kids, getting the visits. She’s basically hitting the ground running.
That’s what you want to see.”