Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cross Country Transfer Becomes Standout
June 21, 1999 | Track O
April 15, 1999
STILLWATER, Okla. - 1999 marks the first and only year Andrew Hennessy will grace Oklahoma State's men's track team with his presence.
Hennessy, who has already graduated from Oxford University, came to OSU last summer not knowing how many years he would be able to compete as a Cowboy.
"During the cross country season, they tried to classify me as a freshman," Hennessy said. "But the NCAA realized that I wasn't a freshman because I'm 21 years old and have a degree and have been running for three years already."
It all boiled down to him having only one year of eligibility here in the United States, but he's made the most of that one year.
With the NCAA not considering him a first-year student, Hennessy was named an Academic All-American for his 4.0 grade point average in the classroom studying health and human performance during the cross country season. A freshman cannot be named Academic All-American in cross country.
"I was surprised about that," Hennessy said. "I think they were able to transfer my degree from back home into some kind of credit hour system out here. That meant I held a certain amount of grades. I like to work hard in every aspect of my life. That took me a bit by surprise when I found out I had qualified for that. It's all in a day's work, though. Just go to school and run. That seems pretty easy when that's all you have to do.
"As soon as they realized they couldn't call me a freshman, they sprung this Academic All-American on me, which was a nice surprise."
Heading into the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., this weekend, he has won all four individual events he has competed in this outdoor season. He plans to compete in the 1,500m this weekend.
"I'm pretty pleased with that," Hennessy said. "They've been fairly low-key meets, so I haven't really had that much competition yet. But the training's been going pretty well, and I feel fairly strong in my running. I hope eventually I'll get some good competition and I'll win that as well."
Hennessy hopes to make Chuck Sloan fight for his bid as a repeat All-American in the 3,000m steeplechase. He has his sights set on that honor as well.
The two have not competed against each other in an event so far this season, but that will change if the entry form for this weekend's meet holds.
"I don't have too many races against him," Hennessy said. "I think our coaches are strategically putting us in different races."
Sloan provisionally qualified for the event with a time of 8:48.38 last weekend at the Hayward Relays in Eugene, Ore., so Hennessy is counting on Sloan helping him improve his best time of 9:11.46 to under the provisionally qualifying mark of 8:54.00.
"He's got that safe (going to the NCAA Championships) already, so he can help me out," Hennessy said. "I hope so, anyway. I haven't told him this yet. I'm kind of hoping he'll help me out."
During the indoor season, Hennessy ran the 800m leg of the OSU's distance medley relay team. The team won the Big 12 Indoor Championships in February and named All-American with an eighth-place finish at the NCAA Championships in March.
Hennessy almost walked away with a Big 12 Championship in the mile as well. In the finals, he finished the mile race in 4:12.84, just behind Kansas' Kevin McGinn's 4:12.39. The race was even closer during the preliminary heats. McGinn beat Hennessy by only four-hundredths of a second.
"That would have been nice," Hennessy said. "I just got out-kicked in the end. It was a mixture of disappointed and the elation of getting a (silver) medal. It wasn't quite the medal I wanted, obviously. I was striving to be the best that day, and it just didn't quite happen. We had won the distance medley relay, so I had a Big 12 gold medal already. So maybe it would have been a bit greedy to have two."
One question Hennessy is asked the most is why he came to OSU after attending Oxford, where he finished his first set of two three-year medical school terms.
"There was a natural break between my two sections," he said. "I was sitting at home and a phone call came completely out of the blue from (assistant coach) Christian Nicolson. He asked me if I wanted to come to Oklahoma State University on a track scholarship for a year. It didn't take me very long to say yes. I think my mouth said it before my brain registered that I did. It just kind of snowballed from there.
"It was interesting. I didn't know what to expect. My first thought was, 'Oklahoma. Where's that?' But I found out where it is and here I am now."
OSU's coaches are glad he found the school and are pleased with the performances he's had this season, including an 11th-place finish at the District V cross country meet.
"He's added quite a bit," OSU coach Dick Weis said. "He's very team oriented. He fit right in academically. He's very unselfish. He has a tremendous attitude. He's a good viable member of team. He's like lot of kids on this team. He's the epitome of a student-athlete."
Although he's been enjoying his time in Oklahoma, the Glastonbury, England, native also looks forward to returning home, where he will spend the next year planning a wedding with his fiancee, Hanna Cowdy, a third-year English student at Oxford. The two got engaged right before he came to OSU.
"It's been difficult. My phone bill has been expensive every month," Hennessy said. "You can live with a little bit of discomfort. At least we know that if we can live with each other being apart for so long and then get back together again, it's going to be wonderful."
