Sept. 27, 2006

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Each week USCsports.com will feature a different runner on the cross country team as they continue through the 2006 season. This week’s featured harrier is redshirt-junior Karen Wigal, a chemical engineering major and McNair Scholar from <?xml:namespace prefix=”st1″ ns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags”?>Morgantown, W.Va. Wigal has been a leader for the Gamecocks since her arrival in 2003, both academically and athletically, and has raced on varsity in every competition.<?xml:namespace prefix=”o” ns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office”?>

“It’s a lot of work.”

Spoken by USC redshirt-junior Karen Wigal, one has to believe that if it came from her then it must be true. Wigal, cross country team co-captain and top three runner, was referring to the difficulties of managing a stellar academic record with competing in cross country and track meets.

A senior academically, the Morgantown, W.Va., native is currently a member of the Honors College and is a McNair Scholar, the most prestigious academic award given at USC, given to only 20 non-resident students each year. Her class valedictorian at Morgantown High School in 2003, what makes Wigal’s record stand-out is that she carries a perfect 4.0 GPA – in chemical engineering.

“I’ve always like math and sciences and I used to want to do biomedical engineering because I had an interest in medicine too,” Wigal said. “When I came here for an interview in academics, they told me that they would eventually get a biomedical engineering program out of the chemical engineering department. They just started it this year, but I ended up liking chemical engineering a lot.”

Given her academic successes, it is safe to assume that she was not sugarcoating the love of sciences. Wigal also was named finalist for the 2006 Outstanding Woman of the Year at USC award, given annually to recognize students for their academic, service, leadership, and co-curricular accomplishments. She then received the national Tau Beta Pi Fellowship this past year to recognize her outstanding work in the field of engineering.

However, her feats excel beyond the classroom as Wigal is also a stand-out in her sport as well. At Morgantown, Wigal won the 2002 West Virginia state cross country championship and followed it up with a freshman campaign at USC in which she ran as the number two runner for the entire season. Yet she has still always found a way to make everything work out.

“It’s really hard balancing everything,” Wigal said. “The only thing you can do is time manage. I have to make sure I get things done early for school because if I try to put it off then I end up not getting it finished in time. You’ve got to do things as they come up and not try to put them off.”

Many times that time management includes choosing between working on her labs or running a few extra miles each week. Along with four other runners on the team, Wigal’s schedule includes a few time demanding science courses that have up to three-hour long labs that normally are scheduled in the mid-week afternoons.

“With my major, there’s only one section for most classes so I have to miss a lot of practices,” Wigal said. “When we move to the afternoons next week, I have to miss practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I have to run on my own in order to keep the classes that I need.”

There was a time when all she could do was go to her classes because of an old knee injury that forced her to redshirt in 2005.

“I had chrondomalacia, which is degenerative cartilage,” Wigal said of the injury. “That bothered me since I was in high school. Last fall I had arthroscopic surgery to take the cartilage out and make it feel better. It feels better than it has for like 5 years. It helped.”

While the surgery helped her knee, Coach Stan Rosenthal seems to believe that her presence helps the team as he named Wigal a co-captain in both 2005 and 2006. Rosenthal has high hopes for his 2006 team that he believes has the potential to crack the top half of the SEC.

“It’s interesting being a leader on this team because every year it seems like our incoming people give us hope,” Wigal said. “This year I’m really excited about being a leader because everyone’s a hard worker. Everybody goes above and beyond what they have to do. I’m proud of everyone this year.”

Wigal is even more proud that her team has gotten off to a fast start, winning the South Carolina Invitational and the Clemson Invitational and placing fourth at the national Great American Cross Country Festival last week. The finish was the highest ever for the Gamecocks in five years competing at the event.

“Just the overall attitude within our team is different this year,” Wigal said. “Everyone is positive everyday. Every morning when we show up, people want to work hard. When we got here (in the summer) and saw that everyone had been training, we realized that we can be very good and started to put in that extra effort.”

Once again, extra effort training equals extra effort in the classroom. Wigal has two more semesters to keep her perfect streak going in one of the most difficult majors at the university, but don’t expect that to deter her plans.

“I’m going to graduate this year, but I’m not sure what will happen after that,” Wigal said. “I want to go to grad school and get my Ph.D. Eventually, I probably want to be a professor.”

If the cross country team were to put together a list of individual superlatives following the season, it’s a safe bet that they would see Wigal as a leader who puts forth her all in everything that she does. Seems pretty much like the professor-type.