Oct. 29, 2008

Originally printed in the Oct. 25 Football Gameday Program:

As the Wayne State women's cross-country team prepares for its biggest two weekends of the season, senior co-captain Rachelle Malette is on the path to earning All-America honors for the third straight year.

She will look to defend her GLIAC championship today in the far reaches of Sault Ste. Marie after routing the field by 35 seconds last year.

Then, it's on to the big time: the NCAA Great Lakes Regional - a meet she also won in 2007 - with hopes of helping WSU advance as a team to the NCAA Championships.

With nine individual wins over the past three seasons, and a dominant 2007 campaign where she won five times and finished no lower than fifth, success is nothing new to Malette.

But to conclude that her excellence is predicated solely by her gaudy list of running accomplishments wouldn't do Malette justice.

Malette is a pharmacy major and not only an outstanding student, but her college's best, as evident by last year's Dean's Award from the School of Pharmacy and Health. She missed her team's first training trip and meet the past two seasons because her classes start one week early.

And she routinely reschedules her training and workout times thanks to an academic load so intensive, it made her initially question her desire to run at the college level.

"She's always studying on the bus, and she'll stay up until all hours of the night studying for tests," said teammate Lauren Kessler. "She'll run races with little sleep, and still do well in her classes.

"It's amazing how she makes it look so easy."

Malette is a rarity in this era of ultra-competitive and high-stakes collegiate sports.

She is the epitome of a true student-athlete.

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WSU head coach Rick Cummins, in his 12th season, said that Malette is the best he's coached on the women's side during his tenure - and it isn't close.

"She's got all the tools," he said. "She's got the drive, she's got the talent, she's got the pain tolerance ... she's pretty good, and the results show it.

"It took development, but when I first saw her run at a high school meet, I said `that kid is going to be the most dominant runner in the history of our school.'" Malette, a Windsor native, said: "I think [my] running is probably a mix of everything - genetics, probably hard work and definitely mental toughness.

"I'm always one to say that it's because of hard work, but my coach always says there might be something more."

To say that ideal genes run through the Malette family would be an understatement. Rachelle's older sister, Jackie, ran for the University of Windsor, earning All-Canadian honors in 2006.

Her younger brother, John, is considered one of the top runners in Canada in his age group, according to Rachelle. And her youngest sister, Gabrielle, is also a provincial standout.

Malette credits her mother, Renee, with instilling her discipline and work ethic at an early age thanks to labor at her family-owned ice cream store.

Rachelle's mental toughness was tested when her father, John, died unexpectedly of a heart attack at one of her high school cross country meets in 2002 (she went on to medal at the All-Ontario provincial meet 10 days later).

That fortitude was challenged again after Rachelle graduated from Windsor's Holy Names High School in 2005 and grappled with the prospect of even running in college.

"I didn't know if it would be too much," she said. "I've always been, like, crazy [about] school."

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Malette eventually "said I would try it out" at Wayne State and stuck around, building relationships with a likable group of teammates as well as coach Cummins. While her running ability flourished in the university setting, her academic endeavors developed as expected.

Now, as a second-year pharmacy student, Malette's daily schedule is tireless. She divides her weekday time between the classroom, the library, running and lifting weights.

For the five of the past six weekends, and the three upcoming, she's off with the team to a meet.

And she manages to work in her obligations as the president of WSU's student-athlete advisory committee.

"It's hard balancing school, running and SAAC because everything I do, I never like giving less than my best," Malette said. "It's hard when you're overexerting yourself in some places.

"Something always gets compromised - like sleep. I don't get much sleep at all." It hasn't seemed to matter because the routine has worked.

Malette has earned numerous awards - the Fall 2007 GLIAC Commissioner's Award being most significant - for both her running and scholastic prowess.

While she said that the academic accolades "mean a little bit more to me," she won't deny the significance of earning multiple All-Conference or All-America honors either.

"Athletics has helped my academics," she said, "and my academics have helped my athletics.

"It can be difficult handling everything, but you can choose what you want to do. I want to excel in both things as opposed to just worrying about an athletic career.

"So, yes, student-athlete is probably more of a term than just athlete for me."

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Along with placing fifth at last year's NCAA Championships, Malette feels that helping the team qualify was one of her greatest achievements.

And despite placing 14th nationally as an individual in 2006, she said, her trip wasn't nearly as fun without her teammates alongside.

"The team, I'm really grateful for them understanding my school schedule and other things I have to do," Malette said. "I'd love for all of us to get back [to NCAAs]."

After winning Oct. 4 at Slippery Rock, Pa. - on the same course where the national meet will be held Nov. 22 - Malette enters the GLIAC meet primed to replicate last year's end-of-season success.

"I haven't won as many races [this year], but I've run a lot, lot faster," she said. "I'm even in better shape this year. That's reassuring. It's going to come down to race day. I'm going to give it everything I can."

With three races left, Malette has no second thoughts about a Wayne State cross country career defined by more than running.

"I don't want to blame everything entirely on school ... sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I took a lighter school load and focused solely on running," she said.

"It's okay. I wouldn't have it any other way."

- Kyle Stefan is a writer/editor for The South End as well as a student-athlete on the WSU golf team.