When the Iowa men’s cross-country team stretches out before a competition, they wear their black and gold uniforms.

But while these uniforms read “Iowa” across the front, the name is fairly misleading when you consider runners from the aforementioned state are in the minority on head coach Larry Wieczorek’s team.

Of the 17 runners on Iowa’s men’s cross-country roster, only three attended high school in the Hawkeye State. Aside from junior James Paul, who hails from Queenston, Canada, the other 13 members of the Iowa cross-country squad are from Illinois.

Wieczorek said this disproportionate number of Illinois products on his squad is due to Iowa’s small population in comparison with its crowded neighbor.

“The population of Iowa is fewer than 3 million people,” he said. “Compare that with Illinois, which has [a population] of more than 12 million. It’s just a much larger talent pool.”

That isn’t to say that Wieczorek doesn’t do his best to get the top talent in Iowa. The state is his first stop on an expanding recruiting campaign.

“We try to recruit the top Iowa kids,” he said. “There is a bumper crop of runners coming up in Iowa. We just go in concentric circles after that, moving out to the next closest states.

“We’ve had a lot of success recruiting in Illinois. We brought in back-to-back state champions in Nick Holmes and Jeffrey Thode.”

One of the few runners from Iowa is Sam Bailin. Unlike many of the highly touted prospects from Illinois, the Des Moines native wasn’t answering very many phone calls from potential coaches.

Part of Wieczoreks’s successful hunting in Illinois can be attested to his experience there as a high-school coach. He is a member of the Illinois high-school coaching Hall of Fame after coaching for 12 years at Proviso West High School.

“I have a lot of contacts in Illinois from when I coached there,” he said. “It gives me a first step. I’m aquatinted with a lot of coaches.

“The athletes there know that [Iowa] is an appealing place to compete and go to school.”

One Illinois native who found the school appealing was Tommy Tate, now a cocaptain of Wieczorek’s squad. The Galesburg, Ill., native liked what he saw when he first visited Iowa City.

“I liked the campus a lot,” Tate said. “I’m from a small town, and it’s got a small-town feel but is still a bigger city. There have always been a lot of Illinois runners [on the men’s cross-country team]. People know people, and they realize it’s a good place to run.”

No matter where he gets his talent from, Wieczorek has no fear as far as were his runners’ allegiance lies, or who they will push themselves to the limit for.

“I’m from Illinois as well, and I was adopted by Iowa,” he said. “Once they put the Hawkeye uniform on, they become Hawkeyes.”