In NCAA cross-country, schools bid for the honor of hosting the Pre-National and national meets.

In the mind of Iowa’s head men’s cross-country coach Larry Wieczorek, Iowa’s Ashton Cross-Country Course is on par with any course in the country and would make an excellent venue for the NCAA championships.

“It could be the best in the country after a few adjustments,” Wieczorek said. “We hosted the Big Ten [meet] in 2004 and an NCAA regional in 2005. We could host the NCAAs.”

Some of the adjustments Wieczorek believes the university must make if Ashton is to vie for the national meet bid revolves around making the course more crowd friendly, a common practice for prospective host schools to undertake.

“At Indiana State, they put up fences along the running paths so fans could get as close as possible without actually stepping on the path,” Wieczorek said. “Running alleys like that, concession stands, more bathrooms — these are different structures that could be built over time, little by little, that would help to upgrade the course.

“It’s already a fan-friendly course — lot’s of parking and great viewing points. This would upgrade that.”

Dedicated during the 2004 Big Ten meet, the course is named after Bill and Jim Ashton, who ran cross-country for Iowa under late coach Francis X. Cretzmeyer. Both earned varsity letters.

Bill Ashton, who resides in Davenport, graduated in 1962 — two years before Jim Ashton, who lives in Dallas. Both have had successful careers in engineering, earning them a spot in the UI’s Engineering Hall of Fame.

Thanks to a donation by the Ashton family, the Hawkeye harriers have their own cross-country course — a luxury most college programs don’t enjoy.

“A lot of schools will have meets on golf courses,” Iowa cocaptain Tommy Tate said. “Or at Wisconsin, where the course runs like a golf course — really flat. Ashton is definitely not a golf course. It’s a real cross-country course, with rhythm-breaking hills.”

Ashton boasts a number of difficult hills and terrain changes that pose problems for runners who are used to tame running surfaces.

Ashton’s often challenging running environment may be a serious detriment for any hopes Iowa would have in hosting the national championship. Cross-country coaches aren’t fond of courses that put their runners in recovery.

“Pre-nationals comes two weeks before conference invitationals, where you want to be in top form,” Tate said. “Indiana State’s course was pretty easy. That’s more of what you want before nationals.”

“You don’t want a course to have extreme difficulty and leave your runners needing a month to recover from it,” he said. “You don’t want a pool table either, though. You need a course to be decidedly difficult. You want it to challenge your runners.”