SUNY Cortland Athletics

This is part of a series of interviews that Cortland track and field/cross country runner Shannon Imbornoni '21 conducted in 2020 with former Cortland track and field and/or cross country individual national champions.

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Fred Joslyn ’06

Fred Joslyn is a one-time individual NCAA champion and a five-time All-American. After his Red Dragon career, Joslyn competed professionally as a distance runner from 2007 to 2009 under the sponsorship of Hansons Olympic Distance Project, Brooks and Saturn. Joslyn has held the school record in the indoor 5,000m since 2006 and the outdoor 5,000m and 10,000 since 2007. Additionally, Joslyn won the Cortland track and field Red Letter Award for indoor and outdoor for the 2006 to 2007 season. He also won the Red Letter Award for cross country from 2003 to 2005. The Chenango Forks native currently resides in Mt Holly Springs, Pennsylvania.

Some of the questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.


Why did you choose Cortland?
I chose Cortland because I wanted to go into physical education. I grew up in Binghamton and Jack Daniels was coaching [at Cortland] at the time I was in [high] school. He was already a legend in terms of coaching and the accomplishments that he had. I really looked up to Jack before then and when I first started looking at colleges, I actually didn’t realize he coached at Cortland. When I learned that Cortland had a great physical education program and that Jack was the coach there, I pretty much stopped looking at schools. I was like, ‘this is the school that makes sense academically for me and Jack Daniels is the coach here’. That was pretty much it. Up to that point, I was exploring some different schools, but then I was like, ‘I definitely want to go to Cortland’ and I did.
 
What do you remember about your national title season?
When I won nationals, Jack had left and Matt Moran was the coach at the time. Anytime you have a new coach, they have to establish themselves as a leader and have to regroup the team. I remember that I was really nervous that it was going to be challenging and that the team wouldn’t have the same dynamic. That wasn’t the case at all. Moran came in and was great at rallying the team and creating camaraderie with the athletes that were there. I remember him instilling so much confidence in us. A memory that really stands out is leading into that national championship, I was doing a workout in Lusk and [Moran] said to me, ‘there is no way you’re not going to win nationals’ and I was like, ‘what do you mean?’ He said, ‘nobody can outrun you and nobody can outkick you, so you can’t lose.’ It was just one of those moments that— those are the types of things you want a coach to say, but the harder thing is having the athlete believe it, and I did. I remember believing that I could win. I thought that I was going to be the strongest runner in the race. You want to balance confidence and also being able to go out there and preform at your best. I just remember that his leadership was really inspiring. He took the team and we believed in him and we believed in the team. That was pretty cool.
 
What is your favorite memory of Cortland?
My best memory, it’s sort of about track, but not in the way you’re probably expecting. I don’t even know what year it was. It was when Jack was still there, so probably 2003 or 2004. A bunch of us were eating dinner after practice and you know how people have weird schedules, so we were eating dinner and it was like 10 o’clock at night. So we’re eating and somehow we got into a debate— and mind you, it was all distance runners. We got into a debate about who was the fastest over 400m. The four of us decided that we were going to do a two-person relay, so two people each run a 400m for 800m total. We had to settle who was faster, but we wanted to make it as official as possible, so we wanted to do it at the track. By the time we got it all figured out, it was almost midnight. I had developed a really close relationship with Jack, almost to the point we were more friends then anything by the time he left. Even though it was like midnight, I called Jack and told him what we wanted to do. We wanted to run this stupid race and asked him if he would open the field house and he did. He drove down to Lusk— it’s kinda embarrassing now that we would even bother him at midnight, but I think it shows a side of Jack that a lot of people didn’t realize he had, which was that he truly loved the sport in on a very organic level. Like, here are some people that want to race each other for no reason other than they want to race each other and he loved that. I think that would be surprising to a lot of people. I think most coaches would see it as reckless and just something that’s really dumb. So he came, opened the field house, we ran the stupid race that doesn’t mean anything and actually out of it, a tradition was born. I don’t know if this still exists, but we used to have a midnight race between cross country season and track season every year and it would be a bunch of people and we would make up stupid races. We even did semis and a final heat of a 60m, which was ridiculous because none of us could actually sprint. We even would do some jumping events and just some really stupid stuff. That went on for as long as I was there. Those were my best memories. Both the friendships and the love for the sport; we weren’t doing it for any other reason except for the fact that we wanted to run as hard as we could against each other. 
 
What have you taken from being a part of the team?
Being part of a team, teaches you to work not only for yourself, but also for others. Some of the coolest opportunities that I had were when we were in races and we were trying to help each other out. One race that always stood out to me happened at outdoor SUNYACS in 2007. We had a really good 5k/10k group at the time and we made it our goal to go one through five in the 10k, which is pretty ridiculous. We were running along and three of us Cortland runners broke away from the field and then there was a runner from Plattsburg and our next runner was behind him. I actually slowed down and ran with him, Josh Henry, who actually helped coach at Cortland for a little bit. So Josh and I worked together until Josh eventually made his way back up to the group. We ended up finishing one through five. It’s one of those things where a sport that often seems so individual can also be team oriented. It was awesome to be able to work hard for someone else and let your hard work earn something for them and for the team. Also, one time at nationals, I roomed with a thrower on the team and it was pretty cool to see someone who competes in a completely differently event, work just as hard at trying to earn a result we can all be proud of as a team. I think it’s so cool that you’re trying to earn something for everybody.
 
What are you doing now?
Now, my wife and I own a running store in Pennsylvania. We own and operate a store called Fleet Feet, which is a franchise and we opened it from scratch in 2015. Also, I still do a lot of coaching. I lead training programs, which are anything from beginner 5k groups to marathon groups. I also put on different races. Our areas that we focus on in the business are a little bit different. My wife works a little more closely with the buying and the day-to-day operations of the business and I work more with the events, the training, the running program and the marketing type stuff. We’re pretty lucky because we’re still doing something involved with running and something we’re passionate about, so it makes it a lot of fun.
 
Do you have any advice for Cortland XC/TF athletes now?
My advice would be to chase your dreams. This advice was given to me by the coach I had at junior college, Tom Carter. It is something I’ve always lived by. Life is much more enjoyable if you’re doing what you’re passionate about, so if you’re passionate about something, chase it even if it seems silly. When I was at Cortland, at one point I developed the dream of being a professional runner and most people thought that was stupid, including a lot of my family and even some of the coaches at Cortland were sort of leaning me against it. They were like, ‘you probably won’t make any money, you’re going to struggle’, but those were the best things I did. They were right. I didn’t make any money and I did struggle, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t some of the best experiences of my life. Those things lead to who you are. There is no reason you can’t have a profession while also doing some of the things you love. I have no regrets and I hope that other young people will see that too and if you have an opportunity, even if it sounds crazy, and it doesn’t have to be running related, I would just encourage people to do it. Don’t be afraid to go for something just because it seems unrealistic or other people think it’s stupid. If it’s something you want to do, you should go for it.