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.

Interview Menu

Tammie (Miller) Bernhardt ’94

Tammie Miller Bernhardt is a three time-individual NCAA champion, three-time team NCAA champion in cross country and a 10-time All-American. Additionally, Bernhardt won the Cortland cross country Red Letter Award in 1991 and 1993. She also won the Cortland track and field Red Letter Award for indoor and outdoor for the 1992 to 1993 season. Bernhardt lives in her hometown of Groton with her husband and two children, both currently attending SUNY Cortland and swim at the division III level.

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


Why did you choose Cortland?
Mainly because of Jack [Daniels]. He came to one of my track meets in high school and he was just a really nice guy. I don’t think he’s ever raised his voice to anybody. He was kind, knowledgeable and nice. I graduated high school in 1989 and went to Tompkins Cortland Community College for a semester and that was the semester Cortland had won their second cross country nationals. I saw that in the paper and was like, ‘oh my gosh. That’s amazing’. Also, my parents said I had to pay for college, so Cortland was 10 minutes from my house.
 
What do you remember about your national title season(s)?
For my first cross country nationals, I remember Jack asked me to be on the team and I knew nothing about cross country. I didn’t even know that the lowest score won. So at the first meet, he said, ‘Tammie, you need to follow another teammate because I don’t want you to get lost.’ So, I followed my teammate. I followed her when she walked, when she ran and we got last place. Jack came over to me at the end of the race and said, ‘wow, we have a lot of work to do.’ That year, I was about the tenth girl on the team throughout the season. Towards the end, Jack said, ‘top seven go to nationals’ and we had a race-off at Penn State. At Penn State, I got sixth, so he said I was going [to nationals]. I thought, at least I’m sixth, I won’t count and I can get the experience. At nationals, in the first mile, I passed the sixth girl and in the second mile, I passed the fifth girl. Then I was like, ‘oh my gosh, I count.’ Jack was yelling at me saying someone was winning it and when I crossed the finish line, I was 27, two places out of All-American. By the time they gave out awards, the girl in front of me got disqualified and so I was 26. I said to myself, I am not going to do that again, I’m going to be All-American and that this sucks. For my first individual title in the 3k, I remember wanting to break 10 minutes. It was my first year, I had qualified for nationals and I was seeded with one of the slowest times going in. Jack came up to me before the race and I said to him, ‘that girl in the braids over there, she’s giving me weird vibes’ and he assured me that I was faster than her and that I should worry about everyone else. So with one and half laps left, she took off on the straightaway and I thought, Jack said I could go with her, so I took off and with 200m left, I passed her. When I finished, I was like, ‘I guess you were right Jack.’ My grandfather was there too and he goes, ‘Tammie, I didn’t know that you were going to win. I didn’t bring the video camera!’ I never thought I would win. I went in wanting to break 10 minutes and I think I ran 9:56.  
 
What was winning your first title like?
I think I mentioned it before. The first cross country one was the one where I didn’t make All-American. I guess what it is is that I didn’t even expect to be on the [cross country] team.
 
What is your favorite memory of Cortland?
I have two of them. One was Jack deciding I should try the 10,000m. I said, ‘Jack, I’m a mid-distance person. I’m not a 10k runner’ and he was like, ‘you’re going to try it. I’ll stand on the side of the track and I’ll make a different face every time you come by.’ So here he is, in his cowboy hat, trench coat and clogs, on the inside the track making a funny face every time I went by. When I finished, I said it was the worst thing I have ever done and that I never wanted to do it again, but Jack said, ‘but you qualified for nationals!’ The second memory I have is going to Cleveland, Ohio for the 3,000m for outdoor nationals and my boyfriend at the time, now husband, Charlie, rode up with my grandparents and entire family in a camper. They stopped at every Amish place they could go to. It took them two days to get there. Charlie said to me, ‘I am not riding back with them. You need to do something,’ so I asked Jack if Charlie could ride home with us and he said he could. The night I had won, we went out to a bar to celebrate and Charlie is a partyer. So he’s out in the middle of the dance floor dancing and his glass mug drops and breaks all over the floor. They gave him a broom and a dustpan and told him to clean it up. We laugh about it all the time.

What have you taken from being a part of the team?
This is bad, but sometimes just because you don’t like a person doesn’t mean you should let it show. I loved most of my team members. I actually had everyone at my wedding in August, [three months after graduating college]. I guess another thing is that you don’t realize what you have until you’re out.
 
What are you doing now?
Eight years ago, my husband decided that we should open up a dog-boarding business. With a dollar and a dream, we built our own facility next to our house. We have 13 dog kennels and six cat kennels. The first week we opened, I didn’t sleep. I went out and checked on the dogs every two hours to make sure they were alive. It’s a tough business; it’s 365-days a year, but I just treat the dogs the way I would want my own dogs to be treated. Also, we breed Bengal cats. Once a year, we have a liter of Bengal kittens and they are really cute. Actually, that’s probably why I opened this business in the first place because my husband said I could get more Bengals.
 
Do you have any advice for Cortland XC/TF athletes now?
You can’t give up on anything. You have to keep trying, no matter what you’re doing. Just because you’re at this point at this time doesn’t mean when you’re done, you’re going to be at that same point.