INDIANAPOLIS – The book on Butler cross-country is “Moneyball” meets “The Sports Gene.”
Twenty-two schools qualified both men’s and women’s cross-country teams for Saturday’s NCAA Championships at Tallahassee, Fla. Eighteen are from the five major football conferences, and the four others are Georgetown, Harvard, Northern Arizona . . . and Butler.
“We’re the outlier of outliers,” said Matt Roe, the Bulldogs’ 47-year-old coach who is in his 14th year in charge of the program.
Georgetown and Harvard are elite universities, and Northern Arizona is in the altitude training mecca of Flagstaff.
Butler? It is embracing the underdog ethos.