Final laps inside the DakotaDome ahead for Gemeda

After moving to Sioux City, Iowa, from Ethiopia, Merga Gemeda wanted to be a soccer player. Two years in a row he got cut from the high school varsity and two years in a row his twin brother made the team.That was tough to take on several levels for Gemeda, now a senior at the University of South Dakota who is the Coyotes’ top men’s distance runner.

To heck with soccer, he decided. Next up was track. Maybe he could be a quarter-miler.

After a few discouraging attempts at that distance, however, he was getting ready to quit again when his high school coach suggested he try 1,600 meters.

That was three more laps than he wanted to run, but maybe once just to say you tried?

 “The next day they put me in the mile race,” Gemeda remembered. “It was sort of like a time trial – they could see who was good enough to be on the team. I ended up winning the race. That’s how I got into running. I didn’t like running up to that point. Then I eventually started liking it.”

By the time Gemeda was a senior at Sioux City North, he was one of Iowa’s top distance runners in both track and cross country. He was good enough to be worthy of interest at USD, where former coach Dan Fitzsimmons saw potential.

Gemeda has since then confirmed it was a good idea to bring him into the program. Last spring he broke a 22-year-old school record in the 10,000 meters, followed by making the all-Summit League cross country squad for the third time this past fall. He enters the Summit League Indoor Track & Field Championships this weekend at the DakotaDome as the Coyotes’ top threat in the mile and 3,000 meters.

“This has been a very healthy season so far,” Gemeda said. “I was dealing with an injury last year (during the cross country season) and that held me back for the indoor season and had me behind in the outdoor season, too. This year has been much better.”

Fitzsimmons, the longtime USD distance coach, left last summer and is now coaching at Mount Marty College. Replacing Fitzsimmons was former Illinois assistant Nolan Fife, who got to know Gemeda quickly.

“It has been very helpful for me as a first-year coach to have a No. 1 guy who is coachable and willing to learn,” Fife said. “It carries significant weight when the runner who is crossing the finish line first for your team is trying to evolve as a runner and a racer. He’s a leader, maybe not so much vocally, but by example.”

Gemeda and his family moved from Ethiopia to the U.S. when he was 12 years old. He struggled with the language initially, as well as the culture. In time, becoming a runner played a big part in establishing a comfort level with his new life.

“It was definitely challenging coming from Africa, but I looked at it as an opportunity to become a better person,” Gemeda said. “Running definitely helped me with that. In running, you have to have that mindset that you’re not giving up, no matter what and that carried over to my education. It was how I made most of my friends and how I started being around very disciplined people. Being in that kind of environment has really helped me.”

Fife didn’t have much of a role in putting together the current group of distance runners at USD, so getting to know his student-athletes as well as he would like to has taken extra effort in some cases. It’s an inevitable part of being a first-year college coach. It’s not an unpleasant process, just a necessary one.

In regard to Gemeda, he now knows him pretty well. His biggest endorsement of his senior is that he’d like to find more athletes like him.

“I’m very fortunate that I have a guy like Merga in our program,” Fife said. “Given what he’s done for the program, USD is fortunate that he’s done what he’s done. He has another couple months to put a stamp on his legacy here. I’m excited about seeing how that all unfolds and what it looks like when he’s done.”

Gemeda will compete on his home track for the final time this weekend as South Dakota hosts the Summit League Indoor Championships on Saturday and Sunday inside the DakotaDome.