Bio

Before 1997, no Goucher runner had ever completed an 8,000-meter race in under 27 minutes. Jeffrey Olenick shattered that barrier in his very first attempt as a Gopher, crossing the finish line of the 1997 Retriever Invitational with a time of 26:13, finishing second in a field of 86 predominantly Division I runners.

It was just a hint of the great things to come from this gifted athlete.  Olenick recorded even faster 8,000-meter times twice again during his first season, once as a sophomore, three more times as a junior, and six times as a senior. By the time he graduated, he owned the 25 fastest times for an 8,000-meter cross country race in program history.

As a freshman, Olenick won the York Invitational, the Goucher Invitational, and the Capital Athletic Conference Championship. By placing seventh in a field of 246 runners that year at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regionals, he became Goucher's first representative to the NCAA Divison III Championship.

He defended his individual title at the York Invitational in 1998, and was the top runner at six different events in 1999, including the CAC Championship. He added six more first-place performances as a senior in 2000, as well as a third CAC individual title.

Olenick closed out his Goucher cross country career by placing third at the Mideast Regional meet and then ninth at the 2000 NCAA Division III Championship in Spokane, Wash., to become the first Division III All-America runner in school history.  A first-team All-CAC selection all four years he ran for the Gophers, Olenick remains the only three-time CAC Male Cross Country Runner of the Year.

But the story doesn't end there.  Although track and field wasn't an intercollegiate sport at Goucher when he arrived, Olenick joined the two-year-old program as a senior in 2001 and began breaking records anew.  He still holds indoor school records in both the 1,500 and 5,000, along with the all-time outdoor standards in the 1,500, 5,000, and 10,000. Following the CAC Championships, where he placed first in both the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs, he was named the conference's Co-Male Athlete of the Year, and was the sole recipient of Goucher's Coaches Award in 2001.

Olenick was also an exemplary student. He was presented with Goucher's Scholar-Athlete Award in 2000 and was named CAC Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 1999-2000 and 2000-01.  He compiled a 3.87 GPA as a history major and was awarded a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. 

His Goucher jersey was retired during ceremonies in February 2006.