Breaking Penn State records and putting up All-America performances is nothing new for junior Ryan Foster.
After a successful sophomore season, Foster was selected as one of the captains for the Nittany Lions' men's track team and has not disappointed.
Foster broke the Penn State indoor record in his primary race, the 800-meters, with a time of 1 minute, 47.32 seconds at the Husky Invitational Feb 13. At the NCAA Indoor Championships last weekend, Foster cemented himself among the nation's elite with a bronze medal finish in the 800.
After he graduates, Foster plans to pick up sponsors and continue his track career. The native Australian aspires to run in the 2012 London Olympic games and said he believes he is on a good pace to secure a spot on the Australian team.
Head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said she doesn't know the limits to Foster's potential and she's looking forward to seeing what he can do the rest of his Penn State career.
"He's achieved a lot already," Alford-Sullivan said, "but I know he's nowhere near done."
Getting to the NCAA
He's looking to go to the Olympics now, but Foster almost never made it to Penn State.
His story begins in high school in 2005 as the team captain for the state of Tasmania, a small island off the coast of Australia.
"Being from Tasmania made it hard doing athletics," Foster said. "To find any competition, I'd have to fly to the mainland, which is a $200 to $300 trip."
His high school running can be described in two words: almost nonexistent. Foster had the opportunity to run in only two meets per year.
Even with the scarce competition, Foster managed to meet Donna MacFarlane, then 27 years old and trying to get back in running shape after having a baby. In 2006, MacFarlane ranked in the top-10 in the world in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Foster and MacFarlane trained together as he prepared to run his junior season in high school.
MacFarlane vividly remembers her first encounter with him. As she approached a group of long distance runners including Foster, she remembers hearing him say, "Who is this mother coming here to join our group?"
"I think he was a bit tentative at first," MacFarlane said with a chuckle.
The relationship that grew between the two helped MacFarlane get into form for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but Foster wasn't as lucky.
Through their training, injuries and sickness threatened to cripple his dream of running in the NCAA.
In the spring of his junior year of high school, Foster came down with a severe case of mononucleosis, effectively ending his track season. Undeterred, he came back strong the following cross country season, only to tear a hamstring.
This ended any chance to impress colleges overseas, and he received only minimal interest from recruiters. Many found it hard to find him because of Tasmania's obscurity on the track map -- not even taking into account the time lost to injuries.
Feeling out of luck, Foster enrolled at the University of Tasmania, where he spent his freshman year. As he prepared for his freshman track season, a knee injury made any hope of running in the NCAA bleak.
Foster, upset with his school and where his running career was headed, decided to take another shot at finding a college in the United States.
He narrowed his choices to schools mostly in the Northeast and on the West Coast. He also sent almost every Big Ten school an e-mail -- except Penn State.
"That's the real irony of this whole thing," Foster said.
Though he received interest from a few schools, no one would sit down and actually listen to the story of his past injuries and why he hadn't been running.
It looked to Foster as if he may be stuck in Tasmania. Then, he finally caught a lucky break.
Grant Stanfield, a native Australian who ran track at Council Rock North High School in Newtown, returned home to attend the University of Tasmania.
Foster told him he narrowed down his college choices and he was looking to attend a school in the Northeast.
Stanfield's response could not have been more perfect.
His best friend, John Mahoney, happened to be running for the Nittany Lions, and he offered to put Foster in contact.
Foster's times eventually reached assistant coach John Gondak, and after some sporadic e-mailing, Foster received an offer from Penn State. He stayed undecided, as it was hard to imagine leaving everything he had ever known for a place he knew little about.
Then, in April 2008, he decided attending Penn State was worth the risk.
An Olympic Hopeful
"The moment I knew I wanted to come here was when [Coach Gondak] started talking about London 2012 Olympics," Foster said of coming to Penn State.
"I knew then it wasn't just going to be a place where I go and get used for my athletic ability. It was actually a place where they were going to take a real interest in developing me as an athlete, personally."
This season, Foster has already broken the Penn State records in the 800-meters and the 1,000-meters, as well as the Australian national records in the same races.
A little over a year into the Penn State program, Foster has lofty expectations for the rest of his Lions career. Besides the given goals of a Big Ten title and a national title, one record is particularly special to him.
Foster said he would like to break the collegiate 4x800 record at the Penn Relays. With Foster, Penn State junior Owen Dawson and freshman Casimir Loxsom currently in the top-10 and junior Lionel Williams ranked 15th in the 800-meters nationally, the goal is definitely in reach.
The team of Vance Watson, Steve Shisler, Chris Mills and Randy Moore set the collegiate record for Penn State in the 1985 Penn Relays with a time of 7 minutes, 11.17 seconds.
Foster said he wanted to be a part of setting the record not only because it's momentous, but also because it's team-based.
After his Penn State career, Foster will be presented with a whole different set of challenges. He will first need to renew his visa to stay in the United States.
Next, Foster will need to attract sponsorships to run professionally as he trains for the London Olympic Games.
"At the moment, my current plan is to stay in State College and run straight through until 2012," Foster said.
"Once that's all done and the dust settles, I'll decide from there."
At least one Olympian thinks Foster's dream is within reach.
"I'm sure that if Ryan can continue to train and enjoy running, he'll have as good a shot as anyone who's trying to make the Olympics," MacFarlane said.
