The unique facility that will host the Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships this fall was built on top of reclaimed coal-mined land, instead of a corn field, and it's in Indiana, not Iowa.

But the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute unquestionably has become a field of dreams -- not only for those who will run the course in November, but also for a community that is positioning itself as a focal point for a sport.

"It's a facility that's been developed exclusively for cross country," said John McNichols, coordinator of track and field and cross country at Indiana State University, which is at the midpoint of an unprecedented three-year agreement to host the Division I championships at the Gibson course.

But it's more than that: It's a rare spectator-friendly course that challenges runners without beating them up. It's located in a city that has embraced its opportunity to host participants in a major college sporting event. And it's staged on land that once was owned by a family that took a personal interest in cross country running.

"We were able to accomplish these things mostly because of the unique layout -- we had 240 acres to work with -- and because of seed money from a family here in town, and also from (basketball star and Indiana State alumnus) Larry Bird," McNichols said.

The course is named for the grandfather of Greg Gibson, who currently heads the family businesses and who once competed in cross country at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, a Division III institution in Terre Haute.

"Through supporting Greg, (the family) all became cross country and distance fans," McNichols said. "So it was kind of a natural for the family to invest in the sport."

Since then, the entire community has invested as well.

"The community seems to embrace and appreciate it," said David Patterson, executive director of the Terre Haute Convention and Visitors Bureau, which also has provided crucial support in developing the facility, which is part of the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center. "They appreciate that there's a great course in Terre Haute, Indiana, and that it's something we're known for."

A raw piece of ground

It all started with basically a blank canvas.

"We had a unique situation of having a raw piece of ground -- a reclaimed coal mine -- to work with, with no trees, with dips and valleys," McNichols said.

The property permitted a design that features a wide, 900-meter straightaway at the start, and a uniformly 10-meter-wide trail that moves through a series of sweeping turns and loops. A spectator who stands at the highest spot on the course essentially can watch the entire race -- a possibility that's nearly unheard-of elsewhere in the cross country world.

"The surveyor who put down the stakes could park his pickup at that high point, and wherever he was out on the course marking, if he could see the vehicle, then we'd assume whoever was on that high point could see the course and the runners," McNichols said. "So that's how it worked out that there's an ideal viewing area where, with a pair of binoculars, you can watch the whole race."

Yet, that's only one attraction for spectators, who have tended to line the fences near the starting line and finish chute to urge on their favorite competitors. Many will gather near the 105-meter-wide starting area, then run to higher points to view the race, then race back to the finish line.

"To see that mass of humanity running out across those hills is quite a sight -- kind of intimidating, in fact," McNichols said.

The venue's spectator-friendly setting is further enhanced by visible clocks on the finish tower and around the permanent, elevated press box (a rarity itself at a cross country venue), and by the use of technology that permits quick recording and posting of final results.

The course opened in 1997, and even before the significant improvements of the past eight years were put in place, it won advocates among cross country coaches who appreciated the ability it offered to communicate with runners at various points during a race.

It first hosted an NCAA regional meet in 1998, and teams seeking to advance to the national meet immediately appreciated the course's layout.

"It's a very fair course for the runners; there aren't any tight turns, there isn't a turn 400 meters into the race that bottlenecks," McNichols said. "There just aren't killer hills. The race can flow pretty good.

"It's not that it isn't a challenging course. I think anybody who's raced it will tell you, it's deceiving, but there's fair footing the whole way for every runner. I think the athletes really appreciate that aspect."

This year's championships participants will find that several years of careful nurturing of turf grasses is yielding another welcome development.

"I'm proud to say that in my 10-year tenure (with the Convention and Visitors Bureau), the course has never looked better," Patterson said. "The footing is incredible -- and that's from a layman's standpoint. I'm shocked at the difference."

There are other new attractions for student-athletes -- notably, a team "village" where participants have ready access to athletic trainers and various race-day comforts.

"Most of the construction that has been done on the course has been funded by our Convention and Visitors Bureau, for an obvious reason -- the weekends we have contests out there, hotels are jammed," McNichols said.

Creating awareness

It's true that the six to eight events that occur annually at the Gibson course -- including high-school and other races, in addition to NCAA competition -- bring visitors to Terre Haute during a time of year when it otherwise might be difficult to fill hotel rooms, Patterson said.

Terre Haute's experience, however, might be a textbook case of how the right situation can benefit both an NCAA host city and a sport.

"It's a combination of bringing visitors in and having an economic impact, and also creating awareness about the sport itself," Patterson said, adding that even local residents are developing an appreciation for cross country.

"Our morning paper had a nice article about just a dual meet between two rival high schools," Patterson said. "In past years, that would have drawn a two-sentence mention in the 'other sports' category, and now they're sending photographers."

McNichols cites community support not only for development of the Gibson course, but for attracting return engagements of the NCAA championships and other events.

"There's a lot of pride here that we are, at least during this three-year reign, the center of the country for cross country," he said, adding that residents volunteer as greeters at hotels and help with parking cars on race day, and that merchants "have gone out of their way" to make the teams welcome in the city.

"For a small Midwest town to have an event the size and scope of the Division I nationals is nothing short of amazing, quite honestly," Patterson said. "It's uncommon."

Like McNichols, Patterson also is quick to credit local support for success with the Gibson course, including elected officials and the Convention and Visitors Bureau board of directors.

"It really was an easy sell," he said of his board's support. "We started slowly with the money that we gave, but over time have given substantially, simply because it's paid off for us. We got the sense that, the greater this course became, the greater impact it would have on our community."

Setting a new standard

Winning a three-year agreement to host the NCAA event helped, too.

"The three-year designation simply gave us more confidence that with the money we were spending, we're going to have a good end result," Patterson said.

With the agreement, Indiana State and Terre Haute became the first site to host the event for more then two consecutive years since Michigan State's 26-year reign as host ended in 1964 -- and became the first site asked to serve as host for three years. The request stemmed from the Gibson course's first turn as host in 2002 -- only five years after the course opened.

"We put in another bid for 2004," McNichols said. "There had been feelers put out, would we host more, and we didn't say no to that." Then, Indiana State's recently retired athletics director, Andrea Myers, was asked by the Division I Track and Field Committee if the school would consider hosting for three years.

"We kicked it around with a few people who'd end up doing a lot of the work on this thing, and after they picked themselves up off the floor, we thought, well, we might as well go ahead with it," McNichols said.

All that work has gone pretty smoothly, he believes, and the focus now is "making sure we don't get complacent, or just flat out forget some detail."

Meanwhile, all involved occasionally take time to step back and appreciate what's been accomplished in such a short time.

"When you have that many kids from that many schools, and the number of colors of jerseys -- kids from Florida, Maine, Oregon and New Mexico -- it's just amazing that these people are coming from all over the nation to run a race here," Patterson said. "As a citizen, I think you take pride in that."

With a unique venue and community support, McNichols believes the Gibson course has set a new standard for the Division I championships and the sport of cross country.

"I really think we've kind of revolutionized what the expectations are for putting on a championship, and what the course should consist of."