Posted 10/12/06
Cam Klein is a junior on the cross country and track teams and is from Monroe. He was a NCAA Division III national qualifier in track in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
You are coming back this year from an injury. What happened, and how are you doing?
"Basically, during the outdoor track conference, I hit my left knee on a steeple chase barrier and it got really swollen and became injured. That led to me having bad form and with the bad form and my running and continuing to run on it until nationals made the I.T band get aggravated in my right leg and that's what I've been struggling with all summer."
Is that affecting your season thus far?
"I had to take the whole month of June off so I didn't get any training in and I had to come back pretty slowly. My base is a little lower, so I'm not as strong with my base as I should be and I'm sort of training tentatively because I don't want to aggravate it too much and be out for the season."
This year, you have an internship, cross country, and you even update the cross country webpage on Sundays. What are you doing your internship for and how do you have time for all of that and be a student athlete?
"I worked this summer at Monroe Truck Equipment and they asked me to keep doing it throughout the fall. I draw parts for them that I send back. Fortunately, I can do that on my own time and that helps a lot so I can do that in-between studying and practice and doing stats and everything else I do. So between all of those things, I'm pretty busy but as long as you budget your time well it's not a big problem."
Do you have any goals for the season?
"I would like to see the team go to nations with that being one of our main goals this year and when we get to nations we would like to get top four so we can bring a trophy home. I would like to contribute to that national's team. We are also aiming to be top two at conference."
What would you consider you career Highlights?
"My highlights so far would be competing at nations in the steeple chase even though my injury kept me from doing as well as I would have liked. Also, regionals for cross country last year; I had a big personal record and I felt I had a pretty good race and conference outdoor this year was pretty good too."
What brought you to UW-Platteville?
"I've been coming to Platteville since I've been a little kid because Monroe is so close. It's fortunate that the engineering and running programs are really good and that kept me here."
Interview by SID student assistant Heather Schaufenbil