Mark Fairley ended his career in a way that most athletes can only dream of – by winning a national championship in his final performance of his senior season.

It was during his freshman year that the foundation was laid for that success.

Fairley, a newly minted Central College alumni, won the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA Championships last month. Last night on the Central College Radio Coaches Corner on KRLS, his coach, Joe Dunham, remembered an extremely strong group of upperclassmen that Fairley crossed paths with during his rookie season.

“We’ve had some really incredible distance guys in Eli Horton, Cole Decker, Austin O’Brien, Drew Jackson, guys who came in and re-wrote the record books here at Central. Mark got the chance to train with those guys for one year. His freshman year, those guys were seniors and juniors. So he had a chance to train with those guys and learn from them, and now Mark has re-written the record books himself, as he’s the school record holder in the steeplechase. And he’s one of the few national champions we’ve had as well, which is pretty cool.”

You can hear our entire chat with Coach Dunham on demand in the KRLS Stream at www.kniakrls.com.