Forrest Tahdooahnippah's life was going well at Stanford last spring. The former Minneapolis Southwest long-distance runner was going to graduate with honors, with a bachelor's degree in public policy. He was looking forward to law school in the fall and his final cross-country season.
Tahdooahnippah had helped the Cardinal take fourth place in the 2006 NCAA meet. He was Stanford's third runner and finished 68th overall out of 250.
His priorities changed on April 12, the day his best friend committed suicide. The friend, Maurice Morsette, was a Stanford sophomore from New Town, N.D., and an Indian like Tahdooahnippah, who is half Comanche.
Tahdooahnippah, who was accepted into law school at both Stanford and Minnesota, decided to return home. He wanted to be closer to family and friends.
On Saturday, his running career comes full circle when he competes for the Gophers in the Roy Griak Invitational, their only home meet this season.
Five years ago Tahdooahnippah, then a high school senior, won the boys' race in the Griak meet. It was a victory that changed his life.
Stanford, which won the NCAA cross-country title that fall, began recruiting him. Eager for the athletic and academic challenges in Palo Alto, Calif., Tahdooahnippah chose a prestigious college he had not been considering before. After a redshirt year, he competed for the Cardinal for three years.
Tahdooahnippah will use his final year for cross-country and track at Minnesota under the NCAA one-time transfer rule, which allows Division I athletes in all sports except football, basketball and men's hockey to be eligible immediately upon switching schools.
"He had a very tough final semester at Stanford," said Teresa Whitman, Tahdooahnippah's mother. "His close friend committed suicide. There was a lot of sorrow on the Stanford campus for him."
As a sign of mourning Tahdooahnippah had shoulder-length hair cut short. On his trip back to Minnesota last spring, he stopped in Sacramento to visit with Billy Mills, one of his boyhood heroes who has become a mentor.
An inspiration
Mills, raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, was a virtual unknown when he won the 10,000-meter run in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Tahdooahnippah was in junior high when he met Mills in 1999. He went to hear Mills speak at an Indian business conference at Mystic Lake. Hoping for a handshake, Mills instead invited him to lunch, and they talked several hours.
Their paths crossed again during Tahdooahnippah's high school years. Both were involved in the Wings of America program, which sends young Indian runners to national cross-country meets.
For inspiration before big races, Tahdooahnippah used to watch "Running Brave," a 1984 movie on Mills.
"Forrest is one of the brightest young men I have ever met," Mills said, "and I have been to 91 countries and been around the world half a dozen times. When he finds his passion and zeroes in on it, he has the potential to be among the elite."
During their most recent visit, Mills talked about his own troubles in college at Kansas, and about channeling anger and grief into positive goals. "If you ever need to talk, call me," he told Tahdooahnippah.
Heavy workload at the U
gophers/ncaa
resize text 
Newspaper Subscriptions
eEdition
RSS
Newsletters
