CCIW Student-Athlete Spotlight (March 2020)
Each month, the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) will highlight the accomplishments of a conference student-athlete. This month, we look into the career of Elmhurst junior cross country and track & field runner Emily Clausen.

Story by Mike Krizman, CCIW Assistant Executive Director

NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Elmhurst junior Emily Clausen made a crucial discovery about herself that helped change the course of her running career.
 
Before that, she resigned to her fate as just an average runner, destined to be a good teammate that pushed others towards success – not someone who could help the team with her performance.
 
However, a discovery made during her sophomore year helped turn the tide in her favor.
 
“That summer before my sophomore year, I was training, but noticed that my times weren’t as well as they were in high school,” Clausen said. “I would go on four to eight mile runs and they would all end up at 10 or 11-minute mile takes. I was constantly asking myself ‘why am I so tired?’.”
 
It was there that the Elmhurst coaching staff, led by head coach Jordan Bartolazzi and assistant Molly Dalton, began to wonder why Clausen’s times weren’t improving despite her putting in the work. A visit to the doctor’s office answered that question.
 
“Going back, early in my running career, I became a vegetarian,” Clausen said. “That, combined with joining the cross country and track & field teams my junior year of high school, I started to have a gradual decline in my iron count. I didn’t really notice it at first because it was happening so slowly and gradually over time. Up until then, I had never really thought about how my health choices and dietary changes were affecting my body.”  
Finding out that the problem was physical and easily corrected, Clausen set forth on a path towards becoming a competitive athlete.
 
“I continued being a vegetarian, but I became more conscious of what I was eating,” she said. “I started taking iron supplements every day and I started seeing improvement in my running ability after three to four months. I was physically fit and able to do a 7:30 mile pace for 4-8 miles, which was a really amazing feeling because I didn’t think I was capable of that. I had always counted myself out as a competitive athlete.”
 
For Bartolazzi, he saw a renewed runner in Clausen at the beginning of the 2019-20 season.
 
“When we discovered her health issues, I could tell how relieved Emily was,” he said. “She took a significant amount of time away from running to focus on restoring her health, and she came back refreshed and recharged. In the fall, she could not run a single mile in under eight minutes, and at her first indoor track meet in January, she ran 5:55.”
 
The hard work paid off during the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Indoor Championships this past February. Clausen took home all-conference honors with a fifth place finish in the 3,000-meter run, clocking a time of 10:47.47 and scoring four points for the Bluejays.
 
She also ran the mile leg of the sixth-place distance medley relay that clocked a time of 13:13.86.
 
“I just felt joy,” Clausen said of her all-conference performance. “It was very surreal. I didn’t think I had it in me to make it to that level of competitiveness in my running.”
 
Clausen’s performance at the indoor meet gave Bartolazzi a chance to reflect on her career and the work she put in that led to her moment.
 
“Coaching Emily has been one of the most remarkable experiences I have had in my young coaching career,” he said “She was legitimately the slowest runner on our team when her sophomore year began, and if it wasn’t for the relationship she built with assistant coach Mollie Dalton, I don’t think she would have stayed on the team. I could tell she wasn’t sure of her place or her role and was increasingly frustrated with how far behind her teammates she was. I think Coach Mollie’s continued encouragement to Emily that she mattered to our team no matter how fast or slow she was is the only reason Emily made it.”  
Clausen wasn’t recruited to Elmhurst for her athletic ability. Bartolazzi contacted her in high school when he was working in the admission’s office. She came to visit the campus and immediately felt right at home.
 
“He does a really good job of making people feel at home at Elmhurst,” Clausen said of Bartolazzi. “He was one of the main reasons why I decided to come to Elmhurst. He made everything so simple at a time in my life that was chaotic.”
 
Bartolazzi was named the head women’s cross country and track & field coach during the fall of Clausen’s freshman year, and she jumped at the opportunity to compete for the Bluejays.
 
“I approached him about joining the team and he was very open to it,” she said. “His positive attitude has been great for our class because we’ve gone in with an attitude that we’re building something special. We may have been down, but we’re building it back up.”
 
“Even before she found success in the sport, Emily was a model teammate,” Bartolazzi said. “She prioritizes her studies [3.97 GPA as an Environmental Studies major]. She’s involved in student clubs and organizations on campus and she’s always been a dedicated and supportive teammate."  
When the outdoor season was abruptly canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Clausen felt like everyone else. Shock and sadness followed, but then a focus on a new course of action.
 
She joined her collegiate classmates across the country in remote learning and looks forward to returning to competition next season.
 
“After talking with my coaches, we resolved it out to saying that this is our opportunity to step up,” Clausen said. “We have this whole span of time to grow as an individual. I’m not with my teammates and that’s a difficult dynamic, but I’ll keep working hard for them and be ready for the future.”

CCIW Student-Athlete Spotlight
Emily Clausen - Elmhurst (March 2020)
Colton Klein - Carthage (February 2020)
Michaela Johnson - Carroll (January 2020)
Luke Sawicki - Augustana (December 2019)
The College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) was founded in 1946 and currently services nine member institutions including Augustana College (Rock Island, IL), Carroll University (Waukesha, WI), Carthage College (Kenosha, WI), Elmhurst College (Elmhurst, IL), Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL), Millikin University (Decatur, IL), North Central College (Naperville, IL), North Park University (Chicago, IL) and Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL). During the 2018-19 academic year, the CCIW honored over 2,200 academic all-conference recipients, 18 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, 43 CoSIDA Academic All-District recipients, and over 100 all-Americans.