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31 I t was 11 degrees in Iowa City, Iowa on the first Monday of March when college outdoor track and field seasons begin. at was the warmest temperature of the day; the low was minus-4. Meanwhile, it was 69 in Jacksonville, Florida, 58 in Columbia, South Carolina, and 57 in Greensboro, North Carolina. ose cities are home to three of Iowa's most recent rivals in the men's 4x400 relay final at the NCAA Championships on June 7 at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. e remainder of finalists hailed from the southern locations of Fayetteville, Arkansas and Texas cities Houston, College Station, and Waco. You think sprinting at the NCAA Division I level is a warm-weather thing? e University of Iowa has made a dent in that perception. "We're proud of it," said Joey Woody, Iowa's director of track and field. "We train in the north, but we have great facilities and there is no excuses for performance. You have to have the right athletes and a great coaching staff, then it comes down to a belief." In their NCAA 4x400 semifinal, the Hawkeye foursome of freshman Wayne Lawrence, Jr. (from Dayton, Ohio), junior Antonio Woodard (Rancho Cucamonga, California), junior Karayme Bartley (Lionel Town, Jamaica), and senior Mar'yea Harris (Auburn, Washington/Long Beach, California) was clocked in 3-minutes, 1.99-seconds — second only to the 3:01.26 turned in by national leader Texas A&M. e encore in the final two nights later resulted in a school-record time of 3:00.14, good enough for fourth place and first-team All- America honors. "It shows a northern school like Iowa can go out and compete with the best schools: Texas A&M, Florida, Houston," said Harris, the anchor runner. "I didn't know where Iowa was on a map when I was being recruited, and now look at us, we're the fourth-best team in the nation." It is the second time in three years that Iowa has made a men's 4x400 national final. e Hawkeyes were third in 2017 in Eugene, Oregon, running a then school-record time of 3:01.91. Since Woody took over as director of track and field at the University of Iowa in the summer of 2014, there have only been five "northern" schools advance to an NCAA final in the 4x400 (excluding Stanford). All were schools from the Big Ten: three times for Ohio State, twice for Iowa, and once each for Illinois, Nebraska, and Purdue. Only Iowa and Nebraska placed as high as third during that span, and the 3:01.91 by the Hawkeyes in 2017 is almost two seconds faster than what Nebraska ran in 2016. On June 7, fans could sense something big was about to happen moments before the gun fired to start the 4x400. "You could run 3:02 and get last," one meet official said. He was close to being correct. Texas A&M won with a facility record time of 2:59.05, followed by Florida (2:59.60), Houston (3:00.07) and the Hawkeyes. All eight teams ran under 3:04. And aer running 3:00.14 on college track and field's biggest stage, it was a Hawkeye group le struggling with its emotions. A school-record time is awesome, but Iowa really believed it had the makings of a gold medal 4x400 relay. "ey are disappointed and have a bad taste in their mouths and that's a good sign," Woody said. "We believe we can run 2:58 and be national champs. I think we have the guys to do that. We're going to miss Mar'yea (next season), but we have a fully-loaded team coming back." at is a message that should resonate loudly across the country. Especially down south. NCAA TOP 4 4x00 FINISHERS BY YEAR 2019 1.Texas A&M, 2. Florida, 3. Houston, 4. IOWA 2018 1. Southern California, 2. Texas A&M, 3. Louisiana State, 4. Florida 2017 1. Texas A&M, 2. Arkansas, 3. IOWA, 4. Florida 2016 1. Louisiana State, 2. Florida, 3. Nebraska, 4. Texas A&M 2015 1. Louisiana State, 2. Florida, 3. Mississippi State, 4. Ohio State