IU track and field coach Ron Helmer said the grind of the 2016-17 indoor season went a long way in showing what type of competitor freshman runner Kyle Mau truly was.
After Mau took a season to redshirt in 2015-16, Helmer was eager to see how the Hudson, Ohio, native would develop on and off the track in his first season of competition.
Mau showcased just how much he has developed in the past year by proving to be one of Helmer’s top performers all season long. He concluded his outstanding indoor season by earning the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award last week.
“As a coach, you never know how people are going to respond when you put them in difficult situations,” Helmer said. “We put him in those kind of situations all year long, and he showed us early on at the dual meets that he intended to win races.”
Mau’s first difficult task of the season was his collegiate indoor debut in which he won the 3,000-meter run at the Hoosier Open in the fall. Mau then started off 2017 red hot by securing victories in each of the early dual meets against Tennessee and Purdue.
Mau won both the mile and 3K in the first head-to-head meet with the Volunteers. The next week he improved his mile time by roughly six seconds and beat rival Purdue with a time of 4:02.83 before helping IU claim the top spot in the 4x800-meter relay.
“This guy has a knack for putting everything out of his mind and competing hard,” Helmer said. “He would win races the hard way by doing anything he needed to do to ensure good things happen, and so the legend of Kyle Mau began to grow.”
Mau’s toughness while competing is a trait Helmer said he noticed dating back to Mau’s recruiting days. Helmer said Mau’s mile time of 4:10 in high school impressed him.
“What we heard about him from people in Ohio that he competed against was that he raced really tough,” Helmer said. “They said he would run above his fitness level as often as he could even if it put him in significant trouble. He was willing to do that.”
Helmer said his coaching staff sensed that was the case as Mau struggled to stay healthy in the 2015-16 season when attempting to train consistently. Helmer added Mau had never trained heavily in high school, which caused him to break down from time to time.
Mau agreed with his coach and said together they decided to redshirt him his freshman year to get a full year of training in.
“As a freshman, I don’t think I was ready to contribute enough, and coach thought it was more beneficial to get that year of training under my belt,” Mau said. “I really think that year helped out a lot.”
Taking a year off to train made sense for Mau, who said he didn’t begin to take the sport seriously until after a conversation he had with his high school cross-country coach. Early in high school, he was more interested in tennis, but Mau was persuaded to run track in the spring instead.
Mau went on to have a successful high school running career and said high school was a big lesson for him because he learned how to race.
“I felt like I improved a lot over my four years,” Mau said. “It was night and day almost going from being a freshman and not knowing how to race to being a senior and having poise while running.”
During his senior season, Mau committed to Indiana after receiving offers from Akron, Iowa State and North Carolina. Mau said IU fit him both with running and academics.
Helmer also said he thought Bloomington was the right place for Mau.
“I remember thinking that even if this kid never ends up running fast, I’m still going to enjoy having him around,” Helmer said.
For Helmer, those doubts are now well in the past as Mau has proven himself to be one of the most consistent runners on his team. As a redshirt freshman, he won a total of eight races throughout the indoor season.
Mau hit a mid-season hot streak after setting a personal record in the 3K at the Gladstein Invitational in Bloomington in late January with a time of 8:07.88. Mau followed that performance by winning the mile at the Meyo Invitational with a PR of 4:00.37.
He finished third in the mile at the conference meet and became a Big Ten champion in the distance medley relay.
The DMR win was one of the many quality performances that led to IU winning the team Big Ten title. Mau said winning the Big Ten Championship was the most exciting part of the season.
“It was awesome to see everyone on the team be so invested in their teammates’ performances,” Mau said. “It was like we were building off each other one event after another.”
Two weeks later he became an All-American in the NCAA Championships by placing fifth in the distance medley relay.
Helmer said he is extremely proud of the season Mau had and called the freshman was a special talent. He also added it was a pleasant surprise to see him grow this season.
“It’s not that we didn’t expect this kind of development from him over time,” Helmer said. “It just doesn’t typically happen that fast.”
Mau’s historic freshman season is in the past to him now, as he said he’s focused on the outdoor season that begins soon and improving as a runner.
“I’m still in the process of figuring out outdoor season,” Mau said. “Eventually I’d like to replicate what I did in indoor.”
