A three time NCAA Champion while attending Chico State, Scott Bauhs has gone on to accomplish much as a professional runner. However, by qualifying for this weekend's 2011 World Track & Field Championships by finishing third at the USA T&F Championships earlier this summer, he topped them all. What follows is an open letter Bauhs wrote and then agreed to have it posted on our web site.

Dear Anita and all of the Chico State Athletes and coaches and staff,

I am in Korea preparing to run the race of my life: the World Championship 10,000 meters and all of you are preparing to take on another school year. I'm not sure which is more daunting.

It is hard to pick a favorite in my race. On one hand we have Mo Farah, the Brittish and European record holder who has been by far the best distance runner of the season coming in with 10 straight wins and on the other we have Kenenisa Bekele, the defending World and Olympic champion and World record holder who has never lost a 10,000 meter race. On top of that there is the defending Olympic Silver Medalist, the defending World Championships Silver medalist and a slew of other runners eager to take their spot on the podium. I am not one of the favorites.

For me though, all the work is done. Years of running mile after mile (some of the best of those miles were in Chico of course) have passed. All of the little details: workouts, finding the right sized uniform, making sure that uniform is in your bag, getting the van on time, getting the whole team in the van on time, and getting to the team to the competition (through flight changes, traffic jams, missing luggage, and of course Gary Towne inevitably getting lost) are all taken care of. All of my classwork is done, I've got my diploma and while there are some blemishes in my transcript that I would love to go back and fix, that is the least of my worries right now. And finally, perhaps the hardest part of sports that all of you have to look forward to in the immediate future, having the right team when it counts. Some of you are trying to compete in a Chico uniform for the first time while others are trying to defend your spot on the team and of worst of all, some of you have to choose between two or more equally deserving athletes. This is all beyond me now; I've made the team. All I have to do now is run 25 laps around a track.

I may have swapped out my Chico uniform for a USA uniform and but the lessons I learned as a Wildcat have stuck with me. The most important thing to remember and one of the easiest things to forget is that there are so many people in your life that want you to be successful. Whether it is your family, friends, coaches or teammates (and not just the ones on the field with you but the entire Wildcat family) everyone is pulling for you unconditionally and remembering this always will help you get through the difficult times no matter what the difficulty is. My next word of advice is to make your life as simple as possible, don't hang on to grudges and negativity and stay on top of what really matters whether it is school, practice, your relationships with the people that helped you get to where you are and the people that are going to help you take the next step. Ignore distractions, it is a common misconception that a few drinks and a late night out is necessary to wind down at the end of a week but a few drinks almost always turns into a few too many drinks and a full nights rest is usually preferable to a late night out. The last lesson I learned is that if you take everything one step at a time, there is no reason to limit where you can go. I like to think that I've gone pretty far.

Of course there's always next year. Some of you can look forward to when your team is older and stronger or some of you can look forward to moving on from your team to a real job and stop asking Mom and Dad for money. I can look forward to trying to make an Olympic team next year. But for now lets focus on the task at hand and doing the best we can with what we've got. If you want to watch me run, my race is at 7:30 pm in Korea on Sunday August 28 unfortunately this is 3:30 AM on Sunday in California (staying up is excusable for this once) also unfortunately, to watch the race you have to pay Universal Sports at www.universalsports.com. I will be sure to watch all of you as much as I can.

Thank you Chico for everything you have done for me,

-Scott Bauhs