Niagara University Athletics

Outlook: The team’s most experienced runner, John Tees (pronounced TEEZ) made big strides his junior year and should be among Niagara’s top five runners in his final season.

Junior (2006): Tees broke the 28-minute barrier for the first time at the MAAC Championships (Oct. 27), where he crossed the line in a personal-best 8K time of 27:43.9. He earned the second top-10 finish of his career with an eighth-place showing at the Little Three Meet (Oct. 14).

Sophomore (2005): Tees set a season-best 8K time of 28:36.1 with a 51st-place finish at the conference championships. His sixth-place finish at the Little Three Meet (Oct. 15) was a career-high and marked the second of three straight meets in which he ran under 29 minutes. At the regional meet (Nov. 12) he bettered his previous best 10K time by more than two minutes, finishing in a career-high 35:43.3

Freshman (2004): Following his debut at the four-mile Titan Invitational, Tees made steady improvement over the next four meets, knocking more than a minute off his 8K time. He ran sub-30-minute times at the Buffalo Open (Oct. 8) and Little Three Meet (Oct. 15), where he earned a 10th-place finish in a season-best time of 29:04.

High School: Tees won the New York State Scholar-Athlete Award in both cross country and track at Cicero-North Syracuse. He earned second team all-league honors in indoor track as a member of the 4x800-meter relay team and captained the outdoor track team to the 2003 Section III Championship.

Personal: The son of Frank and Patricia Tees, John was born June 6, 1986, in Marshfield, Mass. He has a younger brother, Kevin, and a twin sister, Katie, who is a member of the women’s team. Tees is a marketing major.