Perseverance Pays Off For All-American Duo
Cooper Folkestad and Brady Goss both persevered through adversity to earn All-American honors on Day 2 at the NCAA National Outdoor Meet, and both posted program history-making feats.
GENEVA, Ohio (5/23/25)---Perseverance paid All-American dividends for a pair of Cobber athletes on Day 2 of the NCAA Outdoor Championship Meet.
One athlete persevered through a season-ending injury two years ago to become only the second athlete in Concordia history to earn Indoor and Outdoor All-American honors in the same year, while the other persevered through a fall midway through the most important race of his life and went on to record the highest finish by a Cobber athlete at a national outdoor meet since 1996.
Would Cooper Folkestad and Brady Goss come forward to receive your well-deserved All-American trophies.
Folkestad and Goss both finished in the Top 8 on Friday to earn All-American First Team honors and help Concordia record eight team points in the national team standings. That total is tied for 12th place with one day left in the meet.
Folkestad, who fouled on all three of his attempts at the MIAC Championship Meet two weeks ago in the shot put, became the second athlete in school history to earn All-American honors at the national indoor and outdoor meets in the same season when he placed sixth in Geneva.
Folkestad earned his fourth overall All-American honor on his second attempt when he let go a throw of 57-01.50. That distance qualified him for the finals, but he was unable to better that mark and finished in sixth place.
Folkestad's 6th-place finish at outdoor nationals, coupled with 4th-place finish at the national indoor meet in March puts him in the company with Hall of Famer Aaron Banks as the only two CC athletes to ever receive indoor and outdoor All-American honors in the same year.
Goss' adversity was on full display for the national meet audience to see as he fell over one of the hurdles with just under four laps to go in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Goss picked himself up and proceeded to pass runner after runner to move from 10th place all the way up to fourth at the finish line.
Goss' remarkable finishing kick enabled him to cross the line in 8:55.18. Even with the fall, his finishing time was over 13 seconds faster than the 9th-place finisher which is the cutoff for All-American honors.
Goss is only the second Cobber to earn All-American honors in the steeplechase. He joins Cobber Hall of Famer Jason Trichler, who finished fifth in the event in 1992.