The story of the Purple Roo began in 1985. Steve Harrold, one of Grinnell's top runners at the time was a camp counselor at Camp Courage, a camp for physically disabled and ill youth in Minnesota. One of the activities at the camp that summer was a mock Olympics. Each cabin chose a country to represent, and Steve's cabin chose Australia. After choosing their country the cabins had to come up with a uniform to wear for the games. The only material on hand was some construction paper, so they began cutting kangaroos out of purple construction paper and taped the emblems onto themselves for their uniforms. Later that fall after arriving in Grinnell, Steve was going through some of his stuff from the summer and he found the purple kangaroos and taped a few to the lockers of some cross country team members. As the days went by more and more Roos began appearing on the lockers, and soon everyone on the team had one. As the season progressed, the team began to compete for top spots in meets, winning some T-shirts, medals, and the like. As a way of showing pride for the team and the new mascot, the "Roo Hop" was done when individuals and the team received awards. And thus the Purple Roo was born. Despite the disappearance of the "Roo Hop" over the last several years, the Purple Roo has continued to thrive as a symbol of the pride and team strength in the Grinnell College Cross Country Program. The Purple Roo has adorned team shirts and hats since the original "hop-to-the-top" T-shirt from the 1986 season which began the team's string of ten Midwest Conference Championship titles. The presence of the Purple Roo has been further strengthened by the creation of the Purple Roo Award, an annual award voted upon by the team and presented to a team member who has shown outstanding commitment and dedication to the cross country program.

The cross country alumni converged on Grinnell flying in from all parts of the country (Portland, San Diego, Boulder, L.A., Boston, Chapel Hill, etc.). Despite being relegated to the JV race, the alumni team had one common goal: show those yahoos on the varsity team who was boss. Unfortunately, the pre-race buzz did not look good for the alumni. Of the three former conference champs on the team, Mills--dressed in flannel and hiking boots--said he wasn't running, Nawrocki was running but wasn't going to be competitive, and Garman--though he planned on running competitively--was going to start the race with a MILE OF GLORY. As race time drew nearer, however, the alumni team's prospects improved greatly when Mills-- suddenly transformed from lumberjack to sleek, toned, racing machine--announced that not only would he run, but that he had actually trained a bit for it. The Race: The race started with Garman and several other alums attempting a mile of glory. A mile of glory is simply that--be in the lead at one mile, at all costs, and glory will be yours. Garman, a 3:55 1500 meter runner was clearly the most well poised to actually complete the coveted mile of glory. Much to his chagrin another runner in the race also had the same idea. Garm, as he neared the one mile mark running much faster than the expected 5:15 first mile, asked his fellow glory seeker, "What the heck are you doing running so fast?" To which the other runner answered, "I'm running a one mile time trial. I'm dropping out as soon as we hit the mile mark." Garm, spurred on by his anger over this bozo, threw it in high gear with about a 100 m to the mile mark and crossed the mile in the lead at 4:46 blowing kisses to the crowd and bringing much deserved glory upon both himself and the esteemed Grinnell alumni.

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