Track standout Naughton running to Butler

Northville’s Conor Naughton will be transferring from CMU to Butler University, where he will have one season of eligibility in track and cross country. Photo by Benjamin Suddendorf/ CMU Athletics

By Brad Emons

Distance runner Conor Naughton felt he was just hitting his stride for the Central Michigan University men’s track and field team when his 2020 outdoor season was abruptly shelved in mid

March by the coronavirus. Things got worse on the morning of May 18 when another bombshell hit.

After a run, he learned of the stunning news in the parking lot at Northville High School where he had just completed a workout. A message from his former high school coach had just come across via Twitter – CMU had dropped its track program.

“I got back to my car, and I had a text from Tim Dalton on my phone,” Naughton recalled. “So I clicked on it, opened it up and he just linked to the (CMU) press release that they were dropping the men’s program. So that’s how I found out.”

The unexpected news, due in part to some of the financial fallout from COVID-19,

reportedly will save the CMU athletic budget approximately $700,000 annually.

Naughton, who despite graduating in early May as a red shirt senior, planned to continue his running career in Mount Pleasant while attending grad school.

An email went out hastily that day at 9:07 a.m. when CMU Athletic Director Michael Alford invited the affected 36 CMU men’s track and field athletes for a 10 a.m. Zoom meeting.

“Completely blindsided,” Naughton said of the news.

Just prior to the COVID-19 stoppage, Naughton was on a roll, which made him an attractive graduate transfer.

At the Mid-American Conference Indoor Championships Feb. 28-29 in Akron, Ohio, Naughton earned a podium finish with fifth in the 5,000-meter run in a personal-best 14:33.08. He also added a 10th in the 3,000 while improving his MAC standing by six and three places, respectively, from the previous year.

At an indoor meet just two weeks prior to MAC Indoors at Grand Valley State, Naughton posted a personal best of 8:27.98 in the 3K.

Following the shocking turn of events, Naughton wasted little time and put his name into the NCAA Transfer Portal before 5 p.m. that same day.

The emails and phone messages began pouring in from all over the country from coaches.

And just eight days later, Naughton committed to Butler University (Ind.) of the Big East where he’ll have two outdoor, one indoor and one cross country season of eligibility remaining. He has also been accepted into the school’s business school where he’ll be working on a Master’s degree in management.

Naughton, who also considered fellow MidAmerican Conference member Eastern Michigan, was familiar with Butler and head coach Matt Roe. He made an unofficial visit there during his junior year of high school and did an internship with USA

Track and Field in Indianapolis last summer.

Naughton’s parents, Keith and Janet, were also familiar with the surroundings as well. Both had lived and worked at the Indianapolis Star and News when they were first married.

“It’s a place I’m comfortable with,” Naughton said. “They have a really good program. The team is really strong and it’s just a really good opportunity for me to grow as an athlete and fulfil my career after grad school. I’ll be in a good spot to try and land a job.”

Naughton, meanwhile, will miss the relationships he had built with his teammates and friends over the past four years at CMU. Northville. As a senior, he helped the Mustangs to a runner-up finish in the MHSAA Division 1 cross country finals with a 15th-place individual finish (15:42.5) en route to AllState honors.

On the track, Naughton placed fourth in the 2016 Midwest Meet of Champions in the 3,200 after winning the KLAA title. As a junior he was the 3,200 Division 1 regional champ and runner-up at the conference meet. In the same event as a sophomore he was KLAA champ.

Naughton redshirted his first season (2016-17) at CMU and had to deal with tendonitis and plantar fasciitis in both of his feet his sophomore season. He 2020 indoor season.

“This is the healthiest I’ve been. I had been injured on-and-off a lot the past year,” Naughton said. “This was my best training, really healthy, really fit. It was the best year of my life, run the fastest I ever had.”

Naughton took a break in early May from running, but returned to his training schedule where he is building up his distance mileage again, but this time it will be as a Butler Bulldog.

“I personally ended up in a pretty good position because I was already going on to grad school,” he said, “so there were no worries about transfer credits or any

“Some people are staying and obviously some people won’t, but I’ll never be in school with those guys again,” he said. “That’s the biggest bummer. With the whole coronavirus and everything, it’s like we never even got a proper goodbye at the end of the school year or anything like that. A lot of those guys I haven’t seen since the very beginning of March, and I don’t know when I’ll see them again now.”

Prior to landing at CMU, Naughton was a three-time MHSAA Division 1 state qualifier in cross country at also had a stress reaction in his foot that same season as well.

covers GM affairs for the Wall Street Journal.)

Other than CMU director of track and field Jenny Swieton, who reached out initially when the program was dropped, Naughton has not had contact with any others in the athletic department. The move from CMU to Butler proved to be bittersweet.

With a stop in Northville in between, he’s looking in the rearview mirror on the way from Mount Pleasant to Indy with a new NCAA Letter of Intent in hand.

“I love CMU,” said Naughton, an Academic All-MAC selection who carried a 3.64 grade-point average. “I improved both athletically and academically

During his junior year, however, he began to show glimpses of promise.

At the 2019 MAC Outdoors, he placed 10th in the 10,000 (33:25.24) and 12th in the 5,000 (15:23.92). He also set a personal best in the 10,000 (30:41.77) at the Virginia Challenge the previous month.

At the 2019 MAC Cross Country Championships in DeKalb, Ill., he was 26th in the 8K (26:22.4) and followed up with a 69th in the NCAA Great Lakes Regional in Madison, Wis. in the 10K (32.06.7). He then parlayed that into a strong of that kind of stuff. If this had happened a year earlier, I’d be in a very different position, so I definitely feel for all my other teammates. It could end some college running careers prematurely.”

During the statewide quarantine, Naughton spent time with his family. His father Keith, an avid runner himself, is a reporter who covers automotive news for Bloomberg News. His mother Janet, meanwhile, is retired from the Northville Public Schools. (Conor also has two older sisters including Clare, who ran at Aquinas College, and Nora, a reporter who also

Photo by Peter Draugalis while I was there. The whole town is the university, so I really liked that aspect. It’s just a really welcoming town and a really good college with a lot of different people with different backgrounds, and skill levels.”

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