Question and Answer With Adam Leskis
Nov 7, 2002 | Cross Country
Nov. 7, 2002
A three-year letterman, Adam Leskis has been the leader of the Green Wave cross country team throughout his senior campaign. After participating in 11 races as a sophomore and junior, Leskis appeared in all six meets in 2002 and led the team on each occasion, He helped lead the Green Wave to a pair of meet titles as Tulane won the Southern Miss Invitational and the Ragin' Cajun Invitational. In addition to participating in intercollegiate athletics at Tulane, Leskis is also one of the strongest supporters of the other Green Wave teams and can often be seen and heard in the student section at home events.
How did you end up at Tulane?
"I ended up at Tulane because it was a really long ways away. I think the closest place I applied to was Santa Clara, which is still about one and a half states away. Tulane also gave me a lot of financial aid, and the brochure was really big and cool, it was huge!"
Were you planning all along to run track in college?
"In high school I did not really think it was a viable option. I was running the summer after my senior year in high school but I developed a plantar fascitis problem, so I stopped running. Freshman year, I did not run at all, but I missed it, once a runner...., so, I am back. It's a lot of fun; I love it."
How did you join team?
"I talked to Coach Bazil freshman year and he said I could come out and try out for the team. Thankfully I was able to run fast enough to get taken to conference my sophomore year, which was my first year running. That was a really fun experience. I just kept improving steadily after that."
What has been your most memorable experience in athletics?
"I think it would have to be last year at the LSU meet and I finished as the fifth man, the last scoring position on the team, to beat LSU and that felt really good."
How has being a student-athlete helped you or changed you?
"I guess the stuff everybody says like time management and all that stuff. I met a lot of really cool people in the athletic department. A lot of people don't get to experience being a student-athlete, especially Division I, so that is cool and exciting.
What is your major?
"Well, I'm a German major now. I started out here and I got a half-academic scholarship through the school of engineering, so I started out as a mechanical engineer, but I figured out pretty quick that I wasn't too good at math and that was a cornerstone of engineering. So I had to switch out of that and got into liberal arts, then I kind of threw a dart at the board. I like languages a lot; I studied Spanish and French in high school; German sounded like fun, so here I am."
Do you have a favorite book?
"It would probably be 'Once a Runner' by John L. Parker. A non-running book that people would know would probably be a Stephen King novel, like 'The Stand,' I really enjoyed that."
Why did you like 'Once a Runner?'
"That's sort of a cult following in running circles. It's a fictional account of a runner at some Florida college. There is something about it; it captures the essence of the sport. You have to read it."
What are your favorite on-campus activities, other than running?
"Obviously there are the wonderful sports competitions that myself and the other cross country runners attend. We're big fans of the men's basketball games, those are awesome; the men's and women's tennis competitions, I really like those because they have free hot dogs and it's also great tennis; and of course, the top of my list would have to be cheering at the women's soccer games. I have been to every home competition since my sophomore year, when we were in town. I get dressed up and everything; it's a lot of fun.
"Everything has kind of a little different flavor, a little different outfits, have to keep it fresh. I'll probably be back with the Indian headdress this year at Fogelman, dancing to YMCA.
"Outside of athletics, I guess the library is pretty cool."
If you could play any other sport, what would it be?
"Wow, I probably have to say professional soccer, just because it still has the running around element, but it is much more a skill sport. I think if I had picked up a skill sport when I was five or six, I probably would be pretty good at it now, but I just never got into it. I was in all the random sports, like my mom put me in a bowling league when I was 11, that was fun, but really not a sport. I had a short career in martial arts. I was coming up through the ranks in karate. I was a brown belt and we went to one of the things you had to do to become a higher rank was going to a big kada or forum; if you do it well, they promote you. To be a black belt, you had to fight another one of the black belts to move from third-degree brown belt to black belt. I was watching when I was a second degree brown belt or something and one of the guys got hit in the face and his nose just exploded in blood, and I think right then I decided; I never really fought anybody and I think I entered a sparring competition once and did horribly. But I figured out I didn't really want to hit anybody or get hit, so that was the end of that."
You're a senior, are you on track to graduate?
"Well, yes, I mean, I can graduate in May; I have another year of eligibility left, so I might stay maybe. I don't know."
What are your plans for after you graduate?
"After I graduate, I would like to move to Arizona, that places sounds fun, like Flagstaff. I hear the running there is pretty cool."
Are you a music fan?
"Yes, I like anything you can dance to, hip-hop, techno. I really don't go to concerts. I have never been a big concert person, but I have been to a Chemical Brothers show at the State Palace [Theatre], that was really cool. I think I went to a rave once at the State Palace that was really cool. Not really concerts, I just go out during the weekends in the offseason, just kind of have a good time."
Do you have any personal philosophy that you live your life by?
"Not really. I think I tend to view success in terms of discipline and how committed you are to something. That's really pertinent to running, it takes a lot of commitment for the long-term. It's not something you're immediately good at. I try to stay relaxed and have fun."
What has being a Tulane athlete taught you that you might not have learned otherwise?
"The importance of teamwork. Not just in competition or practice, but I know I rely on my teammates as well as I like to think they rely on me. Just in every day life, making sure that if somebody's sick, it gets taken care of, the academic side of course, we all hang out, make sure we have a good time."
What is your favorite movie?
"My favorite movie would have to be "Pi." It's directed by Darren Aronofsky; it's a smaller film. It's the same guy that did "Requiem for a Dream."
Do you go to a lot of movies?
"Not while I am at school here, but back home during the summer I go to about two or three movies a week. That's pretty high, maybe two movies a week. Whatever's out, I try to see more or less everything that's out at the theatres. I like movies a lot."
Do you have a favorite sports movie?
"I don't know. You have the typical theme in sports movies of triumph of the human spirit and all that, so they're all basically the same. I guess the typical runner response would be one of the movies about Prefontaine, like "Without Limits" or "Prefontaine" or "Fire on the Tracks," something like that. I don't really know."
Do you watch much TV? Do you have a favorite show?
"Not really. The Simpsons has been kind of a mainstay for the past 10 or 12 years. I don't have a tv in my room, which is kind of personal choice, because I knew it would be a distraction. When I am over at friends places, we check out everything like MTV. I like the Spanish Channel a lot, because the women are all really, really hot and the soap operas are way more dramatic."
Do you understand Spanish?
"A little bit, I mean, not really. I kind of get the gist of it. Everybody else hates the Spanish Channel, so I try to sneak it on whenever people run out of the room."
What is your favorite food?
"It's got to be orange chicken. Chinese-type chicken. I think they call it General Tsao's chicken around here; they call it orange chicken in Spokane."
If you could have dinner with any three people, who would it be?
"John Marmaduke, who is the owner of Hastings, which is a book and video store up by me [Washington area], I don't think they have them around here, more of a Western thing. I would definitely pick him because I impersonate him a lot. And this one guy from Greek antiquity, Altabides. If only for the fact that he tried to establish an oligarchy coup in Athens, and then revealed it, and everybody loved him for it. How can you get away with that? I don't know. I love that. The third guy would probably be Colonel Mustard, or any actor portraying him; I need a monacle, a mustache and a revolver."
Is there anybody in your life that you would like to thank?
"I think I would like to thank Steve West, the guy who hired me this summer as an ice cream truck driver. I had always had aspirations, well, not so much aspirations, but I wanted to drive an ice cream truck before I die or whatever. I saw this ad in the paper one day, 'Ice Cream Truck Driver Wanted.' I actually got hired better than on the spot, because I wasn't even on the spot, I just called. I was like 'Yeah, you need an ice cream truck driver?' and he says, 'Yeah man, can you drive tomorrow,' I was like, 'Uh, yeah,' 'All right, you're hired. Show up tomorrow.' It was really, really fun, I enjoyed it a lot. I ate a lot of ice cream."
Was it locally?
"Oh no, it was back in Spokane. I would never stay here for the summer, I would die. I have heard some pretty bad horror stories from some friends who stay here. They say it is just stifling, nobody goes out. Yeah, it was in Spokane; Spokane, Washington; Podunk, USA. I think it was a 1953 Dodge something, like an old milk delivery van with all the ice cream stickers on it, had the little bell. Yeah, it was pretty sweet. It was a lot of fun. It was everything I hoped for. I did eat a lot of ice cream, but I was also running a lot."
What was the best thing about it?
"It was like I was the Santa Claus of the summer; I was bringing the ice cream to all of the good children of the town. Everybody was happy to see me; I'm not like the IRS guy or the dentist. It was 'Oh! The ice cream man!" not 'Don't come around here no more!" Everybody loved me and it was a lot of fun. I probably won't do it again, but I am really grateful for the experience, so I would like to thank Steve West.
Do you have any other things that you want to do in your life like that?
"Definitely sky dive, everybody wants to do that. I don't know if I'll end up chickening out or whatever, I know a lot of people do that too. I would love to sky dive. I hear you have to do a tandem jump before you do a solo, but I checked it out and you can buy an ultra-light with a parachute for like $1000. You only need to get a pilot's license for that, and once you're up there, you can just jump out with the parachute and you don't have to be certified at all. I mean, you'll lose the plane, but....I don't want to tandem jump, that's ridiculous. I am definitely looking into that."
How do you think your teammates see you?
"I would like to have something more traditional, like elected team captain, but we really don't have that. I guess I am kind of the unofficial team captain, maybe. I'm kind of the most experienced. I'm the guy who yells at people when they eat the extra slice of pizza, when they stay up past 9:30. I am kind of the conscience of the team maybe, but, we're really all on an equal level. There are no egos on the team."
