SUNY Potsdam Athletics

Aaron Robertson helped to resurrect the SUNY Potsdam Cross Country program and becomes just the third Bears runner to be enshrined in the Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
Growing up in Bainbridge, N.Y., Robertson played soccer and basketball, but was most passionate about baseball. However, collegiate sports weren't really on his radar, though he knew what he wanted to study in college.
 
"I was thinking music education," said Robertson. "My dad was a music teacher. He played trombone. My mother was a teacher. My sister became a teacher. So I come from I come from a family of teachers. I was really going for education and Crane was one of the top music education schools in the country."
 
Robertson first became familiar with Crane after attending the youth music camp over one summer when in high school. He really enjoyed it, but was drawn to another school first.
 
"I actually signed my acceptance letter to Mansfield," Robertson said. "But then I ended up having a couple of friends from my school that were going into music. They were going to Potsdam and they were able to convince me that Potsdam is the place to go."
 
Crane School of Music has produced many elite musicians of all kinds as well as music educators, but it occasionally provides the athletic department with hall of fame athletes. Its rigorous schedule makes competing for the Bears challenging. That was true for Robertson as well, but it was also Crane professors that ultimately shaped his athletic life.
 
"I really loved being a Crane student," said Robertson. "I don't know if I liked all the classwork, but Crane was a lot of fun with all the ensembles you're in. I had some really great teachers like Dr. Ellis. He is amazing trumpet teacher and an amazing performer. Dr. Ellis was also a triathlete and he was a good bridge from music to being an athlete. I was just getting into running and that was about the time that I got into a studio. So he was a big influence over that."
 
Professors Carol Heinick, who was coordinator of group keyboard instruction, and Dr. David Heinick, who taught music theory and composition, drew Robertson further into running.
 
"During one spring break, the Heinicks were running a marathon," said Robertson. "They were talking about it in their classes. And I was like, 'Oh, that would be kind of cool.' And so I jumped into the Run For The Border Marathon. It started at Clarkson. And that's how I got going."
 
Robertson had been taking a running and conditioning class and had a month to prepare for the race. He also researched marathon preparation in Runner's World articles. Robertson's first ever organized race was a marathon and though he admittedly wasn't completely prepared for it, he felt "it really wasn't too bad."
 
As Robertson ran more, he learned how much he liked it. Over his first three years at Potsdam, he played on the baseball club and participated in the running club. There was no varsity cross country program at the time. His friend and former teammate Kyle Wormuth played an important part in building up the running club and worked hard to bring the program back.
 
In the Fall of 2000, the Bears competed as a club, running in meets against intercollegiate programs. Potsdam brought in coach Matt Tessier from Clarkson and he started to build the program using the strategies and workouts from legendary coach Jack Daniels. The Bears saw steady improvement over the course of the season. Robertson was talented, but had a lot to learn and compared it to his Crane studies.
 
"It was a learning curve," Robertson said. "I had no clue how to run a race and it took me a while to figure out the pacing. There were times that I went out too hard and I paid for it. Then there were other times where I went out too easy and I had so much left. It was finding the balance and then also just putting in the training. Running is time on task, just like practicing an instrument."
 
Heading into the 2001 schedule, Robertson's final year at Potsdam, the Bears were a fully-fledged varsity program. Tessier knew he had something special in his senior and predicted that he might claim all-region honors. Robertson was impressive the whole season, with second place finishes at the St. Lawrence and Saint Michael's Invitationals, and finished strong.
 
The SUNYAC Championships where hosted by SUNY New Paltz on October 20. Robertson set the goal of earning a spot in the conference cross country hall of fame, meaning he needed a top-5 finish in his only chance. He had a plan and executed it perfectly.
 
"It was one of those great races," said Robertson. "I kind of just stayed mid-pack at the beginning of the race and then just worked my way up as a lot of the other runners went out too hard and they were falling off the pack. I was just catching up to them one by one and then going by and then I would see the next person. Halfway into the race, I was probably in like 20th place. It was just like climbing a latter. I just would get one and then go get the next one and then just work my way up, all the way up to third place."
 
Robertson finished the 8K race with a time of 26:01, 14 seconds behind the second place finisher and 21 back from the champion.
 
A week later, he won the Heron Invitational at Hobart and William Smith Colleges with a time of 27:23. On November 10, Robertson capped his season, finishing 21st with a time of 27:01.87 at the Atlantic Regionals in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The performance earned him all-region honors.
 
After graduating from Potsdam, Robertson was quickly offered and accepted a two-year position for 6-12 grade instrumental music and band at Greene Central School. He also coached varsity track and field at the school.
 
While building experience as a professional educator, he continued to run and picked up another sport. In 2003 he was invited to join the prestigious Syracuse Chargers Track Club. The next year, Robertson was hired at Northeastern Clinton Central School, where he eventually coached track and field and cross country. While he enjoyed being back in the North Country, the winters didn't provide ideal outdoor running conditions and he didn't like running on a treadmill. Then he learned about snowshoe racing.
 
"It can be a brutal sport, especially when there's new snow and you're breaking trail," Robertson said. "But it's always an accomplishment to get through some of those workouts. When I was living in the Plattsburgh area, I would drive to Whiteface Mountain and run up the service roads. I'd finish my day teaching and then I would drive down to the service roads and then I put up my headlamp and run up it."
 
About the same time, Robertson learned about the Empire State Winter Games. In 2004, he won five gold medals for the 100m, 200m, 400m, 1500m and 5K. In 2005, Robertson was the USA National Snowshoe Champion and went undefeated. He was a member of the US National Snowshoe Team the following year and finished fifth in the Dachstein Xtreme World Snowshoe Championships in Austria. Never forgetting his passion for music, while in Salzburg, he visited the birth place of Mozart. Robertson's snowshoeing career has also taken him to Palisades Tahoe, California (formerly Squaw Valley) and Anchorage, Alaska. He then set the 1500m American Snowshoe record at the Empire State Games in 2008.
 
Despite tremendous success on snowshoes, he was back to running once the snow melted, where he continued to excel. It added another important part of his life. While running with the Chargers, Robertson met Jodie Schoppmann, a Potsdam runner and future Bears All-American and Hall of Famer. While their relationship developed over time, he added more athletic accomplishments. In 2009, he was the New York State Long Distance Runner of the Year and Honorable Mention for New England. That year he also competed at the USATF 5K Nationals and was the Chargers Team Champion. He was the Chargers Runner of the Year in both 2010 and 2011. He was 14th at the 2010 Philadelphia Marathon and 19th at the 2011 Ottawa Marathon. Also in 2011 he was ninth at the USATF 50K National Championships and in 2015 he was the USATF Long Island Long Distance Runner of the Year.
 
Robertson and Schoppmann, another Crane graduate, were married in 2011. Both music teachers and accomplished runners, they are a very good match.
 
"It (running) was something that we made work and we could share our workouts and our runs," said Robertson. "So it was really nice to support each other and it went both ways. We had so much in common. We knew how to make things work with all our interests. She's been amazing and very supportive."
 
Schoppmann, who's run Olympic Marathon qualifying times and is an Iron Man Champion herself, is from Long Island. Robertson followed her there. He took a teaching job with Bethlehem Central in 2011 before moving to Dobbs Ferry in 2014. Robertson became the elementary band teacher at Island Trees Union Free School District in Levittown, N.Y. in 2015 and has been there ever since. Most recently he has taught the district's high school and middle school bands as well.
 
Robertson looks back fondly on his experience at Potsdam, an experience that had a tremendous impact on all aspects of his life.
 
"Potsdam is great because it's a small school," Robertson said. "The professors all take the time to help you and get to know you. I know I got a lot from them and I'm so glad Potsdam provided the opportunity to run. I'm really glad that it worked out and that I went to SUNY Potsdam."
 
Robertson joined his wife in the Bears Hall of Fame on September 30, 2023.