LEBANON — Birhanu Harriman has grown up in the Upper Valley’s rural serenity, but he’s headed to the big city for the next step in his running career.

After a standout fall season, the Lebanon High senior recently committed to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he’ll compete in cross country and track for the Hoyas.

“It was a stressful month or two before I made my decision,” Harriman said. “I’m able to breathe again now.”

Harriman visited Southern Illinois and UMass and received interest from Dartmouth and Brown. Georgetown laid its cards on the table first, offering what Harriman said will approach a 70% scholarship at a school known for rigorous academics and with an annual tuition of roughly $60,000.

Neither Dartmouth nor Brown were ready to formally offer an admissions slot by Georgetown’s deadline, Harriman said, so he chose to accept the offer from the school he already believed had the best cross country and track program of the three.

“The timing just didn’t work,” said Harriman, who’s 5-foot-5 and 115 pounds. “The Dartmouth coach resigned right before the season started, and it seemed like their recruiting just came to a halt, so they pretty much fell off my radar.”

Georgetown, which accepts roughly 12% of applicants and has a reputation for producing diplomats and politicians, is ranked 22nd in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of national universities. Dartmouth and Brown are 12th and 13th, respectively.

Harriman, adopted by Lebanon residents Cliff Harriman and Stephanie Davis as an infant in an Ethiopian orphanage, was a full-time soccer player and part-time cross country runner until the current school year. He gave up futbol and became the team’s manager as a senior to see what he could accomplish with a narrower performance focus.

Harriman won this year’s NHIAA Division II championship race in 15 minutes, 31 seconds on a 5-kilometer course before finishing second at the all-division Meet of Champions by two one-hundredths of a second. He was third at the New England Regionals and seventh out of 249 runners at the Northeast Regionals, where he missed qualifying for the national championship meet by fewer than 10 seconds.

“Four years ago, I thought I’d be applying to college with no running involved,” Harriman said. “Some of the guys I’ll be competing with (at Georgetown) have been preparing for five or six years. I have to catch up.”

Harriman’s a strong student but realizes the academic demands that await will be at least as rigorous as those in athletics.

“That’s going to be difficult, and I’ve heard that the biggest thing is time management,” he said. “But the opportunities are just sort of endless. D.C. is the center of so much, with internships and relationships with people who are going to go on to high-level positions in their fields.”

Georgetown’s men’s cross country team finished third out of 10 teams at the Big East Conference championships and second out of 26 squads at the Mid-Atlantic Regionals, qualifying the Hoyas for the NCAA championship meet. Harriman sees himself initially competing for a slot at the back end of the team’s meet lineup but feels confident he can run scoring times as he adjusts to the higher level of competition.

“I didn’t want to go into a school and be best person there,” he said. “I want the resources and coaches to get me to the next level.”

Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.

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