A Surfeit of National Championships by Herb Wills

High school cross country has a crowded post-season.

Track is much the same. We’re not the only sport with that problem, though. College football is probably the worst offender. Not a year goes by without someone mentioning that there are too many post-season bowl games, an observation that was probably first made about the time the forward pass was invented. Participation is limited to teams with winning records, but still the bowls proliferate. New games are born, some old games die, often in obscurity.

There are still people who remember Pearl Harbor, but does anyone remember the Tampa Cigar Bowl?

In college football, though, there aren’t many bowls claiming to be a national championship. In high school cross country, at least five post-season meets carry “national championship” in their name.

The Florida Athletic Coaches Association Senior All-Star Cross-Country Meet doesn’t have any such pretensions. This year’s FACA meet was held the week after the state meet on Saturday, 22 November 2014, and for the first time since 2000 it wasn’t in Tallahassee. The senior raced at Lake Nona High School in Orlando this year, with Windermere's Franco Martins taking the boys' title in 15:24.34 and Lake Mary's Fatema Jaffer winning the girls' championship in 18:14.34.

Franco Martins and Fatema Jaffers - FACA All-Star Champions 2014 by Twangster

But the titans, the two most prominent meets claiming national championship status were Nike Cross Nationals and Foot Locker Nationals. NXN came first on the calendar, with races at Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland, Oregon, on 6 December 2014. Tanner Anderson--a senior at North Central High in Spokane, Washington--was NXN's national champion in the boys' race running 15:11 on a soggy course. Florida was represented in that race by Leon senior Sukhi Khosla, 35th in 15:59, and Franco Martins, 131st in 16:46. For the FACA champion it had been a long post-season. On the girls’ side, Kenai Central senior Allie Ostrander won the NXN title; the Alaskan ran 17:19 in her race. Winter Park frosh Rafaella Gibbons was Florida's sole entry in the girls' 5K. Gibbons ran 18:17 for 27th in what could be her first of four chances at NXN glory. First of four chances, that is, if she doesn’t opt for Foot Locker in future years.

Ian Terpin/Runnerspace.com

Foot Locker followed a week later on 13 December 2014 at Balboa Park in San Diego, California, another rain-soaked site on the west coast. For the second year in a row the boys’ Foot Locker Champion was Grant Fisher of Michigan's Grand Blanc High, first in 15:03. Merritt Island junior Steven Cross was Florida's best at Foot Locker, placing 29th in 16:12. Cross could be back next year, but it was the last Foot Locker and likely the last cross country race as a high school athlete for Miami Sunset senior Nick Diaz. Diaz was 36th in 16:24. The girls’ champ at the 36th annual Foot Locker was Mishawaka High senior Anna Rohrer, who had also won in 2012. For her 2014 win, the Indiana runner went 17:13.

Kyle Brown/DistancePreps.com

The same day as NXN but nearly 2,000 miles away in Lawrence, Kansas, the Amateur Athletic Union was holding their own Cross Country National Championships, part of the AAU Junior Olympics program. This is a youth event, with age groups going all the way down to six years and under. Those youngest athletes race one kilometer, but the high school age runners go 5K. After failing to advance from Foot Locker Midwest, Kearney (Missouri) High sophomore Clayton Adams won the AAU national title. He had to earn it, outkicking Isai Rodriguez of Ringwood (Oklahoma) High 15:45.4 to 15:46.0. In the girls race, the AAU national title went to Sand Springs (Oklahoma) senior Morgan Long, running 19:11.70 for 5K.

To further confuse matters, there was not only another national championship on 13 December 2014, but another Junior Olympic National Championship. USA Track and Field has their own Junior Olympic program, and while the Foot Locker National title was being contested on the west coast the USATF Junior Olympic National title was at stake on the east coast. On the Whispering Pines Golf Course in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Buffalo (West Virginia) junior Hayden Harrison ran 15:27.01 to win the age 17-18 boys' 5K. But an hour before Harrison’s race, Phillip Rocha, a sophomore at Arcadia (California) High, had won the age 15-16 boys' race in 14:49.19. It was a week after Rocha had finished 10th at NXN, which is not only some serious racing but some serious frequent flyer miles. It was a similar situation on the girls' side. Forest Lake (Minnesota) High junior Emma Benner won the 17-18 race in 17:52.78. However, Sonoma (California) Academy frosh Rylee Bowen had already run faster, winning the 15-16 race in 17:40.61, as had Grandville (Michigan) High frosh Madison Troy, second in the 15-16 5K at 17:51.55. USATF awards recognizes Rocha and Bowen as 15-16 national champs, and Harrison and Benner as 17-18 national champs. In the absence of head-to-head competition, I’d do the same. I won’t say I’m happy about it, though.

USATF/Runnerspace.com

It’s not over yet, either.

On 7 February 2015 in Boulder, Colorado, USATF will hold the National Cross Country Championships, including the junior women's 6K championship and the junior men's 8K championship. "Junior" is an international designation that means "you're in a calendar year before the one your 20th birthday occurs." Roughly, juniors are athletes 19 years old or younger. This includes high school runners, although it does capture some first-year college runners. You could argue that of all the national cross-country championships this one is the most meaningful, because this is where USATF selects teams for the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in in Guiyang, China, on 28 March 2015. People are probably tired of hearing me say it, but the World Cross-Country Championships are older than the World Track & Field Championships, older than the modern Olympic Games, and it was a sad day when IAAF decided to hold them only every two years instead of annually. Because the races are longer and open to younger collegians, few high school athletes qualify for the World Championships. Still, Mead (Washington) High junior Andrew Gardner made the USA men's junior team in 2013. West Bloomfield (Michigan) senior Erin Finn earned a spot on the junior women's team that year, as did Spokane North Central (Washington) High senior Katie Knight. It’s not easy for a high school athlete to make the national junior team, but no one can do it at Foot Locker, Nike Cross, or either version of the Junior Olympics. You have to qualify at the USATF National Cross Country Championships.

By the time the USATF Nationals roll around, though, most of us will be thinking about track, and we’ll be in the middle of the American track & field season by the time of the World Championships in China. That would be a very long cross country season.

Northwest Florida Correspondent Herb Wills

Herb Wills' running career goes back to the 1971 boys' age-group mile at the Florida Relays. Since losing that race he has won the 1976 Florida High School class 4A cross-country championship, 1979 AAU USA junior titles in cross-country and the 10,000 meters, and the 1989 TAC USA 30K national championship. As a distance runner at Florida State University from 1978 to 1982, he was NCAA All-American three times in track and once in cross country, and won a silver medal in the marathon at the 1981 World University Games. Graduating Florida State with a degree in mathematics, in the following years Wills ran in the USA Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984, 1988, and 1992, and placed tenth in the Boston Marathon in 1989. After more than a few years of duty as a hurdle setter and lane judge at track meets, Wills discovered that the public address announcer not only got to sit down at meets but was also sheltered from the rain. Since that revelation you can hear him with a microphone in his hand at several track and cross-country events in the Tallahassee area. Writing is another activity you can do while sitting down, and Wills has written about running for Racing South magazine and Tallahassee's local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat.

You can read more running related tidbits in his blog at http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/

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