Ben ran Cross Country for the first time in high school this year.

I’m so inundated with soccer that I’ve never actually seen how a different sport handles their season at the school.

Coaching for a high school team is a hard spot to fill. It sometimes offers a small stipend, many times they do it for free. Practices are almost every day so it’s a huge time commitment. And as I know from running the booster club for the soccer program, you spend lots of time behind the scenes doing admin or managing parent complaints.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see how well run cross country is! They have a ton of coaches and every single one of them is organized and positive and doing above and beyond what coaches need to do to make it a great season for the kids.

Ben spent many hours practicing with this lovely group of athletes and coaches. They did fun things like jump into the lake during runs on hot days, the coaches provided many events that kids could socialize, like carbo loading meals before race days.

Ben ran when it rained or was sunny. He ran when it was cold and when it was hot. Sometimes he ran in the ‘open’ category for his school. Sometimes he ran for JV. Sometimes he ran for Varsity. Sometimes he ran 2 miles, sometimes he ran 3 miles. No matter what, he made the effort and never gave up, never complained.

With 3 kids still at home, I wasn’t able to catch every meet for Ben. Unlike some other sports at Ben’s school, Cross Country provided buses for some of the meets, luckily those meets fell on times when both Sam and Aaron had soccer games and Adam and I were already covering a kid each.

One of the things I really loved was how much they honored their Seniors in the program. On one of the last meets that everyone attended, they threw a big party with hot dogs and cake and balloons and big heads of each senior to show how much they appreciated them.

I also loved how the coaches encouraged the kids to speak in front of the crowd. Many times kids felt comfortable getting up and speaking before all the runners and parents. Such good training for life!

Not only did they honor their Seniors on Senior Day, but it continued to the end of season banquet.

Ben also improved a lot over the season. Here are his times for the season:

Next up – Track Season! We are very lucky to have many of the same coaches for this.

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