“Turning [their] bath tubs into ice baths, recovering [their] legs in the hotel hot tub, double checking their spikes, laying out their uniform for the next morning, and even catching up on [their] Netflix,” is how Cross Country team captain Dillon Smith ’14 described the night before “one of the biggest parts of the cross country season.”
This year, the Jesuit Varsity Cross Country team embarked on their yearly trip to the Annual Cowboy Jamboree, a prominent race held at Oklahoma State University, on the weekend of September 27-29. In the oldest consecutive cross country race in the United States (77 years), Jesuit fielded a group of 23 runners guided by two coaches, Coach Jonathan Segal and Coach Douglas Robinson. Jesuit runners would compete in a 3.12 mile (5k) race against over 20 of the top high school cross country teams in the United States. This year’s race, however, would prove to be especially rough and tough for the Rangers.
Smith describes the treacherous OSU course as “coated with a path of wood chips and containing numerous hills. The wood chips make the hills worse than any other course we encounter in our season, slipping under our feet right at the point we need to dig and pick up the pace.” He even went as far to say that this course is “the hardest course we will run on every year.” In addition to the challenging terrain, this year the team faced adverse weather conditions as well.
Rain poured down on the morning of September 28th. Adding to the inevitable chaos on the morning of such an important race, Smith described his tough morning with fellow team captain, Conner Garvey ’16, exclaiming that they had to “run back and forth to the registration tent to check up on the updated schedule, leaving the bus warm and dry, but returning cold and wet.”
After an excruciating delay of two hours and thirty minutes, the team finally ran the race they had been preparing so much for. As a result of the rain, the 50 degree temperature and watery trail were huge obstacles for the team. Smith affirmed that “not everyone ran a personal best, [but] I believe the team still felt successful just to finish the race.”
Connor Oneill ’17, a young star of this year’s team, explains his positive experience with his races: “It’s exciting to know that I as a freshman can beat upperclassmen, get better over my four years here, and succeed at a higher level when I compete on varsity.”
Through all of the adversity, Jesuit still succeeded in this year’s run with Dillon Smith running Jesuit’s best individual time: 17:19.54, earning an overall rank of 20th among the entire pool of over 150 ranked racers. The team’s band of talented racers earned Jesuit a rank of 9th out of the 23 ranked high schools. With nothing to be ashamed of, Jesuit could definitely not be overlooked by the other teams.
Regardless of this year’s arduous running experience, this trip was and continues to be a great experience for the team. After going on the trip in each of the past three years, fellow team captain Andrew Pott ’14, who had to miss the race with a commitment as a Freshman Retreat small group leader, exclaimed, “it is a really fun experience because you just get time to bond with the team. I was really sad I couldn’t go this year.” Smith supports him saying, “even though you are very independent on [these] trips, the trust and bond the team has when we do go out of town grows drastically.”
Pott describes other team antics, such as how the team “always goes to Olive Garden for dinner, mainly for the unlimited breadsticks.” Executing a carbo-load for the energy on the next day, he says the team even “stuffs as many breadsticks they can into napkins to bring back to the hotel room.” Of course, coming from a male-only high school, Pott describes the team’s other goal on this trip: “There is always another cross country team of girls, and some of the guys always try and flirt with some of them.”
As expressed by the team and the coaches, the Jesuit Cross Country team always looks forward to this trip, as they do not take any other out-of-state trips. This race offers one of the biggest tests of the team’s perseverance, preparation, dedication, and unity as a cross country team. They stay poised through the rugged terrain, unexpected traveling complications, and difficult weather conditions in order to find success. However, this race also offers an experience that promotes and cultivates one of Jesuit’s most coveted values: brotherhood. In addition to the class retreats for each grade level, which unify and cement the community as a family, the cross country team is lucky enough to also have the Annual Cowboy Jamboree.
Pott describes this team as much “more connected than it has been in past years.”
Connor Oneill ’17 shows his brotherhood by expressing that “if everyone on the team, regardless of being varsity or JV, goes out there and puts in their best effort, then we have achieved success.”
Lastly, Smith bleeds unity, brotherhood, and commitment when he says, “All I can ask for as a teammate, and as a captain, is that the team gives their 110% effort in every run, in everything they do, and realize that the slowest runner on the team is just as important as the fastest runner on the team.”
After this exciting event, the Cross Country team will begin to prepare for their district races and regional races, the ultimate tests of the team’s growth and preparation throughout the year. Some racers even have a good shot at making it to state, but only time will tell how much this resilient and talented Jesuit team will succeed and we know that they will go far as they always have.
