Yes, It’s True: Cross country builds quality men, women

It is with more than a little sadness that I have been reporting on the Wayland and Martin cross-country teams this season.

Both schools have been struggling to field enough runners to qualify for a team score in more than a few meets. You see, cross-country teams must come up with a minimum of five harriers in order to have a team score assigned to them. And sometimes, for me too often, the Wayland girls and boys and Martin boys and girls have had to compete without officially being scored.

Wayland’s situation has been dicey because only five girls and five boys went out for the sport this fall. All that’s needed to deny the Wildcats an official teams score is for one team member to fail to make it for the meet.

This seems unfair to top 10 runners Dylan Pallett of Waylandf and Veyda Conley of Martin, who too often aren’t counted in their performances at competitions.

I honestly don’t know why there is a shortage of cross-country runners. The coaches at both schools have reputations for being pretty mellow individuals who don’t do a lot of yelling an screaming, like in football.

Furthermore, history has proven the notion that cross-country participants turn out to a high degree of being solid contributing citizens after leaving school.

The first remember in particular was Don Passenger of Caledonia, who grew up to become a judge.

There are other terrific examples:

• Wayland High School graduate Sarah Brewer, besides gaining laurels in adult races, eventually earned a PhD and has been an epidemiologist for some time. That is, she fights against things like the coronavirus.
• Wayland coach Ray Antel had the privilege of coaching Nicole Bush to three state championships before she became world class steeplechaser at Michigan State University, qualifying for the Olympic trails.
• Middleville Thornapple Kellogg harrier Danielle Quisenberry married and changed her name to Salisbury before joining the staff as a reporter for the Jackson Citizen Patriot.
• Hopkins ace harrier Rachel Weber eventually grew up to be a doctor. Teammate Laura Velderman became a Marine.
• Brooke Brenner and John Wamhoff came back home to coach the Vikings cross-country team.
• Wayland High School’s Robby Young lettered in cross four times at Wayland and went on to be a Division II All-American at GVSU. Today he is the head cross and track coach at Michigan Technological University.
• Even Wayland High School band director Kelly Tilley Smith is quite the runner as an adult, as is former Pine Street Elementary Principal and Wyoming Lee Supt. David Britten.
• I am certain readers could tell me about others who ran in high school who have gone on to bigger and better things. Sometimes it’s hard to remember all these achievers.

The point is that many who run cross-country learn a lot about building character and making valuable contributions to society. It’s a shame it failed to attract quality numbers.