The members of the cross country team run through the scorching heat, each stride draining more energy. Cross country coach Walt Yarrow helps to keep their motivation to continue. Cross country is very important to him because it is heavily centered around team effort. 

“This year, we only lost one senior,” said Yarrow. “We have a lot of depth in our team this year and they are also very unified.” 

The top seven who run in district and in state meets are from a variety of classes.The main events for cross country are the district meet, regional meet and state meet.  As the season starts to heat up, Yarrow feels very satisfied with where the team is at right now. With the exception of 1 loss in 2019, the boys team has a seven year winning streak, so Coach Yarrow has confidence in his team’s abilities. 

“You can imagine running now in the heat is like the hardest thing ever,” said Yarrow.” “Even if you love to run, sometimes it’s still not comfortable. The motivation is succeeding as team on the course, but also building unity and lifelong friendships.” 

After hard meets, the team loves to go out to dinner together. Whether it is a pasta night, or a casual Whataburger dinner. The team finds it essential to build deeper connections with each other. This connection helps them set higher goals for themselves and the team. On the surface cross country looks like an individual sport because the runners are running for themselves, but according to Yarrow, they actually run for each other. 

“I love coaching every season. Cross country is super unique because you can have a freshman come in who has never really run before, but they can get as good as anybody. I like to see that progress and see them run the fastest they’ve ever run,” said Yarrow. 

Although the team has had a lot of accomplishments, Yarrow wants to continue to push them to improve on being good teammates to each other and better role models to the newcomers and younger runners. 

“At the end of the day, it’s really like life. You see the parallels of life. Running in cross country is all like life. If you work hard, you may not see results right away. So I think it builds good character that way,” said Yarrow.