While restaurants, offices, stores, and schools shut down due to COVID, so did athletics. A few schools that were able to handle the pandemic wisely, however, were able to safely continue sports this fall season, Harley being one of them. Although the cross country team had to work around many precautions and limits due to the pandemic, they were able to begin their season, and most importantly was that the team successfully got to train and run together through the end of the season.
Not everything worked out as planned though. While Harley celebrated the continuation of their fall season, the school’s counterpart for sports, Allendale, was prohibited from having a fall season, leaving the cross country team short of four runners, all of which would have been part of the scoring top seven. Of course, this created annoyance, anger, and resistance from the team. Even with the Allendale athletes putting together a presentation in which they made a case of why they should be able to run, the school still prohibited them from participating in races and practices with the team. The team was provided with no explanation or logic as to why they all couldn’t run together, they were only told no. What makes the situation even worse was the fact that multiple of Allendale’s students were able to swim at Harley at the same time the cross country team would have practiced. Even more hypocritical of Allendale’s’ decision though, is the fact that winter sports, including high-risk ones such as basketball, will be continuing in the winter months.
Although the team lacked multiple of their usual athletes, the resilience pulled through and both individual runners and the collective boys and girls teams managed to have a successful season. Every runner on the team notched a personal record at least once during the season, HAC swept a meet, boys finished third at sectionals, and the girls won multiple meets despite being short of their three key runners.
So while the team faced many setbacks and limitations, the situation faced by the HAC runners once again proved that the camaraderie and spirit of cross country is like no other sport. The spirit of persistence and determination to overcome challenges clearly showed the team’s ability to accept what they couldn’t change and work with it. In a time like this, other athletes or teams may have decided to not go forward with their season, not run because of the extra covid precautions, or not have trained because a fall season was not guaranteed. This was not so for HAC cross country. They demonstrate again and again that they possess an ability to adapt and overcome, as they did this season.
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