I’m finally starting this post on June 10, 2019 long after I finished the post for the 2003 - 2004 season because I made up my mind that it needs to be finished. My career ended 14 years ago and I need to wrap this thing up and put it on the shelf.
The book I used with my newsletters this season was, Mind Gym, an athletes guide to inner excellence by Gary Mack. I have been a firm believer in mental training since I began coaching. Several of the boys team members had played soccer for years and some even continued to do so during the season. (Needless to say that was a season long point of contention. When your top runner misses to go play for a soccer team that never won it was beyond frustrating). The connection to some of the boys to soccer and mental toughness or lack of is that some of them were used to being able to take time off during games and obviously that didn’t work out too well when they did it in a race. That’s sort of a long winded way to say we had some runners who were never going to reach their potential unless they improved their mental toughness.
The good news to start the season was that we had enough kids out on both teams to justify having a scrimmage. We went to Woodland Park to run with Coach Payton’s team and had a cookout afterwards with both teams. It was a fun and also challenging way to kick off the competitive season.
Our first meet was the Harrison Invitational on the State Meet course. Because there were many small schools in the 38 team field they scored top 4 instead of five. That worked to our advantage because our #5 runner at the two mile dropped out. (Remember the focus this season was on mental toughness). We still had work to do because we were in the toughest 4A Region in the state. We finished tied for second but got 3rd based on the 137th place finish of our 5th runner. And we were just 4 points out of 1st. The concern we came away from the meet with was our 3:45 split from 1-5. In the newsletter I wrote, “This won’t get us to state!”
In the girls division the good news is that we were starting the season with a scoring team and despite the fact that our 4th and 5th runners were 190th and 199th out of 199 we still beat 4 teams. A scoring team was a step forward.
My comments after the meet focused on mental toughness. “If you learned nothing else yesterday you should have either learned or had reinforced that cross country is a challenging sport. It is a sport of courage, a sport of the heart and a sport for those willing to accept and meet a challenge. You can’t hide on the sidelines or the bench while your teammates go out and compete. Each of you has to be your biggest competitor physically and mentally.”
We went through a string of four meets where our only loss was to 5A Air Academy and our 1-5 gap was consistently under a minute and thirty seconds. While we still hoped to get it lower at least it was trending in the right direction and our top seven boys and top three girls were becoming very dependable. Our biggest weakness on the boys team was the gap between six and seven.
We won the Sand Creek Invitational by 50 points over second place with our top five finishing in the top nine including an individual win from FL. The girls again had a scoring team and were led as usual by steady performances from the 3 A’s; AO, AH and AD
We finished 2nd of 19 at Cheyenne Mountain and had our best 1-5 split of the season at 1:07. The girls were without one of the three A’s but we still had a scoring team. After the meet I wrote: “Great job guys! This is the first time since 1995 that we have beaten Cheyenne Mountain. It has also been many years since we’ve beaten Palmer and Lewis Palmer. How far you go this season and how much success you have this year is going to depend on how much each of you are willing to work to be the best individually and as a team. It’s going to come down to every one of you doing your best in every meet. Keep up the good work and good things can happen. Ladies, a scoring team is a pretty low goal and it’s sad that we’ve come to that in the program. The fact that we had a scoring team was a plus though and congratulations to the five of you who ran and finished. Now you each need to focus on getting better every day, every meet, every week.”
The third meet in this four meet stretch was Florence and again the boys won with FL in 1st and our 6th runner finishing 7th overall. AO led the girls with a 7th place finish and we became the 4 A’s when AS ran her first meet for us and became our third runner.
The fourth and final meet of this stretch was the Pueblo Invitational where we were 1st in a 21 team field. Our 1-5 wasn’t great at 1:32 but the good news is our 1-7 was finally coming down at 1:44. Unfortunately the 1-7 was never going to be under 2:20 again because two of the top seven that day were literally one and done. One CS had been an outstanding runner for us as a freshman but moved to another high school, he moved back and competed in this meet where he was our number six runner with the minimum days of practice required and then the next week he moved back to the other school again. On top of that the runner who was our 4th runner that day DN had worked hard to regain eligibility and even competed in a junior varsity meet to earn his spot on the varsity for this meet and then came up ineligible again the next week. So despite the fact that our regular #7 wasn’t as talented as either of them one thing he had going for him is that he was dependable.
On the girls side we only had two of the 4 A’s and one other runner so we failed to score. The irony here is that our third runner PP was in her first race and was the 5th runner we needed to be more competitive. Her response to running well in her first meet...she quit!
The boys continued to string together good performances the next four meets leading up to the championship part of the season. The girls were improving and most importantly they were continuing to represent Sierra by scoring as a team. We still couldn’t get consistent performances from one of our top four girls and that was keeping the team from moving up in team standings. For example during the four meet stretch of Liberty Bell, Buena Vista, pikes Peak Invitational and Rampart she was our 3rd runner twice, 4th once and 6th once. Her times varied by as much as 11 minutes!
The boys were 4th at Liberty Bell, 1st at Buena Vista, 5th at Pikes Peak where they were the first 4A team and 4th at Rampart where they were again the first 4A team. My comments after these meets make it pretty obvious that our biggest concern was consistency at least 1-5 if not 1-7.
After Liberty Bell, “Great effort by the boys team and some of the girls once again. The girls team will never improve until everyone realizes that it is a race. Fourth place is the highest finish ever by a Sierra team at Liberty Bell. For the most part it was an outstanding team effort. It is going to take a better effort if you are going to make it to state. We are in the toughest Region in the state without a doubt.”
After Buena Vista, “Outstanding job IF you simply look at the results. It was nice to have a girls team that really competed for the first time in several years. If we get someone to step up and be a 5th runner you can have a respectable finish at league and region. Who is it going to be? Guys, winning is always good. This is the first time in school history that a boy’s cross country team has won 3 meets in a season and 5 in two seasons. It’s also the first time a Sierra cross country athlete has won three meets in one year, congratulations FL. There was a negative in your performance as a team though and I think every one of the top six knows what it is because at least five of you told me on Tuesday that you “went out to fast”. You’re still to hung up on racing each other to early and then you have to hang on. The pack has got to run smarter starting on Friday. I definitely think you regained your focus as a team and if you hadn’t you would have lost to Woodland Park yesterday. Now it’s simple, keep the focus, get and keep the grades up, believe in yourself and each other and you can reach your goal of returning to the State Championship meet and finishing high.”
After Pikes Peak, “Very good job guys, we still need 6 of you getting it done and the gap has to close. (1-5 was 1:26). Ladies those of you who tried and ran hard know who you are, keep up the good work. We still need five of you to honestly compete if you are going to improve at League and Region from the past few years.”
And finally, after Rampart, “Great job by both teams. I can’t even begin to tell you proud of the guys I am for stepping up without FL and finishing 4th in such a large and competitive meet. That’s the last time FL will have a conflict with soccer. Continue to work together and improve and your season goals can be reached. Girls it has been a long time since a coach from another team stopped and commented to me about how good the girls ran. (They finished 11th out of 27 teams). EZ you’re getting better but I know you can run 2-3 minutes faster and close the gap on the top 4. (She improved a minute in each of the next two meets. 2:10 total). AS you need to compete every meet not just when you feel like it. (She didn’t show up for League which was the next meet and we didn’t take her to Region). If you two continue to improve and the top three keep competing you will have the best League and Regional finish we’ve had in years”.
All that remained were the three meets that we considered the Championship stretch of the season, Metro League, Region and if we qualified, State.
We got off on the right foot at League with a strong second place finish from the boys losing by only 4 points to Cheyenne Mountain. Three of the top seven boys and 4-7 girls all ran personal bests.
As I mentioned throughout the season and several times while writing this we were without a doubt the toughest Region in the state and it was going to take a great effort to qualify for State. To make matters more stressful we had 12 teams in our Region and only 4 qualified for State or 40% of the competing teams so in order to get the 5th qualifier every team had to have a scoring team. Denver Manual had not fielded a scoring team all year but their coach assured the other coaches that he had five kids who were eligible to compete. That was the good news. The bad news was that if even one of them failed to finish we would lose the 5th team qualifier.
Region was just as tough as we expected and we got that 5th qualifier because all 12 teams scored. That was a good thing because we were that 5th place team. Three of our top seven and six of the top seven girls ran their personal best.
“Congratulations to the boys team on qualifying for the State Championship for the second year in a row. You overcame being in the toughest region in the state to qualify and you should be proud of yourselves. Now it’s important that you don’t be satisfied to just qualify. Your first goal as an individual should be to improve over last year and your goal as a team should be a better showing than last year. It’s all about improvement every time you go out.”
And compete they did. They all ran season bests and became the #’s 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 11th on the junior all time list and our number seven runner the 21st on the sophomore list. As a team they finished fifth and beat two of the teams that had beaten them at Region, including Cheyenne Mountain the League champions. Their 1-5 split was under a minute, 57 seconds, a remarkable effort.
“What a tremendous way to finish a very successful season. I told you after the race, I told you on the bus and I told those of you I saw at school this morning but I want to tell you again that I am very proud of the way you represented this school and program all year. Saturday was just the final outstanding effort and you were rewarded with a fifth place finish at the state championship meet. Great job! Coming from 5th in your region and beating two teams that beat you there was a truly championship effort.”
I didn’t know then that would be the last cross country newsletter I would write but I probably wouldn’t have written it any different. I’m as proud of those kids today as I write this fifteen years later as I was then.
Ironically the next year they were moved to the weakest 4A region. The boys won and the girls were runner up.
We had been getting more competitive in girls swimming the past few years because I was able to have more control in schedule making and I tried to schedule teams that had similar student bodies and similar histories to us. We couldn’t change the entire schedule because of teams in our league that we had to keep on the schedule. While they were considered in the bottom tier of our league with us the majority were still 5A schools. Our focus out of necessity was improvement and doing our best no matter who we swam against.
My newsletter comments after the first meet were a pretty clear overview of our expectations. “Ladies the dominating win (120-42) isn’t what I’m impressed with. I am impressed with your effort in your events, your support for one another throughout the meet and the fact that with 9 swimmers who had never competed before we had only one disqualification. Great job and a good start to the season. Now it’s important that we work on fixing some things quickly. First, all of you need to smooth out your strokes, work harder drilling at practice. Think about what it feels like in the water, if you are twisting and turning your body, if you are running into the walls or lane lines, you are not swimming smoothly. Second, we have to get better as a team. We won’t win close meets or beat the better teams unless some of you step up and swim better, which translates to faster. We have to have three in every event, that means some of you need to step up in the fly, 200, 500, IM etc. Great job now lets keep getting better.”
Sierra 106 - Widefield 75. “Wow! You did exactly what we said you needed to do, win where you could and swim for points everywhere else and the results were what we hoped they would be. You beat Widefield for the first time in school history. Now it’s important that you don’t have a let down on Thursday.”
Sierra 95 - Pueblo Central 79. “You are 3-0 for the first time in school history. You have the potential ladies to have a really special season. It’s going to take a serious commitment from everyone, that means at practice, working in practice to improve your weaknesses, learning more strokes so you are a more versatile swimmer, keeping your grades up and doing what you need to do to stay healthy.”
It’s pretty obvious that our goals were to make the girls well rounded student athletes with emphasis on student first and that included improving as a student of the sport.
Fountain Fort Carson 119 - Sierra 57. “The score doesn’t tell the whole story ladies. As a matter of fact I was surprised it was as bad as it was because I feel the majority of you swam well and competed hard which is what we asked you to do.” We only won two individual events and none of the relays but it wasn’t from lack of effort. As was the case in all of our loses we were simply out experienced. You can only do your best and the majority of the time without fail the girls did everything we asked.
Sierra 98 - Pueblo East 75.
Sierra 115 - Harrison 61. “Congratulations on your 5-1 record so far. You became only the 3rd team in school history to win 5 meets. No team has ever won more than 5. Next weeks meet with Mitchell will be a lot tougher than our last two. It is going to take everyone’s best effort to have a chance to compete with them. Anything less and we’ll get best as bad as we were beaten at Fountain”.
Mitchell 101 - Sierra 68. “You wouldn’t think you could find much positive in a 33 point loss but there were some positives. We won 5 of 11 events and for the record, 4 of the 6 events Mitchell won they swam faster than our school records. Many of you swam season bests and several of you made the all time lists with some of you swimming events for the first time.”
Fountain Fort Carson Invitational 4th of 11 teams only 12 points behind Mitchell for 3rd.
Sierra 101 - SkyView 75. “Ladies congratulations! The first swim team in school history to win 6 swimming meets. It started out slow with us behind by 2 points after diving but you came back like I expected you to. I told you SkyView was going to be tougher than we had ever seen before. Now lets get ready to have a competitive showing at St. Mary’s next week.”
St. Mary’s 97 - Sierra 73. “Once again we lost to a good team with several outstanding swimmers and once again they swam faster than our school records in four of the events they won. There were some outstanding races for all places. We are proud of the way you stepped up and competed throughout the meet. That was the last meet for some of you and you represented Sierra well. Those of you swimming at League have a final chance this year to make the all time list for yards”.
Colorado Springs Metro League Championships- Lewis Palmer 369, Cheyenne Mountain 366, Palmer 330, Liberty 244, Pine Creek 168, Air Academy 165.5, Wasson 147, Rampart 112.5, Doherty 97, Fountain Fort Carson 84, Coronado 79, Mitchell 74, SIERRA 30, Widefield/Mesa Ridge 26 & Harrison 16.
Every season ended the same way for us and basically that was getting run over at the League meet no matter how well we swam. “It’s always a tough way to end the season. For the first time we had two swimmers make the “bonus round”, EB in the 500 and SH in the 200. (The bonus final was for swimmers 17-24 from the prelims and scored no points it was just another opportunity for swimmers from the bottom tier teams a chance to swim again at League). Two of the three relays also made the all time lists in both prelims and finals. (While coaching the team I maintained lists of the top 15 individual and relay performances in both yards and meters as a motivational tool for the girls). Many of the younger swimmers finished with personal bests and took a step towards next year already. The season was the best in school history. You won 6 meets for the first time ever and became only the second winning team in 21 years”.
I mentioned irony at the end of Cross Country and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it here. The next year they only lost one four year letter winner and she was an important member of the team but who should move in as a senior? Fountain Fort Carson’s top swimmer. She broke three individual school records and five of the six relay records. She also became only the second swimmer in school history to make state. And the team became the 3rd winning team in school and again won 6 meets.
Track season was usually the hardest for so many reasons that were out of our control as coaches. No matter how organized we were there were constant changes. As I write this summary many of those circumstances should become evident. Just as I’ve done with all of my posts in this blog anything in italics will be direct quotes from the pre and post meet newsletters that I gave to coaches and athletes.
One theme that we always emphasized was, Every Point, Every Event, Every Meet and it was obvious after the Panther Relays, our first meet why we spent so much time reiterating that.
“Great start to the 2005 Track and Field season ladies and gentlemen! I’m really proud of you and it isn’t just because of what happened at the meet. It was the way you did things all day. Not only was no one late to the bus (a first for the boys) but you were all early. You can’t imagine how much coaches appreciate that. With very few exceptions your conduct at the meet and support for one another was outstanding. Most efforts in your events were outstanding as well.
Again for the most part warm up and cool down was handled well throughout the day. Very good first effort. Is there anyone who cannot think of where we could have picked up 2 more points in the guys and 4 more in the girls? You missed 1st place on both sides of the meet by a total of 4 points. Now is a very good time to emphasize the importance of every point, every event, every meet!”
There were 19 teams and the boys were second 80 to Sand Creek 81 while the girls were 3rd 67 behind Coronado 70 and Sand Creek 70.
As was the case nearly every Spring in Colorado weather was the most unpredictable element that we dealt with. Competing in cold, wet and windy conditions was to be expected at some point every season. In addition we often had to deal with rescheduling and ultimately cancellations. From a coaching standpoint cancellations were probably the worst because it reduced the number of opportunmities for some athletes to compete.
Fountain Fort Carson 6 Team - Cool and windy off and on. Boys 202 points for 1st over Sand Creek 121 and Manitou Springs 63. Girls were 3rd with 99 behind Sand Creek 152 and Fountain FC 150.
“Very good job. Unfortunately there was more complaining and opting out of events this meet and hopefully that will improve”.
Two other issues that impacted the Spring season were Spring Break and First Semester Ineligibility. We handled the break by offering two options. First we scheduled practice four of the five days and second we gave a list of seven workouts they could do on their own and still earn letter points on the honor system. We usually came back from Spring Break without a big loss in performance.
The tough thing about having athletes who needed to regain eligibility as well as any others who were having grade problems was the balance between allowing them to practice to establish fitness in case the could compete again in the future and making them use their time to get their grades up.
“ELIGIBILITY: As you may or may not know several of your teammates were suspended from track practice and competition for grades and several others have been warned. This is going to remain the policy this season. To many of you had better start to understand that we are serious when we talk about the importance of academics.”
The next three meets showed how much Spring weather impacted track season when we had two out of three meets canceled and both of them were rescheduled before having to be canceled. The toughest part is that both of them were smaller midweek meets that is where we had opportunities to use more kids and to try others in different events both keys that we used to build depth and balanced scoring. That doesn’t even take into account practices that had to be moved indoors or canceled all together.
The meet we got in between cancellations was the Panther Invitational and both teams performed well. In a field of 29 teams the boys were second and the girls 3rd just 2 1/2 points from second. After the meet I asked the following questions, “Where do we go from here? Each of you has to ask yourself that question. Where do you want the season to end? How good do you want to be? Your answer will come in your work effort and willingness to do the right thing, in the classroom, in the community, at home and in the program”.
The next weekend was another example of the dedication I was fortunate enough to have from my assistant coaches. We had a Friday night meet at Sand Creek with schizophrenic weather where for the most part the kids did a good job. “The majority of you did a great job of handling the crazy weather and competing hard. Again your behavior was outstanding and a coach from another school stopped me to make a point of telling me how impressed he has been watching you at meets. Let’s keep up the good work and focus ahead on doing better every week. Remember, every place, every point, every event”. The boys won the meet and the girls had a respectable fourth place finish.
The next morning two of our assistants were back on the bus before the sun came up to take many of our athletes who hadn’t had many opportunities to compete to a small school varsity meet at Elbert.
“The team scores don’t reflect the entire day. You did a great job representing the Sierra Track program, Sierra High School and your community. With only one exception your behavior was outstanding and your performances were for the most part good. I hope you appreciate the extra effort put forth my Coach M and Coach J so you could have this opportunity to compete in a varsity meet. Our team has a reputation for knowing how to act appropriately, thanks for doing the right thing”.
Our next meet was once again tenuous as far as weather the Sunday after our Friday - Saturday Double we literally had a blizzard followed by school being canceled for a snow day Monday. Because so many coaches put little value on weekday meets we’re fortunate that the three teams in our quad with us agreed to keep the meet. It always amazed me how so many coaches in our area would jump at a chance to cancel a midweek meet. Our boys won easily with 121 points, Wasson was 2nd with 69 and the girls won by five points over Fountain Fort Carson 97 - 92.
Wasson got back at the boys in the Glenn Peterson Invitational winning with 109 1/2 points to runner up Sierra with 102. The girls were 4th in the 18 team field.
Our next meet was the 11 team Colorado Springs Metro League meet and we were very successful. The boys won the meet over runner up Sand Creek 138 - 118. The tables were turned in the girls division with Sand Creek outscoring our girls 125 1/2 to 111. It was a meet where we had many outstanding individual and relay efforts including the boys breaking the 4 x 400 record that had stood since 1986.
The next three meets were the kind that I really enjoyed as a coach. They were low pressure meets that allowed us to move athletes around in different events and get more kids competition. The first was a seven team midweek meet at Sand Creek and the good news is that the top three teams treated it seriously unlike Harrison that scored 0 in the boys side and Liberty that scored 4 on the girls side. The boys top three were Sierra 155, Sand Creek 139 and Doherty 127. The top scoring girls teams were Dohert 184, Sierra 176 and Sand Creek 135. “Good job! There were a lot of good performances at this meet. It was a great opportunity for many of you who haven’t had many chances to compete”.
Next we had a 16 team Invitational at Fountain Fort Carson that was officially a nonscoring meet but of course once official results came out it was easy to score on paper. Both our boys and girls led all scorers the boys 133 to SandCreek 109 and Cheyenne Mountain 64 and girls had 92 ahead of Fountain Fort Carson 87 and Woodland Park 74. Sand Creek was right behind with 73.
“Although this was a non scoring meet for teams it was pretty obvious who had the best teams on Saturday. It’s going to come down to Sierra and Sand Creek boys and Sierra, Woodland Park and Sand Creek girls at the Region. If we don’t stay focused and everyone on the same page you will come up short of your goals. We were really proud of how well you competed under lousy weather conditions. You have shown all season that no matter what the conditions you will step up and do your best. Keep that attitude and the next three weeks will bring good things”.
The third meet was the Lewis Palmer Freshman-Sophomore meet and we always looked forward to it as a gauge of our future potential. I say potential because if you’ve read much of this blog then you know there is no such thing as day to day certainty at Sierra much less year to year. “The future continues to look bright for Sierra Track and Field. Congratulations to the boys on their victory. I don’t have girls team scores because they weren’t in the paper but when I get them I’ll include them in a future newsletter”.
The boys meet was very competitive with the top four teams all scoring over 100 points. Sierra 134, Air Academy 116, Lewis Palmer 113 and Liberty 103. We never did get girls team results but we scored a respectable 65 points.
We went into our final meet before Region, the Canon City Invitational without our top girl sprinter so we knew it was going to be a tough meet as far as team placement. The rest of the team stepped up throughout though and finished 4th in a 16 team field. The boys were big winners with 158 points over the 5A Metro League Champions, Palmer who had 96. It was the kind of dominating performance we hope for going into Region and State Championships.
“Congratulations on an outstanding meet by both teams. As always the picnic was an outstanding way to start the day off and winning the boy’s 4x400 was a great way to end it. You continue to make a statement going into this weekends Regional meet. Now you can’t let up. If you want to reach your individual goals you have to do the right thing for two more weeks. Practice hard when asked, do the other things we ask of you at practice even on the ‘easy’ days, HYDRATE every day, eat as healthy as possible, get enough rest, don’t do anything dumb to get injured, behave in school at home and in the community, keep your focus on academics and just as important as all of the others, THINK TEAM! Again great job Friday now that one is behind us and the focus needs to be on the next two weeks”.
“EVERY PLACE, EVERY POINT, EVERY EVENT”
“Congratulations on a wonderful effort by both teams. Not just your efforts on the track and in the field but the way you conducted yourselves for both days. It was fun watching you and as coaches you made us proud. You truly are positive role models for Sierra High school. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here about the meet, it will be in the results below. I just want to tell you how proud we are of you. Boys, you made a statement. You have competed hard all year and you just put a punctuation mark on your season efforts. Girls, read the bold print above. Once again the importance of every point was proven with your outstanding runner up finish.
To those of you who are done for the year...thank you for sticking it out and doing your best. To those of you graduating...you will be missed. To those of you who are underclassmen...we hope every one of you will be back to again contribute and do your best. And finally...to those of you who have another week, don’t settle for anything less than your best this week. Don’t take anything for granted. Do your best in every event both days and good things can happen”.
Boys: SIERRA 183 1/2; Sand Creek 127, Pine Creek 72, Liberty 69 1/2, Woodland Park 56, Mesa Ridge 44 1/2, Harrison 43 1/2, Ridgeview Academy 35, Falcon 33, Widefield 33
Girls: Sand Creek 146, SIERRA 108, Woodland Park 107, Pine Creek 77 1/2, Liberty 68, Falcon 63, Harrison 52, Widefield 48, Mesa Ridge 36 1/2, Regis 20
With only a week left in the season we had already accomplished so much individually and as a team that state was going to be a bonus. Every year it was tough to convince kids that as long as they did their best when they got there then simply qualifying for state was an accomplishment that should be celebrated and not taken for granted. Basing your entire season on what you did at the state meet was only a set up for disappointment. My philosophy was always that while State was important it still didn’t define the success or failure of your season as an athlete or as a team.
The State meet was held at Legacy Stadium in Aurora and it was on the hottest days of the year. It was exhausting for coaches simply trying to keep up with their athletes to make sure they stayed hydrated and as cool as possible between events. It was also important that we didn’t let our athletes slide out of warming up and cooling down properly simply because it was so hot. The results speak for themselves. Both teams finished 3rd with the boys just one point out of 2nd and the girls 8 points out of 2nd and 11 out of 1st.
Boys: Mullen 75, D’Evelyn 50, SIERRA 49
Girls: Mullen 67, Longmont 64, SIERRA 56
“WOW! There are no words to sum up what a tremendous performance was turned in by both teams. You guys made us so proud and you left a lasting mark on Sierra High School Track and Field history. Legacy is certainly an appropriate name for the stadium. Unbelievable! I don’t even want to talk about how close you came to second in the boys and even first in the girls, third place in both divisions is wonderful.”
“The results only tell the facts. The rest of the story is in what a great season we all had as a team. Whether you qualified and competed in state, competed as far as the regional meet or didn’t even make it to Regionals, you are still a part of the success that these teams enjoyed. Each of you will always have played a role in the 3rd place boys and 3rd place girls 4A Track teams in 2005. In addition you are members of the Regional Championship boys team and Regional runner up girls team. The boys were also Colorado Springs Metro League 4A Champions and the girls runner up in the same meet. You had a tremendous season by any standards and each and every one of you should be proud.
Good luck to those of you who have graduated and will be moving on. Keep in touch and get your email address to me so you can receive alumni newsletters. You will always be a part of this program. To those of you returning, I hope the success from this year will carry over to your other sports and to next years track team. I know the coaches are already looking forward to next year. Have a good summer. Train and do the right thing”.
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