Hi everyone, I am a past runner of the Centerville Girls Cross Country program. I graduated this past year and am now in college. My mom has participated in this forum and thus, has kept me very updated with the things that have been said. I am on here because I want to share my experience and contribute to the conversation. To give you some background, I was on the varsity squad all four years of my high school career. With six other girls, I won the state championship my freshman, sophomore, and junior year and won runner-up my final year as a senior. I was a part of the team that flew out to Portland, Oregon to run in Nike Cross Nationals my freshman year. I have also qualified and ran for various state meets in track and field throughout my years at Centerville.
I am on here not for sympathy, but to curate a sense of understanding. It is hard to completely and sincerely comprehend all that a situation like this entails unless you are in the very shoes of the girls who went through it. Even as a parent, you still do not endure the full experience.
Yelling and spitting in our faces at practice, telling us that one of us "needs to step the up", guiding me towards another girl for race advice instead of himself, saying that "you have not won state, you merely have not lost", and more. There are some things I cannot say, because some of the girls involved in those memories are still in the program. I do not want to put a target on their back. But, these are the things that I have gone through. The things we have gone through. Some of you say that it is us, the girls, or the parents, but it isn't. I can't count the number of times I approached him about wanting to make change, about wanting to have a team discussion, about wanting to do this or that for the betterment of the team, the number of times I stayed after practice to engage in that change. But what came from it? Nothing. And some of you are so concerned about why he raced his JV and why he uses this tactic or that, and quite frankly, he is allowed to race whoever he wants. He is allowed to do workouts a certain way. Like so many things in life, there is no one correct way. That applies to coaching. Why are we not more concerned about the girls that have come forward about the detrimental environment that has been curated?
I have been running since elementary school. It was something I loved with all of my heart. I connected with people through running, connected with my mom through running, grew as an individual because of running. I even wanted to go on and run for Lehigh University or Loyola Chicago in college. So to those of you that question why we did not quit, that is why. How am I supposed to drop something so easily, give up on something that I have dreamed about and loved for so long? The Centerville program completely changed that for me, and I know I am not the only one. I ended up not running in college. I had to go to the school therapist, along with the rest of the varsity squad, as a result of what was happening. I also went to a therapist separate from the school. I suffer from depression. I am not going to say that cross country is the only cause of that, because that is not true, but it is greatly responsible. I am just now coming around to loving running again. What I and so many other girls have endured is unreal and heartbreaking. This should not be happening in a high school program, or any other program of any sort for that matter.
I want change. We need change. I am not saying anyone needs to be fired, but at the least, acknowledgment and change must be.
