God is Good and in Control This was sent to my Principal, AD, and me I am one of the cross country coaches for Blessed Trinity High School and wanted write and let you know how well your boys represented East Jackson on Sat. at the state meet in Carrollton. The meet ended in a tie between our two teams and the tie breaker in cross country is the placing of the number 6 runner which had us coming out ahead. I had the opportunity to speak with most of the boys who ran for you and while they were very disappointed in not winning, they felt they had given their best effort and had represented themselves, their team, their school and community well. In our book, while we got the first place trophy, they should look at themselves as co champs rather than number two. In such a close meet it would have been easy to see a lot of finger pointing and kids being upset...it would have only taken one runner from most any team running a second faster or slower to have changed the overall results and we know we were very lucky to have come away with the trophy. At the depths of their anguish over losing, your runners all were up beat, positive and very supportive of each other and they would have made you proud of how they handled everything on Sat. I just hope that had the tables been turned, our kids would have handled themselves in the same manner. Special kudos to Chase Kennedy, Chandler Kennedy and Noah Hulett for finishing first, second and fourth in the individual race. That is about as good as it gets. Coach Sitton has done a fabulous job with your cross country program, not only in training them to run but teaching them the more important life lessons of how to win and lose graciously. Coach, you have the respect and admiration of our whole team. Our school opened in 2000 and in 2003 we won our first ever boys state championship. That year we had about 16 runners and had our meet come down to our number six runner we would not have had a chance. At that meet, my son, Chase Oliver had expected to contend for the individual title but did not have a good day and finished 9th. Standing there at the finish line I greeted him as he just was broken down in tears thinking he had cost his team a state championship. Little did he know that our #4 and #5 runners had the meet of their lives and we escaped with a narrow 3 point victory. Our current coach, Greg Johnson, was a member of that team and since his arrival, our team has grown to over 80 runners. I think coach Sitton is building that kind of team there and look forward to racing against your guys many more times in the future. Al Oerter, the 4-time Olympic gold medalist in the discus, once said: Ive never competed against anyone in my life. Ive always competed WITH people. To compete against people is a negative thing. To compete with people is a celebration, a celebration of human capability. It was an honor to compete with your team on Sat. Your whole community should be very proud of them. Chuck Oliver Director of Development Reply, Reply All or Forward | More Reply, Reply All or Forward | More
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 03:38:04 +0000
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