In the fall of last year, the boys cross country team made school history by securing their first 1A State Championship. Led by Head Coach Mitchell Baum, the Varsity boys ran in Peoria. Competing against teams from across Illinois, the DePaul Prep boys cross country team made a name for themselves.
A cross-country race consists of seven person teams, who work together to accumulate the least amount of points. Each spot a runner places translates to the amount of points their team receives. The top five runners per team are scored, and the sixth and seventh members are tiebreakers or reserves if another teammate is struggling.
Despite the shock and excitement of this historic win, the boys’ success has been years in the making. After placing 3rd last year, the team came back with a passion to improve. Going into the race, Mr. Pat Mahoney, Athletic Director, commented, “There were expectations that they were going to do well and they had a good chance to win it.” Holding themselves up to this standard of excellence, they practice up to seven days a week as early as 5 AM: they lift, complete threshold workouts, run long runs, and much more.
The determination to excel has increased with a culture shift in the program. “We just have an attitude of why not us. Why shouldn’t it be us? Why can’t it be us,” Remarks Baum, who believes that his players’ ambitions have been pivotal in their achievements. He recounts that only a few years ago, their program struggled to even suit up 5 runners. Today, this number has altered drastically, with Baum having at least 10 boys he could “line up on varsity.” “You slowly build a culture where you are not clawing for kids to win it. Kids are showing up saying ‘I want to be that guy, I want to be on varsity,’” He explains as one of the factors of the program’s win.
For Junior Elias Roldan, a Varsity runner on the state team, the community he found changed his view of the sport.”I just love the team atmosphere in cross country and it turns out I was a lot better at it than I ever thought I would be.” Roldan reflects. He joined the team as a baseball player, focused on cross training for the spring season, but the encouragement he received from coaches changed his perspective, “It turned into, these coaches see that I am doing well and they want me to succeed, which makes me feel like ‘ok, they are putting in the effort into making me better I might as well try to be better myself.”
Following their Championship the team moved up to 2A, due to enrollment size and amount of trophies they’ve won in the last years. Although the team graduated four seniors, they are focused on maintaining the same energy and drive as the previous season. “No matter what as long as we compete to the highest level that we can, if that ends up being 3rd, 1st, 10th, I don’t care,” Baum states. In the absence of these seniors, Roldan believes that this year’s focus should be on creating a community around the leadership of the new upperclassmen. “This is our team now. Especially with our Seniors now: Bryan [Malkowski], Maddux [Bailey], and now Joe Flynn. We want to create a new team space where they are the leaders.” He states.
As Head Coach, Baum agrees and wants to continue this community focused on cheering “just as hard for the slowest as the fastest”. The team still has a “title to defend”, but they want to focus on building a program where a culture of hard work and leadership are exemplified from their upperclassmen. “What I’m most proud of last year is that we walked away from that line and all 7 of those boys laid it out. They worked their butts off. For four years, summers, falls, winters, springs.” He recalls as they enter a season competing against harder competition and rivals like Loyola Academy and St. Ignatius.
The cross country team has set a precedent for excellence and leadership for DePaul Prep athletics. “When one wins we all win. When one succeeds we all succeed,” Mahoney says about the boys’ success. As Athletic Director, he is proud of the positive example the team has set not only in their success but their ability to form a community of hard effort and support. He and the entire cross country team are excited to bring the same energy and leadership example into this season.
