A Look Back at FLYRA by Herb Wills

for DyeStat Florida

2010 was the first year I served as a board member of the Gulf Winds Track Club. One of the items of business we handled that year was a request for funds from Joe Mizereck to incorporate the Florida Youth Running Association. The goal of FLYRA, we were told, was to promote cross country by providing racing opportunities to middle school students. Many middle schools around the states already had teams, but there was no state championship. FLYRA would organize a middle school state meet, more middle schools would organize teams to compete in it, and Florida distance running would flourish.

We didn’t vote Joe as much money as he asked for, but FLYRA found the resources it needed and pushed on. Just two months after Joe Mizereck’s request was presented to our board, the first FLYRA Middle School State Cross Country Meet was held in Lakeland, Florida. FLYRA has continued to hold the championship annually, and the sixth Florida Middle School State Meet is scheduled for Holloway Park in Lakeland on Saturday morning, 31 October 2015.

It’s not easy to say whether FLYRA is meeting the goals that were stated five years ago. If you go by the success of FLYRA alumni, though, it’s a strong case. One of the athletes in the inaugural FLYRA state meet back in 2010 was Sukhi Khosla, who placed 25th for a team of runners from Raa Middle School. Khosla was Florida’s class 3A boys high school cross country champion in 2013 and 2014, and is taking his running to Oklahoma State this fall.

The 2014 class 4A boys champion, Joshua Jacques, wasn’t a FLYRA alumnus, but the runner-up, Carlin Berryhill, was 15th in the FLYRA State Meet in 2010 and fourth in 2011. Ransom Everglades Gabe Correa, third in the class 2A final in 2014, had been fourth in the FLYRA championship in 2010. The top FLYRA alumnus in class 1A boys in 2014 was Patrick McNamara of Admiral Farragut, seventh in the State Meet. But remember that many class 1A schools already include middle school students in their cross country program. In fact, McNamara was running for Admiral Farragut when he placed 21st in the 2010 FLYRA State Meet.

Last year's class 4A girls state champ, Winter Park's Rafaella Gibbons, was probably Florida's best high school girl cross country runner in 2014. Gibbons was also the Florida’s middle school state champion in 2012 and 2013, the first athlete to ever win two FLYRA cross country titles. Pine Crest's Tsion Yared won the class 2A high school girls' title just 14 days after winning the FLYRA girls' race. Evangelical Christian's Sarah Candiano was the class 1A girls' state cross country champ in 2014. Candiano will be running for Florida State in 2015, but in 2010 she was the runner-up in the first FLYRA state championship. As a Chiles junior, Emma Tucker was third in the 2014 class 3A meet. Tucker was 11th in the 2010 FLYRA girls' race, and seventh in 2011.

Athletes with FLYRA experience on their resume have certainly distinguished themselves in Florida high school cross country. It’s impossible to tell, though, whether or not they’ve done well because of FLYRA. Many athletes were in middle school programs that were around before FLYRA. That’s particularly true of the runners who competed in the 2010 middle school state championship. Even if we can determine a student started running in middle school because of FLYRA, we can’t say that runner wouldn’t have been just as successful if he or she hadn’t discovered cross country till high school.

But high school athletics doesn’t exist to produce collegians, and the purpose of college athletics isn’t to produce Olympians. Similarly, middle school cross country doesn’t have to be measured by what happens to the runners after eighth grade. Someone might run cross country for three years in high school and then never again, and as sad as that would be, at least they would have those three joyful seasons to remember. A middle school cross country experience is in itself a good thing, and the FLYRA meet has become part of that experience.

I’ll probably take in half a dozen middle school meets during the 2015 season. I might see some future champions on the course, but I won’t recognize them. I certainly didn’t spot either Avery Bartlett as a sub-4:10 miler and NCAA-D1 scholarship athlete when I saw him race in 2009, nor did I mark Sukhi Khosla as fated to be a two-time state cross country champ and Big 12 competitor back in 2010. Scouting isn’t the point, though. I know I’ll see young athletes racing hard and having fun while participating in the world’s greatest sport. That’s enough, and anything else is a bonus.

Northwest Florida Correspondent Herb Wills

Herb Wills' running career goes back to the 1971 boys' age-group mile at the Florida Relays. Since losing that race he has won the 1976 Florida High School class 4A cross-country championship, 1979 AAU USA junior titles in cross-country and the 10,000 meters, and the 1989 TAC USA 30K national championship. As a distance runner at Florida State University from 1978 to 1982, he was NCAA All-American three times in track and once in cross country, and won a silver medal in the marathon at the 1981 World University Games. Graduating Florida State with a degree in mathematics, in the following years Wills ran in the USA Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984, 1988, and 1992, and placed tenth in the Boston Marathon in 1989. After more than a few years of duty as a hurdle setter and lane judge at track meets, Wills discovered that the public address announcer not only got to sit down at meets but was also sheltered from the rain. Since that revelation you can hear him with a microphone in his hand at several track and cross-country events in the Tallahassee area. Writing is another activity you can do while sitting down, and Wills has written about running for Racing South magazine and Tallahassee's local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat.

You can read more running related tidbits in his blog at http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/

Herb Wills NorthWest Florida Reports 2015 ARTICLES / 2014 ARTICLES