University of Minnesota Duluth women’s cross country and track and field coach Joanna Warmington announced her resignation on Monday in a letter published by the Duluth News Tribune. In the letter, Warmington slams UMD for what she says are violations of both Minnesota law and Title IX, while describing what she…
American track and road superstars Evan Jager and Galen Rupp decided to run the U.S. cross country championships this afternoon in Tallahassee for the first time ever, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Rupp had only run once cross country race (in 2011) since winning an NCAA title in 2008, while Jager hadn’t…
Teens, mostly on cross country teams are attempting to cram as many people as possible into port-a-potties. It’s called the Port-A-Potty Challenge, and it’s as self-explanatory as it is gross. Here’s the best one:
With 2,000 meters left in the weekend’s World Cross Country Championship, 20-year-old Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei was leading the most important race of his young life, in front of the home crowd. The glory was his; he had almost 50 meters on pre-race favorite and cross country legend Geoffrey Kamworor. The crowd in…
In statements from the school president and athletic director issued Monday, Amherst College announced the suspension of all team activities for its men’s cross country team. The announcement comes one day after the student magazine, The Indicator, published a report that found members of the team being openly racist…
Another Harvard men’s athletics program has been disciplined for creating and maintaining a spreadsheet used to evaluate sexually their female counterparts; unlike the men’s soccer team, the men’s cross country team cooperated with the investigation, leading to a lighter punishment.
It seems like it would be fairly difficult to cheat in a cross country or track race. There’s little gamesmanship in foot racing. You show up, you run for the allotted distance, and you finish. It’s a punishingly simple sport, and unless you are doping, cheating is sort of impossible. Which is all to say, I’m…
A herd of deer interrupted Saturday’s NCAA Division III Mideast Regional, and one of the animals slammed into a runner. They’re sick of our cars and roads, and now they’re taking us out on their turf.
Over the weekend, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported on the sad story of Chase Coleman. Coleman is a skinny, black, 15-year-old, autistic boy who got confused in the middle of a cross country race, ran off course and into a nearby street, and was subsequently shoved to the ground by a large white man, who had to get…
What I do at the middle school is generously called cross country coaching. To the untrained eye, our program looks a lot like goofing around, like BS, like a waste of time. I’m pretty lucky to be able to pull this off.
Given how Hollywood likes to tart up the truth (see American Sniper, Frozen, et al.) you probably have a very good sense of what's going on with Disney's soon-to-be released McFarland USA. The Kevin Costner vehicle is based, as they say, on the true story of a boys' cross country team from McFarland High School in…
Connor Callihan, a high school student in Asheville, N.C., had been feeling pain in his lower leg all weekend, but he thought it was probably nothing. And so the junior went out to compete in the Mountain Athletic Conference championships on Monday, where just before the finish his tibia snapped in three places,…
A Spartanburg, S.C. math teacher was arrested on Friday after she was pulled over for driving erratically on the way to a cross country meet on the other side of the state. In the back of her Chevy Suburban were seven high schoolers, likely playing on their iPhones.
Even though the first day of fall isn't technically until the 23rd, students all over the U.S. are returning to school. Track season is a distant memory, and once again the national attention settles for cross country season. Cross country season must be stopped.
It's back-to-school time and junior high players everywhere are contemplating how best to make their mark on the athletic world. Here's the thing—running until your sternum glows and your legs bend in unusual places lacks appeal to the youngster. Football has cheerleaders. Basketball has a crowd. Gymnastics has…
Jalen Rose and David Jacoby released their latest Grantland podcast, during which Rose still had a baseball bat over his shoulder. Somewhere in the middle of the rambling discussion, Rose admitted he ran cross country all four years of high school.
Kyle Butler, a 26-year-old cross country athlete at Florida Southern College, is older than his coach.
In the men's cross country sprint finals, Russian skier Anton Gafarov broke his ski and gave us one of the sadder images we've seen so far as he hobbled across the course with his ski flapping around. It later caused him to completely wipe out. Then, at the end of the race, Russia's Sergey Ustiugov, Sweden's Marcus…
After tons of public pressure and negative media attention, the NCAA has reversed its stance and will allow BYU runner Jared Ward to compete for his senior season. Good job, everyone!
It's clear now that the NCAA uses public opinion as its final appeals process. It ruled former marine Steven Rhodes ineligible to play football at Middle Tennessee State because he had played in a military rec league. It ruled Colgate basketball player Nathan Harries ineligible because he had played church league…
