As the dry summer of 2011 came to an end, not only was my first year of high school approaching, but so was the first day of Cross Country practice. I had never ran cross country before and I was intimidated by everything my cousins had told me about the sport, especially the 5K races. I could barely run one mile in grade school last year, and now I was going to be expected to run 3.1 miles! Also, with five all-state athletes on my mom’s side of the family, there was a lot to live up to.

On the first day of practice, my mom dropped me off at the Arrowhead track at 7:50am with nothing except what I was wearing and a water bottle. It was already 75 degrees as I made the 100 meter walk to my future teammates. Amidst all the runners was an average sized elderly man with wispy white hair and glasses, his name was Mike Mulrooney, the head Cross Country coach of Arrowhead who had been there as long as anyone could remember and had been running since the day he was born.

As the clock flipped to 8:00 a loud, nasally voice erupted from Coach Mulrooney saying “Alright! Let’s get going on there!” And so my first day of Cross Country began with a half-mile warm-up jog and drills; and I was already thinking about dropping out of the sport. After warm-ups the runners split into groups; the varsity runners went with Coach Razor, JV with Coach Johnson, and the frosh with Coach Mulrooney. The iconic nasally voice sounded off again, “Alright, we’re going to do 25 minutes today. I’ll lead you guys out.”

Twenty five minutes of continuous running was something I had never done before, and it wasn’t exactly an exhilarating experience either. But what kept me coming back to practice six days a week for my freshman year were the stories, advice, and encouragement Coach threw at us on a daily basis whether we wanted it or not. He was like Christopher Columbus-- he had seen and experienced it all. He taught us about mental toughness, and that running was a sport that required 100% mental and physical strength. He turned running into a necessary part of my life that not only made me see need to come to practice, but made me want to come practice.

The most valuable thing Coach Mulrooney has given me and all of his athletes, though, is the importance of goal setting. Coach made it apparent my freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year that if I don’t have goals written down that I want to achieve, then they’re just dreams. He also made a point to take it further than that, and applied goal setting to life. Whether it was a long term goal of a career we wanted to pursue, or a small goal of getting an A on a test. It was these lessons that Coach Mulrooney taught us that have turned me into a more motivated, successful, and ambitious person.

I ended my freshman year with a 5K time of 20:40, and now my best 5K time is 18:48. Coach Mulrooney turned that nervous little kid from the summer of 2011 into a better runner and a confident young man with an ambition to achieve his goals. Thank you, Coach Mulrooney, for being the best teacher I have ever had and for giving me the tools to create success.