Dave Watt talks about Footlocker

Will the Lone Star State lasso Footlocker after surprising at NXN?

Call it the “who I bump into pre-race” factor. I should stake claim to who will win at NXN each year based on who I meet or literally bump into in the days or week prior to the Nike Cross Nationals (formerly called Team Nationals) in Portland Oregon. Last year Hal, Bruce and I walked around the Nike Campus on the day before the race and stopped to talk briefly with a girl’s team. It turned out that they were the then-2 time returning team champions from Fayetteville-Manlius (FM) near Syracuse NY. That was an easy call to make last year. FM or Manlius as their fans cheer had dominated races all fall. Sure enough, they 3-peated in 2008.

This year, I had the fortune of attending the Footlocker South race one week prior to the 6th NXN. The boys seeded race appeared to have no clear favorite. Craig Lutz from Highland Village Texas surged late to win on the hard and fast McAlpine Park course in Charlotte NC in one of the fastest times ever. Little did I know that Lutz had qualified one week earlier in the NXN South Regional to run in Portland. I was a bit surprised to see him in the entry list. On race day at Portland Meadows, Lutz was right up with the leaders in the first 1K. In fact, he went wide in several turns to avoid the loose mud. The course in the infield at Portland Meadows was drier than all previous races in the short 5 year history of Nike’s X-Country championship. The faster then typical racing conditions may have helped, as Lutz outkicked 3 other favorites to capture his first national title.

On to the team competitions. Pre-race buzz centered on the teams from the Midwest and Illinois in particular. Also mentioned were the defending champs from South Spokane (WA). On Friday, my two ARA travel mates and I were east of Portland along the Columbia River at a park overlooking a tall waterfall. Like any visitor, we wanted our photo taken with the falls as a backdrop. We spotted a man in a NXN ball cap and asked him to take our photo. We asked if he and his family were here to cheer on a son or daughter. Son he said. “Watch out for Boerne (Bernie)”, said the Dad. Okay, we acknowledged, having no clue that Boerne was since we had not poured over the stats on every team qualified to run at NXN 2009. Next day, I did a head turn when I heard the announcer mention during the live in-race scoring that Boerne Texas was in the top 3 halfway through the race. Boerne, really! Twenty minutes later in the closest team finish in NXN history, the boys from Boerne Texas had taken the national team title.

That leads us to this week’s individual Footlocker National High School Cross Country Championship in San Diego. Are the eyes of Texas shining upon Southern California? If my “bump into pre-race factor” has any weight, I’ll put some stock in the Lone Star State. I also saw Chelsey Sveinsson of Addison Texas easily win the Footlocker South Regional. Sveinnson lit up the cross country post-season one year ago with a win at NXN and followed up with a strong 4th place finish at Footlocker. She continued her stunning racing with wins at the Penn Relays 3K and the post-season outdoor track nationals with wins in the mile. Her fall campaign had been solid if not spectacular for the racing pundits determined to anoint her the heir to Jordan Hasay’s high school national perch. Her focus supposedly has been on Footlocker Nationals all fall, with no intention to run NXN (she did qualify at NXN South). Megan Goethals is also a strong pre-race favorite out of the Midwest. Going with the “bump into pre-race factor”, go with Sveinsson for the win and Footlocker National title.