First of all, I want to state this article this week is not necessarily Division II centered. I felt very compelled to write this about a different subject. On November 3, my high school cross country coach is retiring. Mark Saltalamachia, Coach Salty to almost everybody else, did not start out as a cross country coach. Coach Salty started out as a wrestling coach at Oakland High School and started the cross country program so that his wrestlers would have a way to maintain weight during off-season. He has achieved much success. He coached a wrestling state champion at Oakland in Brian Guthrie. At Oakland he coached the boys to a state runner-up finish, coached local legend Erin Macbeth to several state cross country championships and coached Blair Collins to a state title in the 800-meter run. The first year that Siegel High School opened, he coached our boys to runner-up team title at the state cross country meet. The best aspect about Salty was not the success, and I will say we won a lot. The best aspect was his support and commitment to every runner. Now that I am on a college team that can barely field a boy’s team, it seems shocking that in high school we easily had up to twenty five runners on both the boys and girls side. What seems more impressive is that we might have lost one or two of those runners from the beginning of the season. We always had the biggest Junior Varsity teams. As a team we had some crazy traditions;I do believe we were the only team with a Cross Country Formal and usually Salty was at the root of them.Salty made us feel like a family; we ate together, laughed together, and suffered together. With being on the cross country team we had somewhere where we belonged. My words cannot really do justice with how much Coach Salty affected my life. I remember my first one on one talk with Salty, I had made it on the varsity squad for the first few meets of my freshman year but at the last meet one of the J.V. runners had beat my time by quite a bit. He called me aside after practice and calmly explained to me why I was being moved down to the J.V. squad.This of course did not stop my tears, and then he began to joke with me. I left his room both laughing and crying at the same time. Most of all, I wanted so very badly to make it back on varsity. That is most likely the first time Salty caught a glimpse of what he called it my “neurotic Nancy” side. By my senior year of high school, I had become a better runner but I still not think I was good enough. I was Salty’s teacher aide during sixth period and we would spend nearly every afternoon entering meets, printing time-sheets or various other activities that had to do with being a cross country coach. This is where I learned to love running. After meets, I would sit in that same room and enter times. I had some of the best conversations then. One of those conversations that I remember quite vividly, I was very upset after a meet for I had felt I had not run my hardest despite getting a PR. My friend Nicky was still there and pretty much told me I was a nut. Well, after that Salty just told me I was being irrational and continued to joke about how I should be put into an asylum but at the same time I should focus the energy I was using at being upset for my next race. Salty’s humor and encouragement never failed in helping me. He was one that told me I could run college and without that support I would not be where I was now. So with Regional meets taking place this weekend please remember everyone who has helped you get to this point; parents, family, friends, teammates and most of all coaches. Whether your season ends this weekend or not, thank your coach for he/she deserves it. There were two conference meets held this weekend: Pacific West Championship-The Hawaii Pacific men’s cross country team took home the Hawaiian Airlines Pacific West Champion with a two point victory over host school Notre Dame de Namur. The 8k race was held at Crystal Springs Cross Country Course in Belmont, California. Hawaii Pacific scored 45 points edging Notre Dame de Namur by 3 points who scored 47 points. BYU Hawaii’s Golden Harper took individual laurels with a time of 26:23 beating Hawaii Pacific’s Brandon Laan who ran a 26:51. For the second year in a row the University of Hawaii Hilo won the Hawaiian Airlines Pacific West Conference women’s cross country championship. They defeated BYU Hawaii by a score of 37 to 49. BYU Hawaii’s Amanda Whitford took the individual title by finishing the 5k course in 18:54. Hawaii Hilo’s Kelly Rogers was second with a time of 19:11. PSAC-The Edinboro men’s cross country team placed three of its runners in the top five to slip past Slippery Rock and win its 26th Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championship Saturday at Kutztown University 33 to 41. Matt Bluman took the individual title by covering the 8k course in 26:18 to finish 3.5 seconds ahead of second-place Dave Niemira of Edinboro in Saturday's race. The Bloomsburg women’s cross team took top honors to win the conference championships. They scored 65 points and Indiana University of PA came in second in 99 points. Clarion University’s Erin Richards completed the 6k course in 23:02 defeating the defending champion Edinboro’s Rachael Lanzel by 16 seconds who ran a 23:18.