#3 Arcadia High School 
Arcadia, CA

         There are a lot of great things about our sport, but one of the things that I think is the most special about our sport is when coaches and athletes meet up and discuss what they do with training and what works and what doesn’t. So last year, at a track meet, as I sat with my coach, Coach O’Brien, another coach approached OB and asked “How the hell did you guys run fast at the beginning of the season then keep running faster?” OB just laughed and looked at me and winked. And I knew exactly what he was talking about.

         Every year, right at the end of May as our track season winds down, we have this traditional meeting for potential Varsity 14 members (we don’t have a CIF 9 because it’s just too close and competitive, thus we have a Varsity 14) and we meet and set our goals for the upcoming season. Without fail, every year, foremost on our list of goals is always “Be better than last year’s team.” That is what drives us more than winning or records or whatever; we’re driven so we can call up the guys from the year before and say “Hey, I just beat your PR on this course” or “We broke the team record for this course, guess you’re number 2 team now.” At some point you might say, “That’s impossible, at some point you can’t get any faster.” Well even this year, so far, the 2011 team has beaten every record that the 2010 team (the national champions) set. So guess it is possible.

         But what makes Arcadia the most special isn’t our desire to just run faster, it’s the fact that this sport isn’t just about running, it’s the brotherhood that develops as a result of the collective sacrifice that we commit to every season. Some teams just consist of 7 or 10 or 12 guys who happen to be decently fast kids where the only thing they share is the uniform they wear. But at Arcadia, we have 70 guys who are all friends, best friends, sometimes even brothers. That’s what happens when the first people you see in the morning outside your house is your teammates, all bleary-eyed but ready to run 15 miles. That kind of relationship develops through the shared pain and the shared desire for success. That’s what makes Arcadia Arcadia. We are Arcadia because we have this special desire to always be better, and are always willing to sacrifice a bit more to reach that next level.

         So as I end this I want to wish the best of my luck to my fellow Apaches as they continue to better themselves continue to establish a legacy and continue to be the best they can possibly be.