The world of Hawai‘i local sports was bleak during the pandemic — and unfortunately, many institutions fell to the wayside — including middle school cross country.
Now that local sports have returned to normal, coaches around the isle are trying to get middle school cross country back on track.
“Before the pandemic, there were about eight or nine middle schools (with cross country teams) around the island, and there would be as many as five meets throughout the fall,” Sunrise Athletics and Waiakea HS head coach Lance Tominaga said. “Since COVID, a lot of the programs have basically shut down, and haven’t restarted again.”
Without a middle school athletic association, it is up to the coaches of each school to get together and plan each meet — which Tominaga said has been difficult to achieve post-pandemic.
The few surviving programs — which include Sunrise, Laupahoehoe, Hawaii Academy of Arts and Science, Kamehameha Schools and Waimea Middle School — have organized two meets this year, both hosted by KSH before September’s high school meets.
“I think the priority has been to try to get the high school programs back,” KSH high school cross country coach Ryan Cabalse said. “The high school ones worked out, and middle school has been the second one. There was a delay, and i see how that could translate to other schools, like public schools — because we haven’t seen a lot of them come back right away.”
Damien Packer stepped into the role of middle school cross country head coach at KSH this year, and has been helping Cabalse and others in their effort to revitalize the sport.
“I don’t know how it was pre-pandemic, but it’s been a really great opportunity to give these kids a competitive outlet,” Packer said. “They have PE, but it’s not the same as getting involved in competitive atmospheres. Also, we’re giving them a realistic idea of what participating in high school is like.”
KSH has structures in place to promote its cross country program to its middle school students, but many schools don’t. Cabalse and Packer said they that hope increasing awareness of the sport and cooperation between coaches will help other schools and young athletes rekindle their own programs.
“We’re definitely on the right track,” Packer said. “It’s just about providing student athletes with opportunities, the more that we coordinate as coaches, the more that we coordinate as schools it will really get the ball rolling once other schools catch wind. Hopefully, it will have a snowball effect until all schools provide a team, and those opportunities to students.”
“It’s a chance for the kids to run. It sort of depends if there’s someone at the school who wants to start a middle school cross country program,” Tominaga said, “and hopefully, there’s administrative support and they just start something up.”
While the high schoolers run a 5k (3.1 miles), middle schoolers run a mile and a half. Tominaga said that middle school cross country is a great way to get kids active, and help them determine their athletic strengths at a young age.
“It’s an opportunity for them to find out what they’re good at,” he said. “For some of the kids — maybe they’ve tried team sports, but they gravitate more toward individual sports. It’s hard to really track interest when there’s not a lot of opportunity for competition. Maybe that’s why it’s harder now, because besides the two races that (KSH hosted), there’s no middle school races this year.”