Pasco: Pasco runners measure wins in small steps

Pasco runners measure wins in small steps

By JOHN COTEY

Holly Smith was sick, but she ran anyway. Her coaches will tell you it was a heroic effort, and they would be right. With numb legs, stomach cramps and barely able to breathe, Smith gutted out a 3-mile run over grass and hills and dirt that drew a round of applause greater than that which had greeted the winner 11 minutes earlier. Smith finished right where she knew she probably would.

Last.

Considering the pain she went through, the embarrassment of being last and the 5 a.m. alarm that awoke her to get to school for a 50-mile cross-county bus trip from Dade City to Ridgewood on a Saturday, one had to wonder:

What the heck was she thinking?

What was Amanda Gulvin thinking? Or Melanie Smith? Or Candace Piotrowksi?

Together the four Pirate runners finished 46th, 45th, 44th and 43rd respectively. Or last, second-to-last, third-to-last and fourth-to-last.

Why? Chances are you probably wouldn't understand. Today, sports are about winning and playing and being a star, and if those three don't come about it's about quitting and changing teams and whining.

You won't hear that from this quartet of Pasco runners. No siree.

"That's character," said Pasco co-coach Beverly Ledbetter, who shares duties with Melinda Covel. "To me, that's what cross country is all about. It's about determination and accomplishing something. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things who wins and who crosses the line when. What matters is crossing the line."

Pasco is a team of running newcomers. When practice began, Covel said she was lucky to get 1 mile out of her runners. She needed 3. She now gets it, but it takes anywhere from 28 to 30 minutes on a good day. Barbara Carr, the SAC champ, won in 18:43.

The Pirates finish last at every meet, and though this week Holly Smith was last to cross the line, typically it has been fellow freshman Kacie Boyd. And guess what?

Neither one cares.

"I don't really think that winning is everything," Smith said. "It can be to get in shape and have fun. My teammates make this a fun thing to do, they give me a lot of support. It really is a family, a big happy family. And everyone gets to participate."

If you aren't good enough to start in other sports, you sit the bench and pray for a blowout in order to get a chance to play. Some go full seasons collecting cobwebs.

In cross country, you lace up your sneakers and run. Good or bad. Fast or slow.

Boyd jokes that being bad and slow has its benefits.

Cross country is unique in that the last-place finishers often draw more applause than the winners. There is something inspiring about the kid who is hopelessly out of the race, running alone, knowing full well they are last. Yet, they keep going.

Ledbetter remembers a race this season at Central High in Brooksville, in which her runners were again pulling up the rear. Boyd was dead last, and yet everyone lining the final stretch was screaming for her to finish. Even her father Ricky had to ask the coach: "Why are these kids yelling for her?"

Hearing Ledbetter scream for Boyd, Central boys coach Vic Cervizzi started hollering. He did not know who Boyd was. But as part of the friendliest fraternity in high school sports, he followed Ledbetter's lead. "He started screaming, "Come on Kacie, finish big, finish strong,"' Ledbetter said. "This is the only sport where you're going to find that."

And it's probably the only sport where you'll find a Kacie Boyd. The 14-year-old had never run before this season, and decided to do it to be part of a team. She had tried every sport, with little success. She would try running.

Her first race, she quit. At Land O'Lakes, she was lapped by at least 15 runners just 1 mile into the race, and discouraged, she disappeared off to the side.

"I was pretty upset," Boyd said. "When people started lapping me ... it was pretty embarrassing."

Boyd knew she would never win a race this season, never even come close. But when she finally finished for the first time, it was a victory. The first time she wasn't lapped, it was a victory. The first time she was able to keep some of the field within sight, it was a victory.

"I did this to prove to myself that I could," she said.

"I'm not a quitter. I can decide something and stick to it. And it's always better to finish than to quit."

Leo Durocher once said that nice guys finish last. Kacie Boyd and Holly Smith prove that sometimes hard-working, determined and proud girls do too.