Florida's The Bolles School made its mark at Manhattan

By Brian Towey for DyeStat

The Bronx, N.Y. --  The loud speaker blared along Broadway adjacent to Van Cortlandt Park.  

“That’s the Bolles School from Florida finishing one and two in girls Junior Varsity B,” announcer Mike Rauh said.

The genesis for The Bolles School’s trip to Van Cortlandt Park came a few years ago, when Tony Ryan, who has coached the girls program at the school for 20 years (he coached the boys up until five years ago), felt like it was time to make it back.

“I ran here back at the TAC National Cross Country Championships back in the 80s,” said Ryan, a native of Ireland who ran at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla.

“I knew about the legendary background of Van Cortlandt Park.”

Bolles, a private school servicing grades Pre-K through 12 in the city of Jacksonville with powerful traditions in running, football and swimming, tried to make the trip last year. But Hurricane Matthew scuttled the plans.

When Bolles finally arrived Saturday, the team was determined to leave a mark.

With a storied girls cross country tradition in Florida (top-five finishes at the state meet for 22 straight years) and an emerging boys program under fifth-year coach Mike Rivera, Bolles, which sent one girl to NXN last year (Caitlin Collier) and one boy to Foot Locker (Charles Hicks), came to New York with a mission.

“We’re basically trying to stake our claim,” said Hicks, a junior who placed fifth in the boys 2.5-kilometer Eastern States Championship race in 12 minutes, 30.2 seconds.

“And show that Bolles running is serious.”

Finishing third overall in the girls Eastern States Championship while running without an injured Collier, and seventh in the boys Eastern States Championship, Bolles proved it belonged.

“I think Florida gets kind of a bad rap for cross country,” said Ryan, who has coached in the state for the last 26 years (he was at Bishop Kenny High in Jacksonville for six years prior to his arrival at Bolles).

“The state is known for being very good in track and field. In cross country there are some good teams just below that national level. I think about Bolles, Belen Jesuit and Pine Crest. We were very close to making it to Nike Nationals two years ago.”

On the boys side, Rivera, a native of southern Indiana who coached at Columbus North, took over the program five years ago.

“I looked at the top 50 all-time board and I said, ‘These times are terrible,’” Rivera said. “We’ve got to do better than this.”

Rivera set upon establishing new standards, incorporating distinctive trips to establish a bond.

“I’m a big believer in key experiences,” said Rivera, who ran at Notre Dame and at Hanover College in Indiana.

“Something you do that you can take with you to the starting line. We did hill runs in northeast Georgia and in Virginia last year. This trip is another example of it.”

The team regularly travels to meets in places like Atlanta, Alabama or the Great American Cross Country Festival in Cary, N.C.

“The bonding we’ve done is really important,” senior Nick Maniatis said. “We’ve taken trips, but we’d never been on a plane together before.”

At Van Cortlandt Park, the team demonstrated the bond that is its strength. Seniors mingled with freshmen, junior varsity runners with varsity.

“It’s very important to me that it’s not just about the top seven,” Ryan said. “We’re really a close-knit group. I want every girl who comes out for the team and works hard to feel like they’ve got a place on this team.”

It’s a dynamic evident on the boys side as well. With Bolles, everything is clocked. In order to foster a sense of ownership, runners are expected to keep track of their interval times and maintain their efforts.

“We regularly have guys coming up to us and saying ‘So-and-so is not doing what he’s supposed to,’” boys coach Steve Stam said.

Gradually, the team has risen. The Bolles boys finished second at the state level in 2A last year to Orlando’s Trinity Prep.

“It’s hard to recruit guys to the team when your girls team is nationally ranked,” Stam said.

Added Rivera: “Our times are much faster than they were two years ago.”

Hicks, who wore a gash across his right shin after he was spiked during the rugged Eastern States Championship, personified what Bolles brought to the Bronx: toughness, speed and a little bit of southern spirit.

“I do think that Florida as a whole is on the way up in cross country and track,” said assistant coach Matthew Morris, a 2012 alumnus of the school.

“There’s more of a legacy up north, but slowly and surely, Florida is getting more runners to compete across the nation.”