Air Force Academy-bound Max Sannes follows Ryan Hall and Chad Hall in racing at championship meet, which returns to San Diego after one-year absence, gaining strength from assistant Andrew Nettlebeck during fight with cancer

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

It’s easy to see where Max Sannes gets his running inspiration. All you have to do is look at him.

His cap reads “Run Ryan Run,” and is an homage to former Olympian marathoner Ryan Hall, who began the cross country legacy at Big Bear High more than 20 years ago.

His jersey reads “Team Andrew,” so cancer-stricken Big Bear assistant coach Andrew Nettlebeck knows where his thoughts are during a race.

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Throw in that Sannes gets to practice every day in the tranquil surroundings of the San Bernardino Mountain community of Big Bear, and yeah, the Air Force Academy commit has a lot of reasons to run.

And run he certainly did last week, finishing 10th in the West Regional to qualify for Saturday’s Eastbay Cross Country Championships at Balboa Park’s Morley Field in San Diego.

The top 10 male and female athletes in each of the four regionals qualified for the national meet.

Sannes, the California state Division 4 champion, ran a time of 15 minutes, 25 seconds on Mt. San Antonio College’s 5-kilometer course.

A week prior at Fresno’s Woodward Park, he ran 15:00.5 on the 5-kilometer layout and outdueled Carlsbad Sage Creek senior Bryce Gilmore to win that state title and continue a long legacy of elite success from up the mountain.

It started with Ryan Hall, who won consecutive state titles in 1999 and 2000. His brother Chad Hall won in 2006, sparking the Bears to the first of three consecutive team state titles. And Caleb Webb, who famously used to joke that he was “chasing the Halls” went back-to-back in 2013 and 2014.

Sannes’ state title made it a record six individual state crowns for one school in the same gender. He could become Big Bear’s second Eastbay champ Saturday – Chad Hall ran 15:20 and won in 2006, when the meet was known as the Foot Locker Championships, and he is the last California male athlete to capture the national title in San Diego.

“It was awesome,” Sannes said. “Obviously, I wear the ‘Run Ryan Run’ hat every day and I look up to the three of those guys tremendously and I want to be like them.”

Though Sannes is friends with both Webb and Chad Hall, until last Saturday he had never met Ryan Hall.

That changed with Ryan’s daughter, Mia Hall, a junior at Flagstaff High and two-time Arizona Division 2 state champion competing at Mt. SAC. She just missed an Eastbay Championship berth by placing 11th in 17:51.

“It would’ve been awesome if we both got to go,” Sannes said.

Ryan, 39, now lives in Flagstaff with wife Sara Hall and their four adopted daughters. Ryan’s parents, Mickey and Susie, still live in Big Bear. Ryan qualified for the Olympics in both 2008 and 2012; he still holds the U.S. half-marathon record at 59:43.

Sara herself was a Foot Locker champion in 2000 when she was then known as Sara Bei from Santa Rosa Montgomery. To win it, she had to outrun Anita Siraki of Glendale Hoover. Four individual state championships were won between the two of them.

Having retired in 2016, Hall said he still coaches and runs an online training business. And as much as Saturday was a treat for Sannes, it was a treat for Hall, too.

“I really like his grittiness,” Hall said. “He’s super humble. ... I was stoked to meet him and stoked to see his journey continue.”

The journey for Hall began in the late 1990s when he said he had to fight and attend school board meetings just to get a distance running program going and then deliver on that quest.

Before his first track meet at Trabuco Hills as a freshman, he was a bundle of nerves.

“I remember almost getting sick before the race because I was so nervous,” Hall said.

Fast forward 20 years, and watching Sannes is more than a gratifying feeling.

“Just thinking about how far the program has come and thinking about how for myself, how difficult it was to generate momentum,” Hall said. “When I was coming up, no one was running around me, except for my dad.

“I’m super proud of Chad, Caleb, Max and the team up there, and the program,” Hall added. “They’re continuing the journey; that’s how I want it to be.”

The “Team Andrew” jerseys were worn by all the Big Bear runners Saturday. Nettlebeck, Sannes said, has been battling a brain tumor and is “doing well for the circumstances.”

Nettlebeck is not only a Big Bear High assistant, he is also the middle school head coach, where he also coached Sannes.

“It’s mainly just for him to know we’re all behind him and supporting him,” Sannes said.

As for the hat? He hasn’t had his since 2008, but they were handed out at an event at Big Bear Middle School that year, when Ryan Hall qualified for the Olympics and runners were able to run around the track with him.

For Sannes, Saturday’s run in San Diego will be one he hasn’t seen in cross country. The state of Oregon has an impressive array of competitors with West Regional winner Tyrone Gorze of Central Point Crater High and seniors Charlie North of Portland Franklin, Michael Maiorano of Medford and Caleb Lakeman of Tualatin.

In California alone, there is Division 5 winner Kenan Pala of Francis Parker and Mark Trammell of Santa Fe Christian, both of whom get to essentially run at home. Joining Sannes will be Zach Ayers of Davis Senior, who ran the fastest Division 1 time at Woodward Park of any male athlete not competing for Newbury Park.

Then again, only 15 seconds separated Gorze and Sannes at the regional.

Perhaps it really could be anyone’s race, including Sannes’ fellow Air Force commit Ethan Ashley of Denmark High in Georgia, the South Regional winner.

“It’s more than a dream come true to make it to Eastbay,” Sannes said. “Freshman year, I was looking at stuff and I was like, ‘Ryan went to Foot Locker, Chad went to Foot Locker and won, and Caleb went to NXN.’ All those guys went to a national meet, and I was like, ‘I want to be like them. I’ve got to try and be there.’ Not until (the Mt. SAC Invitational) did I think that’s actually possible. To be able to do it is just super awesome.”