Excerpt From 'Amazing Racers' Illustrates Shake-Up Moment In Early Days Of NXN

By Marc Bloom for DyeStat

With Nike Cross Nationals resuming this Saturday in Portland, Ore., after a two-year COVID caused absence, DyeStat is presenting an iconic moment of remembrance: the 2008 Fayetteville-Manlius girls’ team video, a stunning symbol of the upstate New York school’s 15-year domination. It was shown at that weekend’s Opening Ceremonies on the Nike campus; all teams were asked to contribute short footage depicting their running ethos.

As a companion, we provide an excerpt from Marc Bloom’s award-winning 2019 book about F-M, “Amazing Racers, The Story of America’s Greatest Running Team And Its Revolutionary Coach.” The excerpt discusses the video and how it came together.

NXN started in 2004. From 2006 through 2017, Fayetteville girls won 11 of the 12 championships, most by huge margins, placing second once, while taking fourth in 2018 and seventh in 2019. The F-M boys, in 14 NXN appearances in 16 years, placed second in ‘04, third in ‘05, fourth in ‘13 and second in ‘17. The boys won in 2014 as F-M swept the boys and girls team championships.

Published by Pegasus Books. Copyright Marc Bloom. Reprinted with permission. The book can be purchased HERE. 

Chapter 13 - Fits Over F-M Footage (Page 164)

If rival coaches were hanging pictures of the Fayetteville-Manlius girls in their school locker rooms like WANTED posters displayed on a post office wall, there was not much reason for the team to try and amass even more of a psychological edge for the national championships. Or was there?

It was the fifth year of Nike Cross Nationals, and event organizers continued tinkering with their formula, seeking enhancements on and off the racecourse. In 2008, adding to a dramatic change the previous year of regional qualifying meets, NXN decided to invite the nation's top individual competitors to go along with team entries that had defined the meet since 2004. The top five "individual" boys and girls from each of the nine regions -- those not among the top five as members of qualifying teams -- would come to Portland on the same basis as the teams, with all expenses paid, free gear, and immersion in a weekend of fanfare on the Nike campus. 

The additional forty-five boys and forty-five girls would be added to the team fields, so that each race would now have 199 runners. The competition would be modeled after the NCAA championships, Nike's original plan, and the event's name would be changed from Nike Team Nationals to Nike Cross Nationals, reflecting the all-inclusive dynamic of the championships. 

While the change was greeted with excitement, there were potential drawbacks. Could the Portland Meadows racecourse, already questioned for its poor drainage in the rain and quirky layout, handle the larger fields? Some coaches were concerned that pivotal spills could result on the muddy turf and tight turns. Coaches also had a new race complexion to deal with. The top individual qualifiers were much faster than most of the team runners. The individuals would start faster, presenting the field with a stepped-up pace, and many in the rank and file might not be able to avoid getting drawn into an early tempo too rich for them. As never before, teams would need to thread that needle in pacing strategy; plus, would they be able to identify chief team rivals with the forty-five individuals now crowded into the mix?

For his part, Bill Aris was elated. He liked that the event would have that much more gravitas. And as far as the new, faster runners -- they would only give Fayetteville, especially the girls, more bodies to try and outrun to achieve their best. After all, F-M girls, based on their domination the past two years, could always use more runners to fight off. 

There was one more critical issue for the new NXN. The additional individual qualifiers put Nike in direct competition with the next weekend's Foot Locker high school nationals, which had stood alone as an individual-only event for twenty-eight years. Early attempts to have the two events join were futile. But at least each had its own drawing card for the nation's elite individuals: run in the sun on a clean, reliable Balboa Park course with a hotel on the beach in San Diego; or venture into "true" cross country in the Portland Meadows slop while enjoying Nike cachet on a corporate campus steeped in running history. Based on the qualifying-meet schedule for both programs, it was almost impossible to do both events. Could Foot Locker survive this latest Nike threat?

One thing was certain -- Foot Locker could never match Nike when it came to entertaining the troops in the weekend's opening ceremonies. Nike meet planners wanted to greet the 398 teenage runners with something original, something with pizzazz, a tough call for kids used to click-a-second images and less-than-zero attention spans. The original Gong Show ideas had been retired to the Nike attic. This season, Nike had the answer: team videos. Each team would create a homegrown video that reflected on their locale and running persona. The videos would be shown to all on opening night. 

The ceremony gave off red carpet anticipation. Here were the best teams in the country. Let's meet them up close and personal. 

In the procession of footage, boys teams did bare-chested muscle poses, sat on fancy cars, hung out in the woods or mountains, paraded at the beach, wore silly costumes. Girls teams did gymnastics routines, said "howdy" in various regional dialects, attempted sexy poses, wore silly costumes. 

When the F-M girls' video came on, this is what the audience was treated to: a thundering shock-and-awe score. Running in unison. Running fast. Running through a snowstorm. Running in the rain through deep puddles. Running in the darkness. Running up and over hills. No letup. No expression. No talking. 

Just watch. 

Watch the flashbacks to earlier races of domination. See the girls at the New York Regional in lime-green uniforms, singlets and shorts; see their imposing height, their mature, muscular bodies, powerful, thrusting arms and glutes; everyone together, a sea of lime, practically zero compression; then, cut back to the darkness, to the night, to the snow, the same girls in all black, all as one, running, running ... running like they were born to it. 

Silence. 

No one in the Nike auditorium that evening would soon forget those two minutes and fifty-seven seconds. One hundred and ninety-two girls were shaking in their new Nikes. It was so intimidating that some girls coaches were angry and said so. Other coaches thought the video was a "fake." This brinksmanship further separated F-M from the crowd, frustrating a running community under siege from something they could not understand. Little girls presented like warriors -- anarchy!

"It was Machiavellian, beautiful," said Aris. "All for psychological effect."

The girls had run for the video after a workout. They were on the high school grounds. In the Syracuse area in late November, it was raining and snowing, usually at the same time, almost daily. Bill and his son John found a drainage ravine, a Portland-style bog, for the girls to run through; they had the girls put their spikes on and run 150-meter sprints through the snow. 

"It was cold, dark, and miserable," recalled Molly Malone, a member of Fayetteville's 2006 and 2007 championship teams. "But when the footage came on in Portland after the other teams' 'happy to be here' videos, it had a shattering impact."

WATCH THE VIDEO

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Fayetteville-Manlius @ Nike Cross Nationals

Girls Team

2004 - Did not qualify; winning team: Saratoga Springs NY

2005 - Did not qualify; winning team: Hilton NY

2006 - First place, 128 points

2007 - First place, 83 points

2008 - First place, 66 points

2009 - First place, 74 points

2010 - First place, 27 points

2011 - First place, 60 points

2012 - First place, 54 points

2013 - Second place, 120 points; winning team: Wayzata MN

2014 - First place, 70 points

2015 - First place, 55 points

2016 - First place, 41 points

2017 - First place, 89 points

2018 - Fourth place, 212 points; winning team: Summit OR

2019 - Seventh place, 206 points; winning team: Saratoga Springs NY