The Thelomesian Society’s senators unanimously voted to grant the St. Lawrence Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams $2,000 for their trips to the national championship meet. For the tenth consecutive year, the teams will use the grant to subsidize travel expenses incurred by teammates who, although will not compete at the meet, plan to drive out to support their teammates.
Even after 10 consecutive years of driving out to nationals, Thelmo’s executive board indicated that this year’s proposal stood out. “The board looks at a request and determines if it will help the St. Lawrence community,” said Hanna Gregory, secretary of the Thelomesian Society. “The presentation was clear in its request, they fundraised beforehand and it helped that everyone on the team was there.”
The senators, who all voted to confirm the grant, appear to share these opinions. “I completely support this tradition, we were one of the first schools to start doing it and now everyone is copying us,” said Thelmo Senator Ian Fogarty, who is also a football player at St. Lawrence. “If the football team qualified for the national tournament, we would want the same support.”
The NCAA only pays to fly the coaches and qualifying athletes out to nationals, which includes eight athletes for a qualifying team. The rest of the team transitions into a St. Lawrence cheering squad and it becomes an ambassador for the SLU Cross Country/Track & Field Program as well as the school community. “The team spirit is a selling point for high school athletes,” said Cassidy Scott, one of the captains for the Women’s XC team. “Everyone has different financial backgrounds and it isn’t fair for people who can’t pay themselves to try to make it out there.”
In previous years, going to Thelmo for a grant to fund the nationals trip was not always an option for the St. Lawrence cross country teams. “Thelmo was never an option for us; we did it on our own, drove ourselves out and piled eight people in a hotel room,” said Aaron Todd, the St. Lawrence Assistant Director of Athletics for Communications and Marketing. Todd graduated from St. Lawrence in 2000 and he ran cross country as a Saint. “This current tradition of traveling out to nationals and making our presence felt makes me proud to be an alumna.”
Team members also indicated that the support squad’s ability to drive to the meet levels the playing field from a competitive standpoint. “A lot of the best teams come from the Midwest; since most of the meets are held out there, it is easier for those teams to bring their fans out,” said Patrick Mortensen, one of the captains of the Men’s XC team. “It looks good when we are well represented at the national meet compared to other teams.”
The Women’s XC team qualified for nationals, earning an at-large bid, after placing third and the Men’s team qualified three individual runners: Dadley Ogettii, Nicholas Vielhauer and Junior Captain, Patrick Mortensen, at the Atlantic Regional Championship meet. On Saturday, the women’s team will race at 12 p.m. and the men’s individual qualifiers will race at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.