Folders |
Author Sam McManis Discusses His New Book 'Running To Glory,' About The 2017 Season at Yakima's Eisenhower HighPublished by
High School Cross Country Gets Immersive Treatment In 'Running To Glory' By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor Maybe it was a happy accident that Sam McManis, driving around Yakima, Wash., after 11 years at the Sacramento Bee, happened to see the cross country runners working their way up 40th Avenue while stuck in traffic. McManis, a sports writer and columnist, was intrigued. His own daughter, Maggie McManis, had been part of a Davis High team in California that competed at Nike Cross Nationals. In addition to his running, as a recreational marathoner, the subject matter held his interest. “I was casting about for something to write about,” said McManis, who was in Central Washington to pursue a Master’s in English Literature. McManis didn’t know, at the time, that he had found a story with ground as fertile as Yakima's famous apple orchards. He contacted the cross coach at Eisenhower High and then met to talk over coffee. The conversation lasted for hours. The writer liked what he found. Coach Phil English, known within the program and throughout Yakima as “Mister,” came from a working-class background in Ireland. He moved to the U.S. to run at Washington State before embarking on a storied coaching career. McManis found a successful program steeped in tradition, at a school that had seen a demographic shift from mostly white to more than 50 percent Hispanic. In his examination of the team, he found elements of Running With the Buffaloes – "my touchstone," he said – the movie McFarland USA, and even Friday Night Lights. McManis latched on to Eisenhower’s 2017 cross country team and was there to witness every day – from summer workouts to the state meet. The result is "Running To Glory – An Unlikely Team, A Challenging Season, And Chasing The American Dream" (Lyons Press), which has been on bookshelves for a couple of months. In contrast to Marc Bloom’s recent history of the Fayetteville-Manlius program, "Amazing Racers" McManis immersed himself in the day to day of one season and followed its progress to an uncertain conclusion. In doing so, McManis offered readers an unfiltered view of the gears that drive high school cross county – from goal-setting sessions to grueling workouts to unexpected problems to the meets that reveal ability and character. “It’s sort of becoming a literary sub-genre, the high school sports narrative,” McManis explained. There are similar books about high school wrestling in Iowa and high school football in Pennsylvania, among others. At Eisenhower, McManis found a legendary coach, a star runner on the rise, the sons of immigrants trying to use running as a platform for higher education, and a girls team dealing with issues ranging from ego to nutrition. The result is impressive, a documentary told with rich description and dialogue that captures one season on the continuum of Mister’s long career. “In writing a cross county book, you might first think of writing about Great Oak or F-M, but I was drawn to this team because it’s successful, but has to overcome something to be great,” McManis said. “This is a blue-collar type book on high school running.” Eisenhower has been good for a long time, thanks to the stewardship of English, a science-minded coach who preaches drills and running mechanics as well, if not better, than any coach in the U.S. His 2010 boys and girls teams both won Washington 4A team titles. He’s given more than 150 of his high school athletes the tools and platform to run in college. The coach is an institution in Yakima, and last weekend he put on the 46th Sunfair Invitational, an air-tight annual operation that helps fund the program. By allowing a writer to be present every day, English was willing to trust that the end result might do some good. “The whole purpose was to advance the sport of cross country,” English said. “That’s what I was looking at. As it turned out, I had acquaintances overseas that read it and said, ‘I had no idea what you did over there.’” English heard from many people in Yakima who didn’t realize the depth and care of the effort that goes into a cross country season at Eisenhower, either. In 2017, Jonas Price was a sophomore on the rise, full of desire to be great and exceed his father’s running accomplishments. (Robert Price, the team’s assistant coach, ran for English at Carroll High in the 1980s and went on to be a steeplechaser at Washington State). Jonas Price is now a senior and one of the top runners in the nation. Last Saturday, he raced the clock and tried to break the Sunfair Invitational record at Franklin Park, an event and a venue that he holds sacred. He came up eight seconds short of the 26-year-old record but was still buoyed by the community that came out to support him. “It was incredible how many people I didn’t even know came out to support me,” Price said. “I love this meet so much.” As for being a true-life character in a book, Price admits there are a couple of details that cause him to wince, but the good far outweighs the bad. “It’s pretty cool, honestly,” he said. “Just as a way to see how much hard work gets put into this program by this whole team, to see us as runners.” Just as two years ago, when he called himself ‘Lil Pre,’ Price yearns to be great. As a senior, he has more of the physical and emotional maturity to make that happen. Most of the other members of the 2017 team have moved on, to college or elsewhere. Price is still in touch with the guys that McManis wrote about, Alfonso ‘Fonzi’ Cuevas and Rogelio Mares chief among them. “I loved that team,” Price said. Now, with Running To Glory, even those who’ve never heard of Eisenhower High, can read the story and find ways to relate. What's happening in Yakima is going on everywhere. Only the people, the characters, are different. McManis could have selected from thousands of high school cross country teams and revealed similar insights into effort, pain, camaraderie and passion. He found a near-perfect vessel for that story in a gritty agriculture hub in Central Washington. COACH TO COACH INTERVIEW With PHIL ENGLISH COACH TO COACH INTERVIEW With ROBERT PRICE |
