MAUMELLE — Maumelle has had a boys cross-country team for just two years, but the Hornets are two-for-two in state championships.
In 2013, their debut season, the Hornets won the Class 4A state title, placing runners fifth, eighth, ninth, 13th and 14th to hold off Heber Springs, a perennial state power, by three points.
In 2014, despite moving up to Class 5A, the Hornets eked out a one-point win over Harrison, 46-47, placing runners second, fourth, 11th, 14th and 15th to Harrison’s third, fifth, seventh, 10th and 22nd.
In Arkansas high school cross-country competition, the top five runners count for a team score. The low team score wins.
“This year we won because our sixth runner (sophomore Jackson Fry) beat Harrison’s fifth guy in the last 100 yards,” Maumelle coach Nick Taylor said. “He pushed their guy back one place, which enabled us to win it. He beat him by a couple of seconds.”
Taylor said his team’s success might have surprised others, but it certainly didn’t surprise the Hornets.
“In May, I met with the four returners (juniors Hayden Anderson and Sean Adams and seniors Zach Williams and Darrius Thomas), and we had a goal that we were going to get some guys and work and chase down Vilonia (whose Zach Rail won his second straight individual title this year) and Harrison,” Taylor said. “We had a goal to win.
“Sometimes we talk about the process we go through as a goal. Even if we hadn’t won, the process is what we got out of this. We learned to be more disciplined; we learned to care about other people who aren’t like us.
“Because we’ve done this, we’ve put ourselves in a position to win a state championship.”
The process appears to be working.
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Taylor, 32, grew up in southwest Little Rock and Bryant, graduating from Bryant High School. He went to Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia with the intention of running cross country, but the Tigers dropped the sport the year he arrived on campus. Instead of running cross country at OBU, he wound up transferring across U.S. 67 to Henderson State University and played bass in a lot of rock bands, he said.
He taught at Jacksonville Middle School and the Pulaski County Special School District alternative school before arriving at Maumelle to teach world history four years ago.
“The track coach here then (Grover Garrison) needed an assistant coach, and they got me hired on to help,” Taylor said. “I started coaching track in the spring of 2013; then we started the cross-country team that fall.”
Taylor spent two years as assistant to both the boys and girls track teams before taking the reins as head boys track coach in spring 2014. He has also been the head coach for the girls cross-country team for two years.
Heading into their debut cross-country season, the Hornets knew who their competition was.
“We chased down Heber all year, and we got closer and closer to them,” Taylor said. “We had confidence we could beat them at the state meet. I don’t know that anybody else did.”
With just the four returners in 2014, Taylor set about rebuilding his team, gathering 18 senior high athletes and one eighth-grader. Nine can run in Arkansas competition, and with injuries and other commitments, Taylor said, he probably had 10 or 12 ready to go every week.
The nine who ran at the state meet were Anderson, who finished runner-up to Rail (16:41.6); senior Jordan Anderson, who had never run cross country before and finished fourth at the state meet (17:08.3); senior Justin Hines (another newcomer), 11th, 17:22.7; Adams, 14th, 17:41.8; Williams, 15th, 17:42.1; Fry, 20th, 17:50.1; Thomas, 37th, 18:50.3; freshman Mac Fox, 50th, 19:16.4; and sophomore Parker Brannon, 60th, 19:36.4.
The Hornets’ team strength was a unique one.
“It’s how much they really get along and really care about each other,” Taylor said. “They kind of bonded as the season went on. It’s a diverse group from a bunch of different backgrounds, and just to watch them come together — they really wanted to win for each other.”
Some of his athletes, Taylor said, had been through tough situations.
“But every one of those kids has somebody at home that loves them to death,” he said. “There’s somebody there that really cares about this kid. Some have played sports and run, and some never have; some just want to run.
“It’s a unique group. They don’t necessarily look or act the same, but they’ve developed a bond with each other. We start workouts in July but don’t get real serious until school starts. They started becoming friends with each other, and the hope was that that would carry on into November.”
For the last two years, it has.
Anderson, who improved from his eighth-place finish as a sophomore, agreed that the Hornets have bonded as a team.
“It’s more like a band of brothers to me,” he said. “I know they’re my family, for sure. It’s like the person next to you in the ditch needs to know they’ll be dying for you just as much as you’ll be dying for them. I may be ahead of everybody else on my team, but they know I’m going to keep pushing myself because I’m going to do it for them.”
Adams has decided to forego his senior cross-country season for football next year, so he is going out a winner.
“It’s been an honor to be a part of a team to start the program, and it’s been a great journey with everyone together,” he said. “We’ve come together more than you’d think. I consider them my second family, how we’ve all come together from all different backgrounds. We’ve experienced new challenges together as a team and as a family.”
Hard work and dedication are responsible, he said.
Taylor is building a program despite the lack of a track at the Maumelle campus. He said with nowhere to work on jumps or hurdles, the Hornets will focus their track efforts on the distance events, piggy-backing on cross country. They’ve made a couple of paths around the school for practice areas, he said; they try not to run on roads in order to save their legs.
He said it is hard to explain what this program has meant to him.
“I think I’d still feel the same way about these kids even if we’d come up short,” he said. “I’d still be so proud of these kids and really happy with their progress. They got better as the season went on. They’ve got a mindset to do whatever it takes to win.
“There’s something about getting to teach teenagers every day and get it to click — how to be a better citizen and person and become an adult. This has really helped those boys grow into men. They get to always be a state champion. They always have that; they always get to look back and see how they went from a boy to a man and how that shaped them.”