3. Clarke County Girls Don't Believe It
This memory is a little shorter but also pretty awesome. So back in 2018 Maggie Walker had not yet lost a single state team title in Class 2. It was actually their final XC one as well since the following year they would be moving to Class 3. Entering the meet on paper they were strong favorites.
One thing you should know though is there are three types of coaches. The optimist, realist, and pessimist. Maggie Walker has some strong realists leading the way so heading into the meet they made sure I knew it was going to be close and to not count out Clarke County or Glenvar.
On the other side Clarke County were trying to run the best race they could and just make it onto the podium. I do not know if they ever really thought they could win the team title but when it was over it was bizarre what happened next.
So I normally interview the top two finishers first after they are across the line and that meant interviewing the top finishers for each team. They finish with that and I then go over to the timer to see who won as a team. What I heard shocked me.
Apparently, Maggie Walker's governor school is really good at math because they already knew they had not won. They in fact were the reason I went over to check since I thought this one was easily Maggie Walker. After that I went to go interview the Clarke County coach and walked all around for 10-15 minutes before finding them in the team area.
I went and asked for the coach and told him and he would not believe me. "No way" he said, I had to go back to get the official results for them to believe me and boy were they excited! They were jumping and cheering and crying from excitement.
Though defeat is something you wish on no one, in all sports there are winners and losers. On that day the winners could not believe it and their reaction and joy is something I will always remember.