District Sports Spotlight: Men’s Cross Country
This column intends to spotlight student athlete-artists from each of SCAD’s sports teams, no matter how well-established or accomplished. For this week’s piece, I interviewed Max Groff, a member of SCAD Savannah men’s cross country team.
I once heard running described as the world’s most accessible sport, and I completely agree with that observation. Sometimes I’m running late to class or running away from future plans (only half-true). In all seriousness, running as an athletic sport is quite admirable. The mentality needed to survive lengthy cross country races is not learned overnight. However, there are those, like Max Groff, who are raised to be runners.
Groff, a second-year industrial design student from Lake Forest, California, recently helped his team finish sixth at the Valdosta State University Border Clash where he finished 28th in the field of 69. His running career began his freshman year of high school. Both of his parents were collegiate runners at Cal Poly Pomona, which had a huge influence on Groff’s interest in running.
“My parents got me into running, but what made me want to keep running was my coach sophomore year,” Groff said. “He taught me what it meant to run and taught me why I run. He’s the reason I ran fast and why I wanted to keep running in college.”
Groff during a high school cross country meet. Image courtesy of Groff.
When Groff started researching universities, he looked for schools with good cross country programs as well as schools that would offer him scholarships for running. Groff originally wanted to study mechanical engineering until he found SCAD. He discovered SCAD’s industrial design program and decided it would a more suitable major for him.
“I saw SCAD was a nationally ranked cross country team for NAIA and knew that they would have a good cross country program,” Groff said. “Coach P [Patrick Reagan] asked me to come out and visit, and once I visited I knew that SCAD was the school for me. Industrial design was the perfect major for me and everything kind of fell into place.”
In Groff’s experience, most SCAD students are aware their school has athletic teams, but many don’t know just how diverse SCAD’s roster of sports is.
“Most students know that SCAD has sports but is kinda treated like a joke,” Groff said. “A pretty common reaction is ‘SCAD has a cross country team?’ Or ‘Oh my gosh I don’t know how you do that; I can barely run.’”
For Groff, the best part about running goes back to the idea of running as an accessible sport.
“My favorite part about running is how honest it is,” Groff said. “There are no special rules, no advantages for anyone. Whether you win or lose is based solely on how fast someone is.”
Groff racing with his teammates. Image courtesy of SCAD Men’s Cross Country.
According to Groff, there are two main elements to cross country racing: training and races.
“The first aspect, training, is running a lot of mileage early on and building up your muscle base,” Groff said. “When it’s time for important races, you run less so your body is rested for important races. The other aspects, races, is a little weird. No races really matter except the last couple so that’s what you train for.”
Each of the men’s races is 8 kilometers. For the women, it’s 5 kilometers. The top five runners are the scoring runners, and the team with the lowest score wins. Points are given for place, which means 5th place would equal 5 points.
“Our team is doing well but we do have a lot of new people and we are very short on runners this year,” Groff said. “There aren’t a lot of guy runners and we could really use some more. We have a lot of new runners so it’s kind of like a fresh start for us this year.”
Groff and his fellow Bees will next race at UNG XC Invitational in Gainesville, Georgia, Saturday, September 16. Students can follow the men’s cross country team on Twitter and Instagram.
Written by Emilie Kefalas.
