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Send questions to Head Coach Rod Wilcox - rwadew@verizon.net .    Check out  watfxc.com  for xc info and  athletic.net  for all the stats you want.    Parents: For team info contact Booster Club Parent Rep. Colleen Eslinger colleenesl@hotmail.com

King’s girls capture fourth straight title

By Mike Cane
Herald Writer

PASCO — When the King’s Knights take a trip to the Tri-Cities, they always bring home a first-place trophy.

Spearheaded by seniors (and long-time pals) Adele Eslinger, Morgan Hamm and Makenzie Taylor, the King’s High School girls cross country team from Shoreline won its fourth straight Class 1A state team title on Saturday. The Knights scored 83 points to outlast runnerup La Center (110 points) during the state cross country championships at Sun Willows Golf Course.

Eslinger (eighth place), Hamm (ninth) and Taylor (13th) have been on the Knights’ past four first-place state squads. The King’s girls program has now won seven state championships (2001-2003 and 2006-2009), more than any other Washington girls program regardless of classification.

“As much as it’s fun to win it for a fourth year in a row, to have the three seniors go out on a big note is just beyond icing on the cake,” 14th-year King’s coach Rod Wilcox said. “They can truly have closure on their high school career.”

Eslinger, Hamm and Taylor joined an elite club. Going into Saturday’s state meet, just two other Washington girls had ever run on four state-title teams: East Valley of Spokane’s Cara Smith and AnnMarie from 1994 to 1997, according to coach Wilcox.

On a fairly nice but windy day, all three King’s seniors finished among the top 16 runners, earning a spot on the awards podium for individuals. A few minutes later they went back to the podium with the rest of their squad to receive yet another team championship.

“It was really special. I’m going to miss them like crazy,” said Eslinger, who completed the 3.1-mile (5,000-meter) course in 20 minutes, 10 seconds — 2 seconds faster than Hamm. Taylor finished in 20:31.

Eslinger and Taylor both live in Edmonds; Hamm lives in Shoreline. They have been friends and teammates for a long time.

“They’ve been (running) together since seventh grade, pushing each other, and that’s really the key,” coach Wilcox said. “They really keep each other accountable every day in practice, pushing and pushing and encouraging.”

The content, emotional King’s seniors shared several hugs after the race.

“We’ve been talking about (Saturday’s race) for a long time,” Eslinger said. “Coming back for our fourth time is an amazing feeling.”

The individual 1A girls race winner was Northwest School’s Maddie Meyers, a sophomore who won for the second straight year. Meyers finished an incredible 1:36 faster than runnerup Eliza Rice, her teammate.

In the 1A boys race, King’s sophomore Harris Hap Emmons placed ninth in 16:56.

2009 CROSS COUNTRY SUMMARY:

GIRLS TEAM: 3rd at Cascade Conference, 1st at Tri-District and 4th straight State Championship.

BOYS TEAM: 3rd at Cascade Conference, 7th at Tri-District.

INDIVIDUAL: Adele Eslinger - All State for the 3rd time. Morgan Hamm -  All State for the 2nd time. Makenzie Taylor -  All State. Hap Emmons - All State.

2008 CROSS COUNTRY SUMMARY:

GIRLS TEAM: 4th at Cascade Conference, 1ST at TrI-DISTRICT, THREE-PEAT STATE CHAMPIONS and REPEAT STATE ACADEMIC CHAMPIONS (3.93 GPA).

BOYS TEAM: 4th at Cascade Conference, 2nd at Tri-Districts, 3rd at STATE, 3rd State Academic (3.6 gpa)

INDIVIDUAL: Olivia Thomas - 2nd Tri-District and 2nd at State Championships, 1st Team All State,  Adele Eslinger - 3rd at Cascade Conference, 1st Team All Conference, 4th at Tri-Districts, 6th at State, 1st Team All State; Lauresa Smith - 2nd Team All Conference, 7th at Tri-Districts;  Brandon Dean - 3rd at Conference, 1st Team All Conference, 9th at Bi-District, 16th at State; Griffin McGinley - 10th at Tri-Districts, 15th at State

King's stages 3-peat

By Mike Cane  Herald Writer

PASCO -- Two in a row is fun, but a three-peat is extra sweet.

The King's High School girls cross country team continued its reign over Class 1A competition Saturday during the 2008 Washington State Cross Country Championships at Sun Willows Golf Course.

After winning state titles in 2006 and 2007, King's made it three in a row. The Knights, coached by Rod Wilcox, scored 49 points and outlasted runner-up LaCenter (80 points).

King's also won three consecutive championships earlier this decade (2001-2003 in A/B). What made the 2008 title run unique?

"We have seniors on this team that have been with the program for a long time," Wilcox said, "so it's really exciting to see them go out on a high note."

One of the seniors is Olivia Thomas. She won the 1A individual title a year ago but placed second this time behind champ Maddie Meyers, a freshman from Seattle's Northwest School. It wasn't close as Meyers completed the 3.1-mile course in 18 minutes, 53 seconds and Thomas finished 41 seconds later. Meyers broke the 1A meet record.

"Obviously Olivia was a little disappointed," said Wilcox, "but winning the team (title) takes the edge off of that disappointment."

Thomas said she was sick the past few days and loaded up on cold medicine Saturday morning, hoping she'd feel better in time for the race. "It didn't work the way I wanted, but I'm happy," she said.

And why not? Thomas capped her cross country career with another top-10 individual finish. Starting with her freshman season, she placed eighth in 2A, second in 1A, first in 1A and second again in 1A.

"It's been fabulous," Thomas said. Cross country "became the favorite part of my day. My best friends are on the team. The social aspect of it is amazing."

By finishing top-two in 1A, Thomas qualified for the Washington vs. Oregon Nike BorderClash (Nov. 23 in Beaverton, Ore.).

In addition to Thomas, the top performers for King's were Adele Eslinger (sixth), Makenzie Taylor (18th), Morgan Hamm (23rd) and Stephanie Rice (30th).

Proving the King's team members are much more than just fast runners, the Knights also received an award for their fall 2008 1A girls academic state championship. The seven runners combined for a 3.939 grade-point average.

"These are smart girls," Wilcox said. "Cross country is a very dedicated sport and you just learn dedication to everything you do."

King's boys place third

Seniors Griffin McGinley and Brandon Dean sparked a third-place team performance for King's in the 1A boys race. McGinley and Dean finished 15th and 16th, respectively. They were separated by just six seconds.

The 'Rodfather' dedicated to his runners

By Tony Dondero
Enterprise reporter

On his answering machine King's cross country coach Rod Wilcox will tell you that if he's not at home he's probably at the Woolsey Stadium track on the King's High School campus.

Until Oct. 24, the Friday before the Cascade Conference Championshsips, Wilcox hadn't missed a practice in 16 years. A root canal broke the streak.

The man King's athletes call the Rodfather and sensei came to King's program in the mid-1990s and built it up from small group of athletes into a state powerhouse.

Over the years Wilcox has trained hundreds of student-athletes. He doesn't have kids at home but he considers the kids he coaches from middle school through high school like his own kids. He has encyclopedic knowledge about all the athletes on his team. He cared enough to build a series of trails on campus in his spare time that is designed to test them.

Wilcox's boys teams have won four Class 1A state titles (1999-2002) and his girls teams have won five state titles (1A in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2007 and 2A in 2006). The 2001 boys team was statistically the best boys team, according to Wilcox. The 2007 girls team was his best team but this year's team, which is expected to win its third straight title this Saturday at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco, could be better. As head coach he's had four individual champions: Adam Roe in 2000, Brandon Thompson in 2002, Rachel Strand in 2002 and Olivia Thomas in 2007.

But for Wilcox, a three-time state cross country coaches' association coach of the year, it's about helping his athletes no matter how talented they are achieve their best.

"It's not about winning championships," he said. "It's about watching the next batch of kids."

Alex Croutworst, who went on to run at Northwest Univeristy in Kirkland, calls Wilcox his "favorite coach I have had and ever will have."

"I came into running as a seventh grader and could not break a seven-minute mile," Croutworst wrote in a e-mail. "At that point, Rod treated me the same as when I won the two-mile at state (in track) my senior year. This is the key to how Rod developed me as a runner. He looked at the character of the person combined with their effort and not where they ended up placing at the end of the day in a race or even. Sure, he longed for us to compete well and win, but that was not his ultimate focus."

Wilcox said he learned from legendary Mead High School cross country coach Pat Tyson "that you have to treat your worst runner the same as your best runner.

"Of course the old saying that they only care what you know if they know that you care goes a long way," he said. "My runners know I put everything I have into helping each one of them get better. I chart every time trial, race time, and splits of every runner."

Rachel Strand Zupke, who won a state title in 2002, and went on to play basketball and row for Seattle Pacific, said Wilcox's athletes never doubted that Rod cared for them.

"Whether it's building new trails or conjuring up another crazy way to work our abs or hip flexors, he was always focused on making us better no matter if it went into his personal time," Strand wrote in an e-mail.

Wilcox's training put her in such great shape that when Strand had to run a mile as a preseason conditioning test for the Seattle Pacific basketball team as a freshman, she beat her teammates by 20 seconds.

Wilcox once learned from a youth coach that "the eye is everything," for a coach.

"You have to be able to see the ideal," he said. "You look at a runner and figure what they're doing right or wrong in a split second."

That's developed through studying video and experience, Wilcox said.

It's nice to have a runner that is light on their feet and who has a nice stride, he said, but the most important characteristics are heart dedication.

"Corss country runners are all guts," Wilcox said.

Wilcox himself never ran cross country or distances and by his own admission was never good at it.

Wilcox spent most of his childhood in Pendleton, Ore. but his family moved to Yakima and he graduated from West Valley High School in 1983. He did track, specializing in the high jump and played wide receiver on the football team. He ran sprints and did jumps at Yakima Valley Community College, until a noncancerous tumor in his tibia had to be removed and cut short his career. He transferred to the University of Washington and majored in psychology and did not plan to continue with track and field.

But when a friend mentioned the high jump pits at Husky Stadium were left out at night Wilcox decided to inch his way back into jumping. He met a former Washington State jumper who started coaching him and he went from jumping under six feet to 6-feet, 6 inches. He talked to then coach Ken Shannon about joining the team.

"I didn't call it a walk on, it was a beg on," Wilcox said. Shannon let him compete and Wilcox topped out at 6-8 ¾ at UW with his personal best of 6-10 coming later.

Wilcox at the time had an interest in coaching so he enrolled at the University of Western Australia and studied sports psychology.

In talking with top coaches, he learned that "coaching isn't so much about knowledge but being a leader."

He came back to the states in 1991 and talked to UW coaches about pursuing a college coaching career. He soon realized he would have to travel around the country moving from school to school for awhile until he found a home.

"I really didn't want that lifestyle," he said.

Wilcox gave up coaching and started personal training in 1992 and had a client, Graham Epperson, a sprinter who went to King's.

"He wanted me to come and coach and talked me into coming out," Wilcox said.

Wilcox met track coach and current King's athletic director Dan Blackmer and started coaching jumps.

He found that Blackmer was passionate about the sport and was excited about the athletes. The kids were passionate too.

"The kids were eager and willing to work hard and that kind of roped me into the track team," Wilcox said.

Wilcox didn't start assisting the cross country team until the fall of 1994 under then coach Bill McLean. It was a small group and the girls team had a trouble even fielding a team. King's had its first state champion in that time, however, Amy King who won the 1A title as a junior in 1995. McLean left after the 1995 season and Wilcox stepped into the position.

"I didn't want to leave the kids I had been with for two years," Wilcox said.

Despite his lack of knowledge of cross country, Wilcox gradually learned and built the program up. When the boys team broke through and won the 1A title in 1999 and Roe won an individual title in 2000, Wilcox had established something special.

"I had him in junior high," Wilcox said of Roe. "I saw him come up through the system. Breaking through with one kind of showed the path for the rest of them."

With nine state championships under his belt, Wilcox would like to challenge Mead's all-time state record of 15.

Despite all the success, Wilcox still has the passion he had when he started out and so do the athletes who encourage each other and cheer each other on as they finish every meet.

"Seeing the young kids coming up, the look in their eye the hunger, the eagerness," is what keeps Wilcox going.

2007 CROSS COUNTRY SUMMARY:

GIRLS TEAM: 2nd at Cascade Conference, 1ST at BI-DISTRICT, REPEAT STATE CHAMPIONS and STATE ACADEMIC CHAMPIONS (3.93 GPA).

BOYS TEAM: 3rd at Cascade Conference, 4th at Bi-Districts.

INDIVIDUAL: Olivia Thomas - Conference, Bi-District and State Champion,  Morgan Hamm - 9th at Bi-District, All State Honors;  Adele Eslinger - 1st Team All Conference;  Brandon Dean - 1st Team All Conference, 2nd at Bi-District. 2nd Team All Conference - Erik Halvorson, Connor McMahon, Rebecca Thompson.

2006 CROSS COUNTRY SUMMARY:

GIRLS TEAM:  DISTRICT CHAMPIONS,  STATE CHAMPIONS

BOYS TEAM:  DISTRICT CHAMPIONS,  2ND AT STATE

JEFF DULL: LEAGUE CHAMPION,  3RD AT STATE, EAST/WEST SENIOR ALLSTAR, 1st Team All-League. All State Team.

EVAN DULL:  DISTRICT CHAMPION,  9TH AT STATE, EAST/WEST SENIOR ALLSTAR, All State Team.

OLIVIA THOMAS:  LEAGUE CHAMPION, 2ND AT DISTRICTS, 2ND AT STATE,  BREAKS SCHOOL 5K RECORD, 1st Team All League, All State Team.

ADELE ESLINGER: 1st Team All League, 12th at State, All State Team.

2ND TEAM ALL LEAGUE: BRANDON DEAN, CONNOR MCMAHON, EVAN DULL.