“WE wanted this moment to be remembered.”
That’s what Girls Cross Country member at La Porte High School, Katie Pickford, said when I asked her about the six-way tie that occurred at the end of their meet last night.
The tie these girls will never forget.
Earlier in the day LPHS’ Coach, John Dearing, told the girls he wanted them to win the meet, but he wanted as many as them to stay as a group as much as possible. And if there was a way at the end, finish the meet as a team.
It seems like a crazy idea in the world of competitive sports and individual achievements. After all, it’s a natural tendency for athletes to want to win.
But there’s something special happening this year at La Porte High School. You can see it in the students’ support of each other on social media, in the #WeAreTogether movement started by this year’s Slicers football team, and you can feel it when you talk to the members of the community; Slicers are in it this year as a team.
So when the idea of finishing as one team was presented to the girls there was really only one thing on their mind: let’s make it happen.
“When [coach] told us this idea, I think we were all thinking the same thing: We wanted to tie or finish all together,” Pickford said about the moment. “We wanted our score to be 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. We are a large group of girls, and we have never really had the opportunity to do something like this before. WE wanted this moment to be remembered.”
And that is exactly what happened yesterday: Six Slicer runners, each individually headed towards the finish line to win, grouped up as one team and won the meet.
Together.