By BRITTANY URBAN
Columnist
As I get close to graduating, and I can’t run for cross country anymore, I would like to let everyone know about my experience.
Northwestern has been good to me, and I have ran hard for this university for four years, the last two being my greatest years. However, my experience could have been better.
My number one problem is that not enough people know about our team or achievements. Sure, we get articles on riderangersride.com, but that’s not enough, because every sport has them.
My first year at Northwestern, I was told people didn’t know we had a cross country team or even knew what cross country was; I wanted to change that.
My goal was to beat the school record and I accomplished that my third year running. Sterlin Broomfield, Willow Gahr and I got a small article in your paper and I thought changes were going to happen.
If the word got out that three runners achieved something this great, more students or faculty would come watch us run. Sadly, my senior year, only family and friends of our team were the ones who came to cheer us on. It would help us runners feed off a crowd’s energy to run to the best of our abilities and crush more records.
Other schools have their own cheer teams, and it helps them more than we would like it to. The other sports here get huge crowds as well, and they love the energy.
I am simply upset that after so much sweat, tears, and blood (literally), the cross country team is not recognized for our personal achievements and other sports still sit on their high horses.
I know that not all meets are in Oklahoma, but if a crowd went to at least one meet a year, that would bring happiness to not only myself for trying to make a change, but to the future runners of Northwestern.