Glory Girl Fred Cheney   © Copyright 2025 by Fred Cheney

Photo by Loren Kerns at Wikimedia Commons.

My name is Merrell, and I'm a sophomore at Central High. I run cross-country, although two weeks ago I wondered how long my team membership was going to last. Actually, at the time, I wondered if I could even continue at Central.

You see I went out for cross-country in the fall for a bunch of reasons. I liked the idea of being on a team, or having some people I could hang with without getting in trouble. Also, with cross-country, you're automatically on the team. They don't cut anybody. Of course, at the end of the year when the championship races come, they only take the top seven, but thinking that far ahead was not my modus operendi. Another reason was that I wanted something to do except study all the time, which I tend to do if there's nothing else going on. I get good grades pretty easily, and I knew I could afford some time and still study all I needed to.

So I went out for the team, and the first two goals were easy. I was on the team the first day, and was issued a uniform. The girls on the team were real friendly. They offered advice, and they told me they'd all been through the achy muscles every morning, but it would get easier. They had helpful advice about running hills, and doing pace work, and stretching. About the nicest of all was Holly, who was so good it was scary. She was sure to be one of the top finishers in the whole state.

Our first race was a dual meet with Holden on a Friday afternoon. We all walked the course and the other girls told me about how to approach each part of it. I was trying hard to keep it all in my head. When we got started, I was so confused I couldn't believe it. If there hadn't been a long line of runners in front of me, I'm sure I'd have gotten lost. Every so often, I realized that I was running either too fast or too slow. There didn't seem to be any Central runners near me that I could just run beside. Right at the finish two Holden runners sprinted past me. I was tired, but not too tired to sprint, but it just didn’t occur to me.

After the race, the coach took me aside and asked me what I thought. I told him I thought I could have done better. He told me that the season was young, and he was glad I was setting goals to go faster. He said he thought I could break into the top seven. That made me feel pretty good.

I read the results in the newspaper the next morning and saw who our number 7 runner had been. It was Hannah, a really sweet junior who had been especially nice to me. I didn't know how I would feel about bumping her out of the top seven. I was tenth for our team.

The next Tuesday we had another meet, and I did come in seventh for us, and twelfth overall. Hannah wasn't there because she was taking a qualifying test for a student government institute. I still wouldn't have made it if hadn't been for Mary Lou. She was running seventh at the time I caught up with her, and she told me to go get the girl in front of us. She said she didn't have it, but I was running well. So I caught that girl and one other.

When I crossed the finish line, the first thing that happened was Holly gave me a big hug. That's neat when the winner of the race comes back to the line and becomes your best fan.

So for the rest of the season, I pretty much stayed at seventh position. Hannah and I both passed Julia, who started the year in the sixth spot. One meet I came in fifth, but we had some injuries that week. And then came the meet with Kroy.

Kroy was quite a long bus ride away in a remote corner of the state. Our coach had an agreement with their coach to always run up there. The Kroy coach wanted a tough meet as a way of showing his girls how much work they needed to do. Central always beat them badly. The year before the first ten Central runners crossed the finish line together, and about a minute later the first Kroy girl came in. All the girls were talking about the fun of a tie for first place. Holly didn't mind at all. She got her kicks out of winning division championships.

We walked the course, which was about half on a golf course and half in the woods beside. At about the three quarter mile mark was a tractor-shed. "This is where we've all got to be together." They told me that if I wasn't up with them by that spot that they wouldn't wait, and I wouldn't be in on the first place tie. That got me pretty scared because I still didn't think of myself as a solid seventh man on the team.

So I just went deep inside myself and determined that I would be up with them by that spot. I don't remember ever having so much focus.

When the starting gun went off, I sprinted to the front of the pack. We went across a parking lot and into the woods behind a shed. I was out front and just concentrating on being with the others at the three-quarter mile mark. I was still ahead when I came out of the woods and went down along the side of a fairway. When the course went back into the woods, the point at which we were all to be together, the tractor, I was in the lead. So I thought I was out of trouble. I'd just let up, and they would catch me; then we'd all finish together. So I slowed down, but nobody came up on me. I was running easily, and I was sure they should be catching me, but in the twists and turns of the woods I couldn't see very far behind me.

The trail came out of the woods and went up a big, long hill on the golf course. By now, running hard on the hills had become a habit with me, so I poured it on. I fairly flew up it. And as I crested the ridge, there stood my coach. He waved his clipboard and whooped. "Way to go, Merrell. You're really looking good. You're way out front and there's nobody even in sight."

I was busted. We were all busted. The only way I could hook up with the rest would be to get into the next stretch of woods and stop altogether. But I didn't know exactly how I felt about doing that. In one sense the damage was already done. I knew I wasn't going to fake an injury or a stomach cramp. As bad as this was, it wouldn't be worth telling a lie. I kept trying to figure a way out of the mess as I entered the woods for the last time. I was still figuring when I came out of the woods and into full view of the finish line, the coaches, and a handful of parents and other spectators.

I kept striding easily across the line, winning my first race. And then I turned and looked back at the woods. It seemed like an eternity before I saw those blue Central jerseys, lots of them. They crossed the line in an eight-way tie for second place.

I handed Mary Lou her sweat suit. She took it and said, "Nice run, glory girl. Did you ever hear of team unity?" Nobody else was speaking to me, but on the bus ride back, I kept hearing the phrase "glory girl." I felt terrible. When we got back to school and filed off the bus, the coach smiled at me, but it didn't make me feel any better.

Practice was awful the next week. Holly and Hannah were about the only ones to speak to me at all, but not that much. So much for my second reason for running cross-country--friends. And it seemed that for everything we ran in practice, they all made a point of coming in ahead of me. We did pace work, and girls paid no attention to the speed they should be running, they went as fast as they could. When we did hill work, they all ran it like sprints. The coach kept smiling. He was the only one.

For our last league meet before the championships we were up against three other teams. This meet was interesting because it pitted Holly against one of the girls who would be her major competition at states. As usual for that week, I stretched and warmed up alone. As I was folding up my sweats, Mary Lou's mother came over to me, put her arm around my waste and said, "Take a little walk with me, Merrill."

We moved away from the others, and she spoke to me, soft and low. "It's time for you, and the rest of them, too, to put that Kroy meet in the past. Now, you're not going to be first for Central in this meet, but you've come a long way this year. You are going to run a good solid fifth place for Central today. Now go get it done."

As we lined up for the start, I glanced to the right, and saw Hannah looking at me. She winked and smiled. I looked to the left and saw intense concentration on Holly's face. Then we were off.

I didn't spend any time counting jerseys, figuring out what position I was supposed to be in. I just focused on the smooth stride I had had the week before at Kroy. I remembered how it felt to run easily, thinking I was slowing down, and actually going fast. It was the farthest thing from the confusion of that first meet. I was all alone with time and space. Suddenly, I snapped out of it a little over a half mile from the finish. Ahead was a right angle turn, and it allowed me to see who was ahead, how many and how far. I saw Holly and the other girl, side by side. Holly glanced back, saw me, and I could tell she was surprised to see me so close. One other girl rounded the corner, and then I was next. I was in fourth place.

After that, some of the smoothness left me. I felt myself pushing, concerned that someone might catch me, wondering if I could work my way up to third. I didn't. I crossed the line in fourth overall, and the first thing I knew Holly grabbed me and started dragging me back down the course. "Come on. We've got to bring them all in."

And so the two of us, one, the state’s best runner, the other, somebody that just wanted a few friends, leaned over the rope leading to the chute and yelled our lungs out for our teammates. Even though they were sprinting as hard as they could, they made eye contact with us on the way by. One by one, they all joined us after finishing. We were all yelling, high fiving, elbowing each other, laughing and hugging. Some parents came by with our sweats and made us put them on because that's what parents do, take care of their kids. But we were doing just fine, thank you. We were a team.​ ​