My first memory of coach Andrew Higham is one where I first walked into practice on the cross country team. He addressed me by my name, and I told him, “How do you know my name? I don’t know you.”

Instead of taking what I said as disrespectful, he just said, “I don’t know you, but I will get to know you.”

Later on, I would sometimes act strange by acting like a robot on our run practice or I would exclaim out loud that I was using a spirit animal (particularly a fast animal, like a horse). One time, I told him that I was using a panther as my spirit animal for a run and he just casually told me, “Say whatever you need to do your best.”

He did a very good job of managing the team and making everyone feel welcome.

I had a lot of confidence in my skills to become varsity. I once told him that I would be fast enough to be on varsity the next semester. He told me, “As long as you work hard and do everything you can, you can make it.” I’m still chasing that goal.

I loved basketball during the beginning of the school year, and sometimes I would play too hard on my free days. By the time I’d get to practice on Monday, I’m be too tired to run. When I told him about that, he just told me: “You probably shouldn’t do too much on rest days. You don’t want to overdo it.”

Another reason why I thought he was inclusive was because if I ever had a pain in my leg, he would give me a solution. I would stay after school to wait on him to tie an ice pack to my shins to help with the swelling.

During the end of practice, I would bring a lot of energy to the team and sometimes make him laugh. The other teammates would tell me to be quiet, but I think I wore off on them because eventually I made them more motivated during practice.

Sometimes he would give us life lessons on our practices, “In life you aren’t going to be handed success. If you give up and don’t put in all your effort, you won’t get a free pass.”

I look forward to being on the team another year.