The Collegedale Academy runners still can’t get the rewards they’re due.

The Seventh-day Adventist school has qualified for the state cross country meet the past three seasons, but because the event at Percy Warner Park in Nashville is on a Saturday, the Eagles have been unable to run in it.

They won the Region 3-A/AA meet in 2006 and 2007 and finished third in 2005.

Doug Gammenthaler has been a member of the two region-title teams. He placed 25th individually as a sophomore and 16th as a junior.

“It’s hard because we work so hard all year and came in first place two years in a row,” Gammenthaler said.

Sophomore Patrick O’Brien and Gammenthaler are expected to be the Eagles’ top runners this year. O’Brien finished seventh in the region meet in 2007 in 19:10.20, the top time for a freshman.

“Patrick will definitely qualify for state and could very well have a chance to compete in state by his senior year, but if we can’t get in the race, he’ll never have that chance,” Collegedale coach Ryan Perry said. “We would love for him, as well as the other runners, to have that chance.

“All these kids are competitors, and just because they can’t compete at the state level, they want to come out and bring their ‘A’ game and beat everybody they can. They want to race other teams and have that rapport with other runners.”

In November 2007, Perry and Collegedale athletic director Matt Nafie filed a petition to the TSSAA to get the 2008 meet moved from Nov. 1 to Oct. 31. The request was approved in January but was rejected a few months later because the Nashville police had an issue with the amount of traffic the meet would add to the regular rush on a Friday afternoon.

“We received a request from the Metro Board of Parks and Recreation to meet with their representatives and representatives of the Metro Police Department regarding concerns over traffic on Friday,” TSSAA executive director Ronnie Carter said in a letter to Collegedale in May. “As you are probably aware, the site of the State Cross Country Meet is on Old Hickory Boulevard, a very heavily traveled two-lane road. Originally, Mr. Bernard Childress of our staff had contacted the Metro Board of Parks and Recreation and they had cleared the site for that Friday. Mr. Childress met with the representatives of the Metro Board of Parks and Recreation and the Metro Police Department regarding the concerns. After discussing all of the possibilities, they felt that it was extremely dangerous and could not support the hosting of the meet on Friday due to concerns for safety of the people crossing the road.”

The TSSAA then checked into moving the meet to Murfreesboro but couldn’t find a venue with adequate facilities.

“When I heard they had changed the date, I got real pumped,” Gammenthaler said. “It’s my senior year and I think that I could have done pretty decently at state. Now they’ve changed the date back and it’s a huge downer on the year.”

An opposing coach said he understood the Eagles’ frustration.

“You have to feel for the kids, because as a growing sport, you want to see the best people participate,” the coach said. “It’s a good promotion for the sport. The fact that the TSSAA took the initiative to try and change the event for Collegedale shows that they have the kids in mind. I just hate that they don’t get the chance to run.”

Although he feels for the kids, that coach was not sold on moving the event to a different day.

“A lot of coaches kind of wonder, ‘Why change it’” he said. “Why should one school change it for all others? We’re not just talking about Class A/AA. There’s also Division II as well as 3A. That would be over 100 schools that would have to change just for them. There’s an economic issue since, if the meet is run Friday, students would have to be taken out of school for another day. Parents would have to take another work day off. They chose to be in the league and knew what could and would happen.”

Region 3-A/AA has sent the fourth-place team from its last three region meets to the state competition, and the “fill-ins” have posted good results. Chattanooga Christian was the beneficiary in 2006 and was 10th at state. Notre Dame has taken advantage twice and was 14th in 2005 and 19th in 2007.

“I feel as though the 2006 (CA) team is the strongest team that won our region race,” Perry said. “They probably would have been fourth place at state — comparing what other teams in our region did. We can’t say for certain, but it probably would have been fourth.”

Collegedale hopes the TSSAA continues to look into ways to get the team involved in the state meet, but until then, Perry will continue to take his team to Percy Warner Park the Friday before the race, as he has done the past two seasons.

“When it’s just those seven guys out there, it’s difficult to put that personal best out there,” Perry said. “It’s also a little bittersweet for them, because they get to go up there and do it, but it’s just them out there.”

Gammenthaler admitted that running on Friday wasn’t the same.

“After we run, we like to come back and compare our times with the people that run in the meet,” Gammenthaler said, “but in last year’s race, the times were like 10-15 seconds faster than normal, so there’s really no way of knowing how we would fare up there.”