The enormity of what stood before the McCallie School cross country team began to sink into Blue Tornado senior Samuel Ligon’s head and heart as he approached the starting line at Nashville’s Percy Warner Park on Saturday afternoon.
For six years as McCallie students, beginning in the sixth grade and continuing through the middle school state title they’d won as eighth graders and those second-place finishes to Brentwood Academy the past two years at the TSSAA Division II-AA state meet, through all that there had always been the security blanket of another year, another shot to add to the school’s trophy case, which hadn’t housed fresh state championship cross country hardware since 2013.
“I think that was the only time I felt pressure,” recalled Ligon on Sunday. “If we didn’t win it now, there would be no more chances to do it. This was it. There could be no next year.”
So they won it. And by a wide margin, five of them finishing among the top 14, led by seniors John Arrowsmith in second, Dylan Zeller in fourth, Duke Richey in seventh and Ligon in 11th. Junior Benjamin Niehaus was 14th.
But good as that result was, it wasn’t what made this McCallie story special.