The Baldwin cross country teams have won a total of 24 state titles throughout the years. Under the coaching of Mike Spielman, winning is not the only tradition that takes place throughout the fall season for the cross country squad.

“Hills! Mondays we always do hills and we usually do a track or golf course workout on Wednesdays,” Spielman said.

Along with hills, the team has some other traditional workouts that they do.

“We practice all summer almost every day,” all-state runner Abby Patterson said. “We do a timed 3-mile run every year before we start competing in meets. We also do a 15-minute run on the track and afterwards we always get watermelon provided by Knights of Columbus.” 

Both the boys and girls have traditions they do to initiate the new runners into the team.

“We have many traditions we do. Many of them, I cannot really say. We want it to be a surprise to the newer people, but before the season officially starts, we have a spend-the-night at someone’s house before the summer runs, and then the next day we go to the school and do our three miles,“ second year runner Maddox Shorb said.

Every year, the cross country teams travel to Spielman’s hometown of Sabetha to compete in a race that is hosted at the local golf course. Last season, the girls team earned a perfect score at the meet.

“For Sabetha, we make cool and fun puffy paint shirts for everyone and we wear them to the race. When we are at a race we do a fun cheer to encourage the boys to keep going,” junior Lauren Russell said.

The team always has something fun to look forward to that follows the race. 

“After we run, we go to Spielman’s brother’s house and eat soup and play tag on the hay bails,” senior Josie Boyle said.

Some of the most important traditions take place at the state race. If the team advances to the state competition, the girls will go run and then exchange a nice dress to wear with their running shoes. As they leave on the bus, the firefighters escort the team out of town and the parents cheer for them on the side of the road. On the bus ride to Wamego, they stop in Topeka and eat at Golden Corral. 

“For state, we always go the night before and write a script about how the race is going to go and we run a mile before breakfast,” Spielman said.

State is always a very exciting time for the runners.

“After the race is over, we all go to the top of the tallest hill on the course and roll down it,” Boyle said.

Both teams have a wide range of traditions that take place throughout the season.