The late Pat Hadley had taken a Valencia team or individual runner to the CIF State cross country championships every year between 2001 and 2011.
It was quite the heavy baton Hadley passed when Brandon Frank took over the Valencia boys running program in 2012 after starting as an assistant with the Tigers in 2006.
“All I knew was, we just go to state,” Frank said. “That’s what Valencia does. That’s just the normal thing.”
After four years without a trip to Fresno, things are back to normal as Valencia’s pack mentality put the Tigers back at the CIF State meet, where they had a remarkable seventh-place finish.
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ALL-COUNTY BOYS CROSS COUNTRY
- Boys cross country athlete of the year: Jack Landgraf, Dana Hills
- All-County boys cross country: First team
- Boys cross country coach of the year: Brandon Frank, Valencia
- All-County boys cross country: Second Team
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For his efforts leading the team to many accomplishments this season, Frank has been named the Register’s Orange County boys cross country coach of the year.
“Anything I do well, I learned from Pat,” Frank said, “The things that inspire these boys through me, I learned from her. I knew to be the cross country coach at Valencia High School, (it) was not about running. It was about changing boys into young men and teaching the lessons cross country can teach you.”
In a sport where a team can become a collection of individuals pretty quickly, Frank got his Valencia team to always run together with a motto of “We are us.”
Valencia was a team without a superstar and had its best runners coming back from injuries. Ethan Frisone had suffered a stress fracture in each leg over the past two seasons, and 2015 Empire League champion Jesus Moreno had undergone lung surgery after last year’s CIF-SS Finals.
“We knew that we didn’t have the guy who is going to be the man,” Frank said. “There was never going to be the man. The only way we were ever going to go was together.”
Two things illustrate how this mentality took hold of the team.
First, Valencia got a different finishing order from its seven runners in every race this season.
“For many coaches, that would be stressful,” Frank said. “For me, that was comforting. Nobody had to carry the burden.”
Then there was the Empire League preview meet, where all seven of Valencia’s runners crossed the finish line hand-in-hand, giving the team first through seventh place in the race.
“I will never forget that,” Frank said. “I’ve never seen that before, and I doubt I’ll see it again. I just wanted us to tempo together. It was an idea. It was more about the mentality than what would actually happen.”
The mentality carried the team to fifth place at the O.C. Championships, the Empire League title, sixth place at the CIF-SS Division 1 Finals and to seventh place at the state meet.
Frank said the state meet was a great ending for the team, and was memorable mostly because there was a “peace to the day,” as if things for Valencia were truly back to normal.
