America Needs Its Boys and Girls to Run Cross Country

Recently, I got a little tired of my usual diet of business and economics podcasts, and looked for something with a favorite author, Jeffrey Rosen.

I stumbled onto the Not Dead Yet podcast, hosted by former US Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and journalist Chris Stirewalt, and Mr. Rosen was a podcast guest in honor of America’s celebration of 250 years due to his several books on the foundational ideals of America.

The podcast hosts and guests talk about ideas, both things I do and don’t agree with, but they are presented with thoughtfulness, insight, and sincerity so I enjoy what I hear and usually have something to think about afterwards.

A few days after listening to the podcast, serendipitously, Senator Sasse was a featured editorialist in the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression column with his byline titled America Needs Its Boys to Play Football with the subtitle stating, “The sport forms character by harnessing wild masculinity and directing it toward the good and the pure” so naturally I had to read it with that kind of claim.

There was a lot to like in the editorial.

The senator goes through all the reasons why football is good for young men. It forms character and channels strength towards a positive end. It teaches self-sacrifice and perseverance in a society that demands instant gratification, and it builds a community of young men united around a common goal while enforcing rules to keep everyone as safe as possible, understanding that it is still a rough game where injuries happen.

Senator Sasse did not touch on a big negative of football, namely chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which some players develop later in life, and I’m mentioning it because it would be irresponsible not to. The article commentors certainly pointed it out.

Having mentioned it though, if boys want to play football and their parents allow it, by all means they should do so, but schools, coaches, and parents should ensure good coaching and strict rule enforcement.

When it comes to sports though I have my own ideas.

As a high school freshman, standing barely 5’ 8” and weighing less than 130 pounds, while looking at the sheer size and brawn of some of the football players, I knew football was not in the cards for me, and I’d been a track runner in junior high so I looked instead to run cross country.

As Senator Sasse wrote in his article, I’m a little biased, too. His father was a football coach while I’ve been a lifelong distance runner and for the past few years a distance running coach, too.

The one thing that is true of high school aged boys and girls is they have a lot of energy that needs to be directed to something productive. Even the most prodigiously studious young person will need a break from studying.

A well-constructed distance running program over a season of cross country will ensure many opportunities to burn restless energy through running five or more days per week with many runs being three or more miles.

Send a young person out for a three-mile plus run, and they’ll come back much calmer. They’ll likely sleep better at night, too.

A great benefit of distance running is that like the sports of golf, bowling, pickleball, tennis, swimming, cycling, and others, it can be done for nearly one’s whole life. There are not too many football leagues for fifty-year-olds.

Some athletes reminisce about the good old days when they played their sport competitively, but for distance runners that stay with it, the good old days are now. In the Peachtree City Rotary Club Elementary 5k Grand Prix series, two of the races are cross country.

The Burch Bears 5k uses the Sandy Creek High School Cross Country course and the Inman Elementary 5k is hosted on freshly mowed open country. I’ve run both, and they still bring the challenge and joy I felt in high school. Finishing times are slower, but the effort is the same.

Some will say that humans should not engage in distance running especially as they get older, but the comprehensive literature on running and its injuries show that it does not lead to knee problems, and people that have bad knees may see an improvement.

Another benefit of cross country is that it is typically a co-ed sport where boys and girls typically train together, at least for warm-ups and conditioning, with races being separate so everyone learns to get along and support others. When a girl plays football, it makes the news; when she runs cross country, she’s just another athlete.

Due to being co-ed, the boys get to see how fast some of the girls are, and it is not uncommon for a reasonably talented girl to run faster than her lesser-trained and inexperienced boy teammates. That’s a lesson all by itself. (I’m not going into the culture war here- by girls, I mean humans with two X chromosomes.)

Cross country is as physically demanding as football in its own way and requires a different form of physical and mental toughness. Over four quarters, football is executed through many plays that last a few seconds each- maximum exertion, then a break, repeated, with the coach managing player fatigue by replacing tired athletes with rested ones.

Depending on the athlete, cross country is roughly 15 to 22 minutes of visceral, nearly maximum exertion over five kilometers (about 3.1 miles) that also requires some strategy in energy and fatigue management, handled by the athlete. Go out too fast, and the lack of energy and accumulated fatigue in the later half result in a slow race time. Go out too slow, and there’s gas left in the tank. Getting it right is hard.

Both football players and cross country runners have to find ways to dig deep for just a little more focus and energy, which is an important life lesson.

Like football, cross country is also a team sport. The top runners’ places in the race are totaled, and the lowest number among all teams wins the meet. Like a football team, one star athlete doesn’t lead to victory. All athletes must perform well, and this encourages teammates to support one another.

Cross country gives boys- and girls- a place to put their energy, test themselves, and learn how to push when things are hard. It teaches patience and a quiet kind of toughness. It builds teams through shared miles, fatigue, and purpose. And unlike football, it’s a sport they can continue.

Football will always have its place in American life, and for the boys who want to play it, I hope they play it well and safely. But for the many boys who aren’t built for football, or who simply want a different kind of challenge, cross country offers a path every bit as demanding, character‑forming, and enduring.

America needs its youth to run, not just to win races, but to learn how to push through discomfort, manage their emotions, support their teammates, and discover that the hardest things in life are often the most worthwhile. In a country that prizes resilience, grit, and self‑mastery, cross country is one of the best classrooms we have.