Poe ready to lead SJ-O cross country team with passion, accepted to Naval Academy

By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com

Eric Poe is going places and has found it helpful to learn from others who have traveled down the same roads.

The St. Joseph-Ogden senior will serve the boys’ cross-country team as a leader for a season which will start with the first competition on Saturday, Aug. 31 at Paris.

A late-comer to the sport – he first joined the program as a junior – Poe is making up for lost time.

Besides running, he spent a portion of his summer reading. He focused on the Matt Fitzgerald book, “How Bad Do You Want It?” and studied testimonials that contend outstanding athletic performances can originate from the mind as opposed to strictly from the body.

He found the text to be revealing. The book helped place him in a leadership position with the boys’ cross-country program.

“I learned a lot about not just running, but endurance sports in general, by reading the book,” Poe said. “The book contained stories from people with all types of backgrounds, from rugby players to lifelong runners, all with very different lifestyles and values, who nevertheless all achieved great success in endurance sports.

“It really drove home the point that anybody can be great at endurance sports such as cross-country, as long as they are mentally invested in it, which is a belief I have had for several years. As a leader, the book is a great help, because every athlete on the team can relate to at least one of the stories in the book, and leaders can use the book to help inspire other athletes on the team to be great, despite differing backgrounds.

“The book, true to its title, shows with both anecdotal examples and scientific evidence that the most important thing in both sports and life in general is, ‘How Bad Do You Want It?’ “

The book reinforced some of Poe’s perceptions on what is necessary to be an effective leader.

“Being a leader means several things, but most importantly it means being someone that the younger kids can look up to, and aspire to be,” Poe said. “It means leading by example because the younger kids naturally look up to the leaders on the team and try to emulate them in all aspects of their lives.

“If you’re a good leader and athlete, this is great, because those kids will quickly learn to do what you do, and continue the legacy of cross-country at SJ-O, because in a few years they will be the leaders that the younger kids look up to.”

Serving as a role model is among the duties that Poe considers to be part of his duties.

“I see my primary responsibility as setting a good example for the younger kids, so they know what they should try to be like in order for the team to be the best that it can be,” he said. “Also, I think it is a very important responsibility to motivate the other kids, young and old, to come ready and willing to give their 100 percent every day, whether it be an easy recovery run the day after a hard workout, or the day of the state meet.

“Furthermore, I plan on helping to ensure that all of the kids on the team are always passing their classes and not ineligible for competition, and also taking care of their bodies every day and night, by getting good sleep, stretching, hydrating, eating well, logging their runs, and so on, so that they can be the best version of themselves, all the time.”

He won’t let his relative lack of experience in the sport become a hindrance.

“Joining cross-country in my junior year, I had little opportunity to learn much from the leaders who preceded me in the sport,” Poe said. “However, I did have the opportunity to learn a lot from the same people during track season, in the spring.

“People like Wyatt Wolfersberger and Riley Baker really showed me how to set a good example and lay the foundation for the kids after you to take the sport seriously, and be very good at it by staying dedicated and doing everything that the coach asks.”

Poe said there is no questioning the desire and determination he brings to cross-country.

“Despite it only being my second year in the sport, cross-country means a lot to me,” Poe said. “I greatly enjoy the sport and care greatly about not only my own performance but my teammates’ performances as well.”

Early in his high school career, Poe considered himself a sprinter in track and played football as a freshman and as a sophomore. As the track coaches started advancing his distances in the spring from the short sprint races to the 800 meters – a group that often trains with the distance crew – his interests shifted.

“I was told by Coach (Jason) Retz (the head coach of both the track and cross-country teams) that if I wanted to be truly great in track, I should consider cross-country,” Poe said. “This definitely made me consider cross-country, but what really won me over, in the end, was talks with older athletes almost every day at track practice who were determined to get me out for cross-country.

“While I loved football and still miss it sometimes, I have no regrets about joining the cross-country team.”

He has established lofty goals for his final season of high school competition.

“Individually, I hope to beat Riley Baker’s 3-mile time this year (16 minutes, 23 seconds) and as a team, I want us to qualify for the state meet,” Poe said. “Last year, we missed qualifying by just five points, which was heartbreaking, but this year we are all older and have been training a lot harder, and are ready to race at the state meet in November.”

The Illinois High School Association allows coaches to have access to their athletes for a limited time in the summer, but those off-season workouts can’t be mandated.

“Despite everything in the summer being optional, for cross-country teams to be successful in the fall, all of their athletes have to be willing to put a lot of miles in during the summer,” Poe said, “so it’s important as a leader to set the standard by showing up to absolutely every run and practice they can.

“And if for whatever reason they can’t make it, still getting the miles in on their own – and logging the miles, so that teammates know you ran them – so that the younger kids know that it’s expected of them to put work in during the summer.

“It’s important as a leader to show dedication even in the off-season so that the other kids can see how important the offseason is to success in the fall. This summer, our team accomplished a lot, with most varsity kids running at least 300 miles – despite many of them only being sophomores – with some, such as myself, running over 400 miles, with one almost hitting 500.”

That amount of running does more than boost the confidence of the squad members.

“It’s good to know that our varsity kids already have big aerobic engines coming into the start of the season, so that the season can be spent doing more important workouts that really make us faster instead of just base-building runs,” Poe said. “Last year, a lot of the varsity athletes had relatively low summer mileage, and that hurt us in the season.”

The 2018 season ended in a Class 1A sectional. The Spartans placed sixth as a team with 197 points. Securing fifth-place and the final state-meet berth was Toledo Cumberland with 192 points.

Poe believes his personality helps him fit in as a team leader.

“I would describe myself as a very loud and passionate individual, and I think that has helped me grow into the role of being a leader,” he said, “because I have been very easily able to put my passion into cross-country and all of my teammates, helping them to be the fastest guys that they can be.

“I think that my teammates see my passion and, hopefully, wish to emulate it by giving their all into the sport.”

Poe’s highlights for his senior year will include more than running.

He is the top-ranked SJ-O student academically in the Class of 2020 and takes pride in his classroom efforts. He relishes the role of being a student-athlete.

“Maintaining high grades while also being athletically involved has certainly not been an easy thing to do,” Poe said. “It has taken a lot of dedication and commitment – and very good time management skills – to stay on top of everything, and it has often included sacrificing other things to spend more time on homework.

“It has not been easy, but I have been able to accomplish it by reminding myself why I am doing it, and the potential rewards for it. Sports, while taking up time in the day, have helped in some ways as well, by teaching me to be disciplined with time.”

As for his future, Poe’s path became clearer on Aug. 15.

That Thursday, he received a Letter of Assurance for the United States Naval Academy Class of 2024.  Poe is the first SJ-O student in at least 16 years to be accepted into the Naval Academy.

The Letter of Assurance guarantees a student acceptance to the Academy, pending a congressional nomination. Those announcements are typically made in November.

Poe anticipates enrolling at the Academy, located in Annapolis, Md.

“The Naval Academy appointment means a lot to me,” he said. “I’ve considered serving our country for several years now, but I didn’t really start to seriously consider the Naval Academy until they reached out in November of 2018 with an invitation to visit in January.

“Ever since that visit, it has been a great desire of mine to attend USNA.”

He believes the Academy would be a tremendous stepping stone into his future.

“The unique combination of academic and physical challenges coupled with the amazing opportunity to serve our country and be a part of something far more important than myself is especially attractive to me,” Poe said. “Ten to 15 years from now, I could easily see myself still in the military and enjoying it, but I could also see myself out of USNA doing something different.

“Graduating from a school as prestigious as USNA opens countless doors in both the military and civilian worlds.”