NIWOT, Colo. — Nike surprised Niwot High School's historic national champion boys cross country team with a schoolwide celebration on Wednesday morning.
The Cougars won first place at the Nike Cross Nationals in December and etched their names in both school and state history.
"It's really historic. Our school has never had a team of national champions, and Colorado has never had a team of boys state championships in cross country," Principal Eric Rauschkolb said.
The Nike Cross Nationals took place in Portland, Oregon, at the Glendoveer Golf Course.
"It's hard, it is a difficult course. It can be slippery in places, but really by the end, it's just grit and guts and it's going to be just a belief that you matter. It's just going to take you to the finish line because these are the best runners in the country," said Chris Bennett, global head coach for Nike Running.
Nike wanted to recognize the Cougars' major accomplishment in the place they call home.
"They won at the beginning of December, and what we wanted to do was celebrate here with the community because sometimes it can get lost, just what happened out in Portland. And we thought this was a great opportunity to celebrate the team, the program, the community, the school all at the same time," said Bennett.
This is Kelly Christensen's ninth season coaching cross country at Niwat High School. He said this team and this year were special from the beginning.
"It was a special year. We chose to go up to 5A for the first year in our school history. That's something the team was on board with, like having this new challenge of being 5A," Christensen said.
Nike dripped out the runners and gymnasium in posters, t-shirts and a digital screen, all with the slogan "The Boulder The Better" since the school is in Boulder County.
"The fact that Nike came up with their own description of their championship here and specified it to where we are geographically, yeah, that was really cool of Nike to do that for us. And I think the boys will remember that for the rest of their lives," Rauschkolb said.
"It's been amazing. I mean, we've just been killing it throughout the whole season. We knew what our goal was from the start, and it was just about putting in the hard work and winning," said senior Keegan Geldean.
Wednesday's rally marked a special moment not only for the champion runners but for the entire school.
"To have Nike come out here and celebrate it, it's just like you couldn't write a better script. It really does feel like we were in a movie, and it's just been great. And I think there's still a lot of unwritten stories for these athletes, and they're excited for more," Christensen said.
Bennett said this was the first time Nike had ever done a school visit and believes many more will come in the future.
"I think what was a lot of fun was seeing the look on not just the team's faces but also the students. And I think that was one of the reasons why we came here is we wanted to let them know that even though this race happened a month ago, the success is going to last from that moment to forever," Bennett said.
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