TERRY COLUMN: Starting on a new course

This is something new.

In the more than four decades Paul Jorgensen has coached cross country at Flathead High School, he has overseen 26 state championships and many more of the individual titles, guiding some of the best runners in state history. He’s coached multiple state record holders for both boys and girls and they’ve run in meets all over the state and the country. He’s coached a national champion and been inducted in the National Coaches Hall of Fame. By his count, the Braves and Bravettes have run on 38 different courses in that time.

But they’ve never run a state meet in Kalispell.

After years in Helena, with short stints in Missoula, Billings, Great Falls and Butte, the all-class state cross country meet travels to the Flathead Valley for the first time ever this weekend, with a three-mile course set up on the fields at Rebecca Farm. The West Valley property, typically reserved for one of the country’s largest equestrian triathlons in the summer, has been modified to accommodate more than 1,000 runners from nearly every school in the state.

Jorgensen and everyone involved made sure that Kalispell’s first impression was its best.

“I’ve had a lot of experience running on different courses,” Jorgensen said. “Our coaches, we know what’s good and what isn’t. That helps when you set up a cross country course. You want to design a course that’s as good or better than some of the better courses we’ve run on in the past.”

The course itself is different.

First, it’s not on a golf course, like nearly every other course in the state. The grass, while cut low, isn’t expertly manicured to ensure a good approach shot. It’s normally run on by half-ton animals and farm equipment, so instead it’s a little rougher. There also isn’t an overabundance of hills on the property which will make for moderately faster times.

While those may be seen as downsides to some, there’s also benefits to running off (golf) course. Unlike the last few years, there also won’t be any worry about delays due to frost. Because the race will be run on a heartier plot of land there is no concern about mud, even with the recent deluge of rain in the Valley.

“It will be a little different for some of the runners that normally run on golf courses,” Jorgensen said.

The course should also be one of the best for competition in some time, with many minor concerns that pop up at meets around the state addressed. In preparing for the meet, Flathead hosted its annual invitational at the site multiple times to get the kinks out, double-flagging the course for better visibility, focusing on taking out sharp corners and creating enough room at the start to prevent runners bumping into each other where they usually bottle neck entering the course. There’s no gopher holes to worry about and they even straightened the starting line. Any concern there may be was addressed so that, hopefully, once the teams show up they can just focus on running fast.

“We’ve spent a lot of time getting it ready,” Jorgensen said. “The Rebecca Farm people have been very helpful. They went out of their way to make sure we were going to have a nice facility for kids to run on.

“We took great care in making sure we had all of our ducks in a row ... Bryce Wilson, our activities director, has really made sure that we had everything that would make for a good cross country course for a state meet.”

Part of that is also making sure the course is great for spectators. Because it’s on a farm and not a golf course, there are no trees and sight lines are great from nearly every spot on what they’re calling Spectator Hill. There’s also no native grass patches, sand traps, water hazards or greens that prevent spectators from watching along the entire course. And parking is abundant, with Rebecca Farm well prepared to handle such an onslaught of vehicles, big and small.

With a pair of nationally-ranked runners and a few more nationally-ranked teams there should be plenty of great competition to watch.

Now all that’s left is the races.