News

Welcome back, friends! We had a great week of practice over the break, culminating in our inaugural Land Run on Saturday. The boys had several PR races, including Ben Campbell in the 800m and Brady Frey and Ryker Morrow winning his heat in the 1600m. At the Texas Distance Festival, Noah Nelson won his heat with a huge PR and one of our fastest freshmen mile times in program history!

For the ladies we had some excellent races from Lillith Johnson, winning her heat in the 1600m, and kicking the meet off by winning the girls 5k, Ava Cornelius finished with a PR and the fastest time IN THE NATION at that distance!

Thank you to everyone who volunteered at the Land Run. We host two more meets this week, so we are looking for more help if you are available. On Tuesday, we have our JH Meet, and on Friday, we have our HS Ram Relays. If you can help, please click on the following links…

Owasso Junior High Meet

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0F4AA8A92FA1FE3-54828811-2025#

Owasso Ram Relays

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0F4AA8A92FA1FE3-55716659-2025#

Also, most of our athletes have paid their Booster Club fees, but several haven’t. The fees are past due, so please click on the following link and pay if you haven’t yet. If you need more time or have any questions, please contact me or Coach Parker, and we will work something out.

Booster Club Venmo

https://ortrackfieldxc.square.site/product/high-school-track-fees-2025/5?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=2

Lastly, please, please, please encourage your athletes to stay until the end of the meets on Tuesday and Friday to help clean up. Every time we host, we have a ton of kids who disappear before the meet is over, leaving the few who remain to clean up all the trash, tables, tents, and tarps. If everyone stays, it only takes a few minutes. If everyone leaves, it takes forever. We are all tired and ready to go home, but the day isn’t over until the Track facility is picked up and closed. We appreciate it!

Our program is only as successful as the partnership between coaches, athletes, and parents. If everyone works together, then Owasso Track and ORXC will be the best experience our athletes have in their high school careers and that’s what we want!

Thank you for everything you do and…GO RAMS!!!

Happy Spring Break Ram Family! I hope everyone enjoys a restful time away from school. If you are on vacation, enjoy your time away from Oklahoma. Like our minister said this morning during church, people from Oklahoma who have never been out of state do not realize just how awful this place is! I have lived in Oklahoma all my life, so even though I love it here for its familiarity, it is a nutso place to live and especially difficult for runners. So, if you are away from OK, in the mountains, beach, or jungle, have fun! With all its snow, heat, wind, drought, floods, tornadoes, and general malevolent attitude toward its residents, Oklahoma will be here when you return.

We will have practice this week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8:00 – 10:00. If runners are out of town, we encourage them to get runs in as much as possible. For runners here, we highly encourage them to be at practice and continue their training. At this point in the season, right before we get into our bigger and most competitive meets, taking nine days off is a huge setback. Studies show that the most critical aspect of runners’ improvement is consistent attendance at practice! We will race on Saturday in the first annual Oklahoma Land Run. We hope to grow this event to rival the Texas Distance Festival in Dallas each year, at least somewhat. That event is held by one of the best programs in the nation and has a history of fast times and excellent competition. However, I believe the athletes here in Oklahoma equally deserve a chance to perform with their peers in a celebration of distance running! I’d love to see several of our runners there having a great time and excited to race. The cost is $10 for runners and $5 for spectators. We will have T-shirts for sale as well. We will need volunteers for ticket sales, t-shirt sales, and concessions. This meet will be much more low-key and less intense than the Owasso Invite. It should be a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see who shows up!

Here is the volunteer link… https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0F4AA8A92FA1FE3-54828886-2025#/

When we get back next week, we also have our JH meet and the Ram Relays, where we’ll need help. These will be the last home meets until Regionals in May.

Owasso JH Meet https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0F4AA8A92FA1FE3-54828811-2025#/

Ram Relays https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0F4AA8A92FA1FE3-55716659-2025#/

Thank you for all you do and GO RAMS!!!!

Weekly Schedule https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C8V25DxypnpUfQ6SCThvjPYi_MXJ8_rsGVdxjEqQR8o/edit?usp=sharing

Good evening Ram Family! Sorry for the late post. We just got home from an all-weekend dance competition at Union. Despite my best efforts, the judges would not allow me to be on stage; however, my youngest daughter crushed it. If you don’t mind, I have had all the blaring music, obnoxious announcers, “YAS,” “YAS GURL,” and “OOOOKAY’s” I can handle for now. Maybe you would be so kind as to turn down your hip-hop music and be slow to use those phrases in conversation for the next few days, please?

What an awesome week we just had! Thank you to everyone who helped out at the Owasso Invitational on Friday. It was a little crazy and definitely crowded, but it was fantastic to see a Track meet back on the OHS campus after three years off. We will continue to work out the kinks to give athletes and spectators the best experience possible, but it is good to have one under our belt now.

Now it’s time to brag! We had some unbelievable races at Owasso and for our Freshmen runners at Tahlequah. On Thursday, our 4×800 girls team of Maya Keene, Alexa Thorson, Sophie Hirart, and Emma Sandoval, plus our 4×800 boys team of Noah Nelson, Owen Mietus, Ryker Morrow, and Tristan Mangelson, both took 1st place! Hannah Toews took 2nd and 1st place in the 800 and the 1600 as well! We had strong opening races from Libby Hays in the 1600 and Alexis Thompson in the 800 for the freshmen girls, with Ben Hardesty, Eli McConnell, Sajin Ward, and Connor Hill all paying solid times in the 800 for the boys. Jordan Rabosvky jumped in the 400 after only being at practice for a week and ran great!

On Friday at the Owasso Invitational, our girls Varsity 4×800 of Lilith Johnson, Stella Jones, Erin Hendrick, and Bijoux Milien kicked off the meet strong by finishing 3rd with a sub 10:00 performance. Bella Nelson won the 3200, followed closely by Ava Cornelius in 2nd, with both girls posting top 25 National times! Jade Mangelson posted a solid 800m time, then our girls crushed it in the 1600! Led by Lilith Johnson in 2nd place with a PR performance, we had PR or very near PR races from Reagan Freeman, winning the 2nd heat, Stella Jones, Rilee Shea, Chloe Matheny, Madison Friday, and (my favorite runner) Gwyneth Collins! Not to be outdone, our boys looked great in 1600, with Evan Carter running close to a PR race, plus Jack Hill (PR) and Colton Correa both breaking the 5:00 barrier! We also had a PR race from the Juice Box himself, Keith Nelson. Then they pretty much all ran a 4×400 in the freezing cold and almost died. That’s Track for you. 🙄

We’ll take everyone to Union this Thursday for the Union Invitational. It’s a school day meet so hopefully we won’t be home too late.

I have linked the Spring Break practice schedule below. We will have a meet for anyone in town on March 22nd, the last Saturday of the break, the first annual Oklahoma Land Run! This is a distance festival on our home track for endurance athletes. It should be a really fun celebration of the best events in Track no matter what those dang Sprint coaches tell you! I also linked the info for the Land Run below.

For runners needing treatment from the trainers, please try to utilize the training room on Monday and Wednesday mornings at 7:00.

We need snacks and water! Please consider purchasing a package of water and dropping it off at the Fieldhouse and/or snacks from the following link…

Lastly, we kicked off our annual Track fundraiser last week. Please share the link for TeamFunded via messaging. These funds will benefit our runners this Track season and will carry over to our XC Camp this summer. Our goal is to take as many kids to camp as possible!

Thank you again to all of our parent volunteers who helped at the meet last week! We’ll have more chances to help soon. Thank you for all you do, and GO RAMS!!!!

Weekly Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xinHNU3t_6PpZ4RBsOEKCY–pEn3Jjnk5T1pOluWWwU/edit?usp=sharing

Spring Break Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C8V25DxypnpUfQ6SCThvjPYi_MXJ8_rsGVdxjEqQR8o/edit?usp=sharing

Team Funded Fund Raiser

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/teamfunded/id1439897444

Oklahoma Land Run

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18SvQRnziy0Xup66GrVB5aBi8DuPk1DvgFlfTl1Yl9ns/edit?usp=sharing

Performance Nutrition

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SZrWk5TRBFfHpdTyHmBUki3QD3VgC3UPtie68lnljAA/edit?usp=sharing

Congratulations to our athletes for their performances yesterday at Union! We had several fantastic races, including Bella winning the 1600m, Bella and Lil going 1-2 in the 800m, and Erin and Stella finishing in the top 8. Eric, Evan, Ben, and Brendan each posted solid starting times to kick off the season. The most important thing is, according to Coach Graddy, who witnessed each race in person, the races were well run with good energy and high effort. That is our focus at this point.

We have a big week coming up with our first Owasso Invitational in three years! Our last meet was hosted in March of 2021. It has taken A LONG TIME to complete the Track facility, but now that it is done…WOW! It is so nice! For you who remember porta-potties floating in a puddle of who knows what, a concession stand out of a trailer, broken fences, mud, trashed locker rooms, and people everywhere, what we have now is unbelievable. Now we can show it off and see some fast kids run some fast times. I can’t wait! We will kick off the Pole Vault, Shot, and Disc at 12:00, and then Running events and all other Field Events will start at 3:30. Please come by and see our beautiful new facilities and cheer on some fantastic kids! Your runners THRIVE on cheers from the crowd. It is fuel!

Our freshmen this week will go to the Tahlequah Middle School Invitational on Thursday. This meet was rescheduled from Tuesday due to potential severe weather. My understanding is the kids will meet at 7:00 at the Fieldhouse and then leave around 7:20. Those runners will not compete on Friday but will need to be at the meet to help and cheer on their teammates. Coach Parker posted a schedule earlier but we’ll send out another as we get closer to meet day and everything is confirmed.

One last reminder regarding Track and the meet day schedule. Coaches can give you an approximate estimate at best as to when your athlete will run. Track meets last much longer than XC meets, with some events flying by and others taking forever. It is always good to get there early, just in case. It might mean being there for a while, but that is part of the fun of Track. There are so many different events and athletes competing it is exciting to watch.

It is going to be an AWESOME season! Thank you for all you do, and GO RAMS!!!!

Week Fourteen Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LQrTC5UQsPhDYneRkoJ1t8wf0v0HE33oEDnsd-lN2Oc/edit?usp=sharing

Nutrition Guide

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SZrWk5TRBFfHpdTyHmBUki3QD3VgC3UPtie68lnljAA/edit?usp=sharing

Good evening, Ram Family! I hope that after days of being trapped inside away from freezing temperatures and piles of snow, you had the chance to get out and enjoy the fantastic weather this afternoon! It’s hard to believe, as bad as last week was, that this week is forecasted to be the nicest weather ever in the history of the planet. Welcome to Oklahoma.

We are one week away from our first home meet in two years! The Owasso Invitational kicks off on Friday, March 7th. We need help! If you can volunteer, please consider working a few hours at the meet. It is fun to be with other parents, and you get free entrance into the stadium. Here is the link…

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0F4AA8A92FA1FE3-54828622-2025#

A few weeks ago, I contacted Dr. Jeff Messer, a fantastic distance coach from New Mexico who is now in South Dakota. He was kind enough to share with me the nutrition guide he shares with his athletes. I added some Owasso elements and changed a few sentences to match our program better, but overall, it is the same guide Dr. Messer uses. Training is a three-sided pyramid…1. Running/Lifting, 2. Sleeping, and 3. Nutrition. You don’t have to be perfect in all three categories, but failing to address one aspect of the training means the pyramid crumbles. Coaches work incredibly hard to ensure the pyramid’s training side is strong, but we can’t control sleep and nutrition. Parents partnering with their athletes to keep these two sides of the pyramid strong is the key to a healthy, happy, and fast runner! Check it out, and please let me know if you have any questions…

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SZrWk5TRBFfHpdTyHmBUki3QD3VgC3UPtie68lnljAA/edit?tab=t.0

Thank you for all you do and GO RAMS!!!!

Week Thirteen Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MG_cjU8lRW4ODhJASAJNvXyAm-1FY6JuSfKFDqDvUXE/edit?usp=sharing

Good Super Bowl Sunday, Ram family! I know our beloved Green Bay Packers aren’t allowed to compete tonight, but let us all remember them in our minds and hearts from now until forever.

We have our monthly Booster Club meeting tomorrow night from 6:00 – 7:00 at the Track/XC Fieldhouse. Anyone is welcome to attend.

Tuesday is another round of home basketball games, so no JH practice. The coaches will be working in the gym.

Thursday will be the final JH Off-Season workout. Tryouts for JH runners start next week. Please fill out the following Google Form for your athletes before then…

https://forms.gle/xLhjuk3b1x9LBYFb6

Thursday night will be our annual HS Track Parent meeting from 7:00-8:00 at the 8th Grade Media Center. We will review competition schedules, gear orders, Booster Club fees, and volunteering opportunities.

Our weekly Long Run for High Schoolers will be at Stone Canyon Elementary on Saturday. We won’t have a bus. Practice will begin and end in the north parking lot of the school.

Please encourage your runners to sleep at least eight hours a night! There is no better restorative practice outside of eating nachos than a full night of sleep for our athletes. Speaking of eating nachos, nutrition is also essential for our runners all the time, but especially as we draw near the start of the outdoor competition season. While Dr. Pepper, mini-Pop Tarts, and Sour Patch Kids are unequivocally delicious, they provide little to no nutritional value for runners. Even in cool weather, hydration is equally important to maintaining a healthy runner. We had a truckload of runners sick the last few weeks. (I say truckload because if they showed up to practice sick, we made them sit in the back of Coach Parker’s truck.) (Also, that is a joke, Amber, so don’t text me about it.) I have a nutrition guide I’m writing for our runners that I will send out soon with some ideas on what to eat and when for our athletes before we start racing. “It is time to lock in!” As the 8th Graders in my classes say, when they see their Art grades. Lock in!

Let’s all have a great game tonight! Thank you for all you do, and GO RAMS!!!!

Weekly Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ES8smSDD2gkd2j8NAE3CC4wZPbmoSvxPYi8FdgFn2IE/edit?usp=sharing

Good sunny and warm afternoon, Owasso Ram Family! If you haven’t been out today, take advantage of it! Mrs. Collins quickly took the opportunity to kick me out of the house and make me do preemptive yard work in preparation for a Spring that won’t truly be here for at least two more months. We all know the first three Track meets of the season are exercises in hypothermia aversion and a test of the human will to survive. Let us not get ahead of ourselves.

We had several runners out sick last week. I encourage all of our athletes to get plenty of sleep, eat well, stay hydrated, avoid talking to and/or dating anyone of the opposite gender on the team, and to consume plenty of ice cream because that’s just good sense.

We’ll have a typical week of training. Our only change to the usual schedule is no JH practice on Tuesday because the coaches will be working at the home basketball games. During halftime of the Boys Varsity game, our 2024 State Champion ORXC Girls TEAM will receive their Championship rings! We’d love to see the entire ORXC Army there to cheer them on!

Please plan to get out and vote next week for OPS’s next bond. While this bond doesn’t directly include anything for Track/XC, it does include a new Soccer Complex at Ator Field that will GREATLY ease the number of athletes we have crowding our current facilities every afternoon at practice. There isn’t enough room to adequately accommodate the Track TEAM, plus Soccer, Baseball, and Football teams this time of year. Having a solid Track workout is increasingly difficult when the threat of ill-kicked soccer balls is constantly present. It’s like practicing in an ever-moving minefield.

Lastly, we’ll have our Track Parent meeting next Thursday, February 13th, at the 8th Grade Center Media Center at 7:00 pm. Please try to attend as we will discuss gear, schedules, volunteer opportunities, and Booster Club events.

Enjoy your Sunday, thank you for everything you do, and GO RAMS!!!!

Week Ten Schedule https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bRjpmEFlnaIMR4Eq3VACOubUQh_F-uN_NP2dMeSNlP0/edit?usp=sharing

Good afternoon Ram Fam! Nothing new is happening this week. The Track is getting very close, though! They were measuring and painting this weekend, so hopefully, we can get practices back to normal. We fired up the speakers on the scoreboard on Thursday, and they work great! It only took thirty minutes before the police showed up and told us to turn the volume down. We’ll have to fight for our right to party moving forward.

We will have our annual Parent Meeting coming up on February 13th. We’ll go over gear, schedules, Booster Club fees, and volunteering opportunities for the season. Please make plans to attend.

We’ll have three more weeks of off-season JH practice before their tryouts in February. More info will come out soon for our JH athletes.

I think that’s it! We’re looking forward to an awesome Track season!

Thank you for everything you do…GO RAMS!!!!

Week Nine Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hFMqz2bzO2E8cPm5UesYDtSWtiKdgtYwRD4IEOLu69s/edit?usp=sharing

Good afternoon! I hope everyone is staying warm. Although I don’t think today is as bad as yesterday. Crossing that pedestrian bridge in the wind yesterday at the Long Run might be the coldest I have ever been in the history of my entire life on this planet of the earth! I also saw that the inauguration has been moved indoors tomorrow. That does make me question if the US is really ready to invade Canada and Greenland. Maybe we’ll have to postpone to the summer.

We’ll give everyone a break from practice tomorrow, but they’ll need to get in a run on their own. Seniors can work out a time for everyone to meet if they’d like. We’ll meet on Tuesday afternoon as soon as we are done with our Teacher In-Service day. There will be no weight room on Tuesday morning.

If runners haven’t ordered their gear yet, they need to get it done ASAP. If they already have a jersey, shorts, and warm-ups, they don’t have to buy anything new. The only condition is that their gear is Track-specific or doesn’t name another sport. For example, you can wear a hoodie to a Track meet with a Ram logo, but you can’t wear a hoodie with a Ram logo that says Owasso Cross Country. If you have any questions, let me know. Here’s the link to order…

https://bsnteamsports.com/shop/BRcdCghZrC

We’re inching ever closer to our first home track meet in two years! We’ll kick off the season on March 7th with the Owasso Invitational. We’ll have a Parent Meeting coming up soon where we’ll go over schedules, volunteer opportunities, and Booster Club info. Very soon, we’ll all be outside freezing our faces off and watching some Rams crush it on our brand-new Track!

Thank you for everything you do and…GO RAMS!!!!

Week Eight Schedule

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iGqsixugA6LQWogxOMZ9E5k4Sv1JlHEpzD26qLdUX9c/edit?usp=sharing

We’re still circling the drain, waiting on the Track to be finished, hoping for good weather, and wondering why the Green Bay Packers can’t get their junk together. It is supposed to be nice weather this week, so let us come together with fervent prayers, uplift our kind-speaking construction-working brothers and sisters, and propel them forward to completion. Amen. Don’t forget to check out the gear store Coach Parker posted. Athletes do not need to purchase any new gear if they have a jersey, shorts, and warm-ups that aren’t from another sport. So, no XC gear, Lacrosse gear, or Metallica gear. It has to be Owasso Track-specific. We’ll do the same thing again for the Cross Country season in the fall. Here is the link…

https://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30837889/bsnteamsports.com?p=eyJzIjoiUlZpUjlwcDYxMi1uQ29oUEoxQWpncUxVYTI0IiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDgzNzg4OSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL2JzbnRlYW1zcG9ydHMuY29tXFxcL3Nob3BcXFwvQlJjZENnaFpyQ1wiLFwiaWRcIjpcIjgzNjA1OWQ0MDE3NzQwMDE4MzVmM2ViM2RmMzliNDdmXCIsXCJ1cmxfaWRzXCI6W1wiMzZlYzUyNGFjNDYwMjBlZTc0MWVjMTcxNDc4OGY3MjQ3MDZlMGUwMlwiXX0ifQ

We’ll have our monthly Booster Club meeting on Tuesday at the Fieldhouse at 6:00. Anyone is welcome to attend. Thank you for all you do…GO RAMS!!!!

Weekly Schedule https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uIN5GGcj_1g40FXjozDnfj34zPrFH5ACohA3iFwtJ6Y/edit?usp=sharing