“Keep Ithaka always in your mind.    

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn’t have set out.”

-Excerpt from “Ithaka” by C.P. Cavafy

***

In 2006, Michelle Cross was a member of the Waynesburg University women’s cross country team that lost the conference championship by two points. Since then, Cross, now an assistant coach for the Yellow Jackets, relates the program’s expedition the last 11 years to an ancient poem about a warrior’s road home.

It started with the crushing loss to perennial Presidents’ Athletic Conference powerhouse Grove City when she was a junior.

…But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Ever since Cross started running for Waynesburg University in 2004, her biggest aspiration was simple: Beat Grove City.

…Better if it lasts for years.

Then, a decade after losing by two points, the women’s cross country program was named PAC Champions in 2016 for the first time in school history, ending Grove City’s 27-year championship run.

…Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

After the team photos were taken and the championship ceremonies presented, Cross realized the hardships the program conquered to reach the top of the conference were more meaningful than anything else.

“It was the journey that I really appreciated, more so than even the moments of holding the trophy or anything else,” Cross said. “It was being able to look back out on the field and literally see girls that are on the team currently crying and hugging each other and then looking out over on the sidelines and seeing girls who had graduated a few years back doing the exact same thing. [It was] realizing that if we had not set out on that journey – if we had not chased that so hard – I wouldn’t have met any of them.”

***

During the three years she ran with the team, the rivalry against Grove City shifted from a competitive atmosphere to a focused vision.

But after the Yellow Jackets were defeated in by two points 2006, things started to slide away and the gap between the two teams grew further apart.

“[Running with the team] was really sort of where the dream came from for me,” Cross said. “Then obviously after [I] graduated, stuff had kind of fallen back a little in the conference rankings. When I stepped on as an assistant coach with [head coach Chris Hardie]…that was something from the beginning we kind of talked about—wanting to be able to knock [Grove City] off.”

After signing back with the team to join the coaching staff in 2009, Cross got a step closer to fulfilling her vision for the women’s cross country program.

“I think that’s part of the fuel to coming to ultimately beating [Grove City] when I came on as a coach,” Cross said. “When I was introduced to that rivalry, it had been a long time that [Grove City] had [won the conference].”

Then, 10 years after Cross finished fourth on a Yellow Jackets team that lost like so many others, her journey ended. The women beat Grove City by 38 points in 2016. In that moment, her emotions were a culmination of all the years Cross had spent with the team, both as an athlete and a coach.

“Every year it wasn’t enough to quite get there,” Cross said. “It was quite crazy, in the moment, just looking around all the kids that I coached over the years…This wonderful experience that I had here was just because we just had this dream.”

Whether the cross country team wins or losses, Cross said she finds greater value in the relationships between the athletes than the trophies that they win.

“What I really love about [coaching] the most is just getting to meet these wonderful men and women that come through our program and get to know them and watch them grow and progress,” Cross said. “That doesn’t change – no matter you are the top of the conference or whether we were chasing second…wherever we’re at, that process doesn’t change.”

***

For head coach Hardie, who has coached alongside Cross since 2009, the attention that Cross puts towards the athlete is unparalleled to any other coach.

“I never worked with a coach that invested as much time into athletes as she does,” Hardie said. “She will take hours at practice to just make sure she is spending enough time with runner No. 1 down to runner No. 27. There’s no difference between them to her…to me that makes her probably the best coach I’ve ever worked with.”

When Cross graduated from Waynesburg University, she originally thought she was going to be a teacher. Then she realized the aspects of teaching she valued the most could be directly applied to coaching.

“It’s just a privilege to be able to see growth in someone, not just in their character, but also athletic ability and then talk them into the fact that they have that opportunity…that they can do things they didn’t realize,” Cross said. “I just love that. I live, eat and breath being able to do that for people.”

Being with each runner in their individual journeys through college as student-athletes, through the highs and the lows, is what makes the relationships so meaningful to Cross.

“For four years you get to see them when they are stressed…you get to see them in good moods and bad moods and everywhere in between,” Cross said. “You get to see them growing and learning through conflict with each other and just watching them workout because every team, every family has conflicts within its ranks. It’s just fun for me to walk through the halls of that aspect.”

For junior runner Liz Trump, the bond that she has with Cross has transformed her view of the sport.

“I think having a relationship with a coach like [what I have with Cross] is everything,” Trump said. “It allows you to really view the sport that you are doing as something more, because you are forming relationships through it and when your relationship is with the coach, and the person that is leading you through it, that is something that is really special.”

But Cross’ expertise in cross country doesn’t end with the athletes, as Hardie said her impact can be felt in the more logistical side of the team.

“There are some things that [Cross] brings that has really accelerated, I think, the growth of the women’s program,” Hardie said. “She has an understanding of collegiate racing and maybe some of the advantages and disadvantages the Waynesburg women have in terms of the region and the conference.”

At the start of each season, Cross compiles a 15-week schedule for the women’s team. On the schedule, Cross will map out the road for the women to be toughest competitors in the conference and in the region.

Without that schedule, Trump said the program would not be at the level that it has reached in the past two years. Due to the expertise of the program Cross puts together for the runners, Trump said it gives the team greater confidence.

“[Cross], I think, is really the brains behind all our training and I think all of us now, especially as an upperclassman, are all so confident in trusting [Cross’] training plans for us,” Trump said. “We know that she designs them to allow us to be successful and we say time that we just have to trust our training.”

The schedule that Cross helps build, Hardie said, represents one of the backbones to the program’s success each year.

“[Cross] is a really good tactician and strategist; so I let her run with that,” Hardie said. “She basically comes up with the day-to-day training plan, a lifting plan and we even work on diet and hydration for our athletes.”

Through the training plan the cross country program uses, Hardie said it has created national-level runners for the program.

“[Cross] has a little streak of national level athletes and it’s not like you just go out and pick them off a tree,” Hardie said. “Part of [the teams] formula is a 15-week plan. What I think is really important for [Cross] is the forward thinking that she has – I don’t see that a lot with coaches that I [have worked] with.”

***

Through the workout plans she creates and the relationships that she forms, Cross directs each athlete on a journey she once went through herself.

“[I’m] just someone helping them and guiding them along the path of life,” Cross said. “It’s really fun to watch them, not only form connections here, but watch them as they graduate.”

Through the highs and the lows, Cross has always taught her athletes to focus on the journey.

…Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

And whether they lose by two points or win by 38 – the journey is always worth it to Cross.

…Arriving there is what you’re destined for.