The Bowie Cross Country team one of the most decorated cross country programs in Texas. Two of the coaches from last year have left, and now there are two openings for the coaching staff. They have big shoes to fill, but Coach Marcos Guera and Coach Dalton Pool are up for the task. The Bowie High School Cross Country team have hired two new assistant coaches this year. These new hires seem that it will improve the program as a whole.

One of the new coaches, Coach Marcos Guera, has come up from coaching middle school track at Bailey Middle school to coaching high schoolers here at Bowie. “The biggest difference between the skill level. Kids in high schoolers are much bigger, faster, and more athletic than middle schoolers. I have adapted well to the changes, though. I’m very excited to see the improvement between the runners. I really believe that we can make district this year because we have very good runners this year, the kids this year seem very athletic. They seem very capable to do well this year when it comes to running and I can’t wait to see how well they improve as runners.”

The athletes involved with cross country are very excited for the new coaching changes within the team. Seth Leifheit, one of the best runners on the team, is excited for the new coaching strategies the two new coaches bring.

“The two new coaches, Coach Pool and Coach Guera, bring a lot of new training regimen and they seem energetic. They’re really excited to see us improve this year. And with the new regimen, it seems that they’re really pushing us to make district this year and hopefully push us to regionals as well. It’s really an improvement over last year and I’m really excited about this year. Seeing how well I did last meet, which I got first on the team, it seems that this year will go really well,”  stated Leifheit.

The changes seem to be heavily approved by each of the athletes. They all believe that the changes will improve the team throughout the season. Junior Ellie Cemer is one of these athletes.

“There is an improvement because there are a lot less injuries this year than last year. Each of the athletes are improving individually. But, a lot of our good runners graduated last year so there is a lot of big shoes to fill this year. I was excited when I first heard of the changes and I’m still excited now. I really like the changes. The coaches are more involved this year. They have us doing stretches along with other warm ups. We do more things to take care of our bodies than we used to, as opposed to focusing on running and running only. So, they focus on our health as well as running”

The new coaches seem to be very excited for the new season, as well as the athletes in cross country. This season is looking to pan out well for the team and the coaching changes will improve the team as a whole.

“I’m really looking forward to this year. I’m really excited to see what the kids can do this year and how much they improve. We’re really pushing to make district this year and hopefully make state,” Guera said.