The Long View: The Rise of Tandem XC Issue 2

Ultimately, cross country is a numbers game. A legend in the cross country world, coach Joe Newton is famous for saying “there are state champions walking the halls of your school that you don’t even know about.”

Jason shares this quote and says, “Newton’s whole thing was to get as many kids on the cross country team as you could because you never know what lanky, goofy kid could actually become a champion runner…To be a competitive, very high-level high school cross country runner, almost any kid can do it if they’re willing to do the work. You’ve got to get them in, and make it fun, and then start pushing them.”

This is the recipe; get as many kids as you can, make it joyful, get them committed to doing the work, and then challenge them. It seems simple, but what it requires most of all is—another of Jason’s mantras—patience and consistency.

This has been the core of Jason’s philosophy leading the cross country program at Tandem.

His daughter, Sophie Farr, now in her senior year at Vassar College and captain of the cross country team, says that this slow and steady style gave her the stamina to keep growing as a runner. She attributes these important values to her dad. “While I may be biased, I think the coaching ethos at Tandem is unlike much else. It takes a special skill to cultivate an environment where no matter your skill level you are treated as an equal and are encouraged to work hard and have goals but also have fun and make incredible memories.” 

One of Sophie’s teammates at Vassar, Max Frazee ’22, is a fellow graduate of the Tandem XC program. Sophie says, “Because of Tandem I have a lifelong joy for running.”

Going slow is not a major value in our culture today, but it is something that Quakerism teachers us. Andy points out that Tandem XC “is a good example of how, especially in Quakerism, sometimes things take a long time.”

For many years the team made it close to their goal of a state championship. Jason, remembering the year that Noah Tinsley got the flu, says “We could’ve competed for state that year. He was one of our best runners. And you know, he gets the flu right before the state meet. Luka gets a stress fracture right before the state meet…We were so close for so many years and it was super frustrating. Mason’s senior year, we would’ve been state champions potentially. He would’ve been the individual state champion. COVID happened. So, it’s been so frustrating all those years that we were so close to not being able to finish it.”

When Mason Love ‘21 arrived on the scene, things began to shift. Jason says, “Mason was the linchpin.” In the 2018-2019 season Tandem won the state championship in the 4x800 relay with Mason, Luka Van der Pluijm '19, Nathan Stevenson ‘20, and Charlie Kennedy ‘19. Jason remembers, “that was the moment when everybody was like, wow, Tandem has arrived.” But that title was in track. The team had still yet to win in cross country.
Mason Love '21, Nathan Stevenson '20, Luka Van der Pluijm '19, Charlie Kennedy '19, and Jason Farr

For the finish to finally arrive in Fall 2023, ten years after Jason made his bold promise to Andy, came as necessary validation. Jason admits that “Honestly, I’m kind of shocked that we actually did pull off the 10-year state championship.” But it became clear to him that “what we were doing was the right thing. All those years. It was like we were doing it the right way.”

While a state championship is a great goal, it seems like what this program is truly after is supporting kids to reach their goals and giving them tools to navigate life.

Mason, the only male athlete in Tandem history to compete at the Division 1 level, puts it like this: “I would argue that while Jason did try to make us excellent runners his more major focus was creating lifelong runners and athletes, and at that...I think he succeeds to this day.”

I asked Jason to reflect on last year’s season that culminated in the long-awaited state championship. He shared that “one of my favorite memories from the past season–I mean, winning state was super cool–but Avery, 10th grade girl who works so hard and loves running, loves being on the team and is 100% committed. Her whole goal was to qualify for the GPAC championship. She just kept coming so close, and there was one more chance, one more meet, and the other girls had qualified. They all ran together. They all ran with Avery and pushed her and she qualified by like 30 seconds. I mean the joy on her face and just the fact that the team rallied behind her. That’s what Tandem Cross Country is all about. That sort of teamwork and togetherness and creating your own personal goal, and then everybody jumping in to help you reach it.”

Part 3: Champions

So this fall, the team had big goals. The boys were hoping to claim another win at states. Meanwhile, the girls were gunning for their first GPAC conference win.

Leading the boys this year is Hayes Buppert, a sophomore. “Hayes is a pretty cool story,” Jason says. Hayes is really fast and seems to only keep rising. Jason explains that “He’s a kid who just bought in, but I don’t know how to say this. He’s very humble about it. I mean, he’s just a kid. I think so many kids at his level get really caught up in the competitive part of it. Hayes is the type of kid who wants us to all get pancakes after a run.”

When I talked to Hayes, he told me that he first became serious about running as an 8th grader when he began practicing with the varsity team. “All the varsity boys runners were faster than me,” but he says “they were close enough to me. They were in my line of sight, so they were a goal and they were also motivation.”

Last year, as a freshman, Hayes kicked it up a gear. Jason says, “Really it was over the winter. He had a really good cross country season and he came to Ned and me and was like ‘I want to be really good at this. What do I need to do?’ And we just said ‘just do what we tell ya.’” They gave Hayes the winter training, the same winter training they gave to the whole team.

The difference, Jason says, was that “he did it. Every single day. Checked in with us every week. The result was his spring track season. He started off the year running 4:55 in the mile and by the end of the season was running 4:30 and qualified for the freshman championship race at New Balance Nationals. That’s huge progress.”

Jason remembers, “I used to have to really twist kids’ arms to get them to run in the summer.” But now, “they’re all running and they hold each other accountable. They organize stuff on their own. Running is part of who they are. And so that’s the culture they’ve created for themselves. The fact that Hayes is a sophomore, the 7th and 8th graders see that. And that’s how you continue the program.”

Hayes captures the crucial balancing act of cross country between the individual and the team. Cross country inspires an individualism not unlike the independent spirit that many students cultivate at Tandem. Yet, the sport also requires a balancing between the one and the many, the individual and the whole community. Here’s Andy again, “There’s always been an interesting dichotomy in Quakerism where we value that of the divine in every person, so everybody is valued as an individual and sometimes that requires us to take big risks and reaches in terms of how we treat each other individually. But we also have to build a community around it.” 

I asked Hayes what his goals are this for this season. “I want to win the state championship again this year. For me that’s going to be more about working with other people. I mean, I’m gonna keep working hard, but when you’re finishing in the front of a race, a few points don’t matter a lot, but what’s going to be more important is the 4 and 5 runners who could potentially be the difference between 10 points each which is going to be way more important. Now, I’ve got goals. I’m going to go and try to win the state championship. I don’t know that I can. We’ll see. I have my own goals for sure. But for our team I want to win states again, which I think we can, I think recently especially our 4-7 have really started giving it their all. Then” he says, “I want to see the girls win a GPAC championship.”

Hayes knows what a difference it makes to be led by your teammates. “I mean I’m not gonna slow my workouts down, but some days that doesn’t matter at all and it’s totally fine to just go run with them. Cause that’s what helped me a lot in 8th grade and that’s what I’m trying to remember. I would go with those seniors and as an 8th grader that felt really cool, and that really helped, because they were all faster than me but on the days when it’s easy it doesn’t matter.”

Even in a sport as individual and mental as cross country, athletes work together and rely on their teammates to push and support them as they compete side by side.

The culture of Tandem XC continues to grow and evolve. Now, students are the primary recruiters. At the final Meeting for Worship last year, a senior, Henry Coulson ‘24, stood up and encouraged people to join cross country, as others have done in previous years. This has become a bit of a tradition. Jason says “Whitney’s even made jokes about it like, ‘You gotta tell them to stop doing that. Your teams are getting too big!’”

“I’m moved by it,” Jason continues and “I just get butterflies, and it’s not about me but it’s just, wow…That’s their thing, that’s what they’re really going to miss and that’s what they’re remembering in that really emotional moment.”

This essence of teamwork and support is the precious not-so-secret sauce that Jason never wants the team to lose. He says he’s always checking in with himself, “am I giving too much attention to the fast kids, am I neglecting the newer kids? Because those newer kids, especially the 8th graders, they’re gonna be that. That’s where Coach Ned (Fisher) has helped elevate, because the way our coaching dynamic works now is I let Ned run, literally run, with the fast kids–I can’t even keep up with them. Ned runs with them and then I coach the younger kids and the girls and they get huge amounts of my attention. It keeps building on itself.”