“Around the Course’’
The former Portsmouth High All-American runner was 1st R.I. female to qualify for U.S. championship
By BOB LEDDY (TAFWA)
R.I. Track & Field Foundation
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In 1996 Laura Turner, then a junior at Portsmouth High School, qualified for the Foot Locker Cross Country National Championship. At the Northeast Region meet at New York’s Van Cortlandt Park that November, she finished in sixth place. (At that time, the top eight runners qualified for the United States championship meet. In 2005, all regional fields were expanded to include the top 10.) As such, Turner became the first female prep harrier from Rhode Island to make the national cutoff, in what was (then) the event’s 17-year history.
At Balboa Park in San Diego that December, Turner placed 21st among 32 of the best cross country runners in the nation. The following year, senior Turner again finished sixth among the top eight Northeast Regional competitors to repeat as a national Foot Locker finalist. The ’97 Championships were run over a course on the Shades of Green resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, not far from Disney World. In that event, Turner crossed the line No. 13, good for an All-American berth. (The top 15 from each gender make the U.S. team.)
Since then, no Rhode Island girl has gone to the Foot Locker Nationals until this year, when Barrington High junior Emma Mc Millan finished third at Van Cortlandt last month, thus earning a trip to this Saturday’s Nationals at San Diego.
R.I. Interscholastic League Hall of Famer Laura Turner O’Hara reflects on her competition at Foot Locker Nationals:
“Certainly these were some of the most memorable races of my high school career. My clear memories of these experiences speaks to that. They all came flooding back, too, when I returned to San Diego in 2010, when my husband [Dave O’Hara] coached his athlete [Ahmed Bile, of Annandale High School in Virginia] to the national finals. What struck me then was the tradition surrounding the race that hadn’t changed in nearly 15 years.
“The first time [qualifying] I was pleasantly stunned. Even 18 years later, I clearly remember coming out of the woods at Van Cortlandt Park not knowing where I stood in the race. My senior year I was very nervous at the Regional. Making the Nationals for a second time was perhaps one of my toughest mental challenges as a high school runner, and I nearly psyched myself out. I felt more relieved than anything at the end of the race, until I got in the tent with the other finalists.
“Both times, I just enjoyed the race. I was a little flat my junior year; it was a little overwhelming, and I was over-peaked. My senior year . . . I had a definitive goal in mind to make All-American, but the wet weather took the edge off. Actually, it’s best to enjoy the pre-race festivities and traditions. The courses [Balboa Park and Shades of Green] were night-and-day different. Balboa was a lot hillier and drier. There were 18 inches of water on some parts of the Florida course when I ran it, so that made the race pretty slow despite the fact [course] was flat.
“We also didn’t have regular internet access, so I actually didn’t know too much about the kids from other regions. [When I returned to San Diego in 2010] I realized that these kids already know each other through news sites and social media. They are so much better informed and are closer friends than we were going into the [race] weekend.
“Hands down, the friends I made at Foot Locker are what stick with me the most. I met future [Stanford] teammates for the first time: Caroline Annis, Erin Sullivan, Lauren Fleshman. And close friends for the remainder of high school and beyond.’’
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“Around the Course” Note: In the history of this event – which began in 1979 as the Kinney Cross Country Nationals – six local boys qualified out of the Northeast Regional meet. Their names, schools, and finish:
1980 – Paul Haupt, Rogers 31st; 1984 – Mike Pieroni, Rogers 13th (All-American); 1989 – Chris Magill, St. Raphael 31st; 1993 – Keith Woodman, St. Raphael 16th; 2008 – Andrew Springer, Westerly 28th; 2012 – Trevor Crawley, Cumberland 38th.