Assistant coach Ryan Towles, a runner himself, chalks up the success to Smith and to the shared Finnish heritage the runners have.

“There’s just a lot of talent in our school, a lot of Finnish heritage and Hancock,” he said. “For people who are students of the sport, Paavo Nurmi was the first great distance runner. We just (have) a lot of talent in our school, and we’re doing our best to get those kids to come out, and doing our best to make them better. We have a lot of raw material to work with.”

Nurmi’s name now graces the athletic center on the Finlandia University campus, so it is synonymous with Hancock.

Towles feels that a big part of what makes the Bulldogs successful at cross country is that the kids who compete in the sport are smart, and are also willing to take on the course laid out before them.

The Hancock Bulldogs girls middle school team poses after winning the U.P. title. Pictured (from left): Azura Aho, Samantha Brentar, Abby Bradway, Janae Koski, Zoey Benda, Tally Storm, Adelyn Pietila, Marie Thompson, and Fernanda Ruiz. (Provided photo)

“Cross country attracts smart kids,” he said, “a lot of cerebral, intellectual kids. Houghton sees this too, with the huge numbers they get.”

With smart runners comes the desire to be better each time they hit the course.

“I think smart kids want to challenge themselves and understand that your greatest opponent in life is yourself,” he said. “Cross country really teaches you that, more so even than a sport where you have somebody lying across from you or trying to stop you. There’s no one trying to stop you, you have to make yourself do it and keep going.

“That’s a whole different kind of mental toughness. I think it’s a great life lesson for these kids and they embrace it.”

Without the traditional opponent trying to knock you off your feet or take the ball from you, cross country runners build their community through competing against time and each other.

“They really embrace it because it’s not adversarial,” said Towles. “They can celebrate everyone’s accomplishments. Our kids are great friends with these kids on other teams, Calumet especially, our girls are really close to the Calumet girls.

“They don’t have to be against one another. Their scores, we want to win, we’re competitive and all that, but, at the end of the day, that comes from your own performance.”

Given its location across the canal from Houghton, Hancock has access to a variety of areas to train. They make the most of that opportunity on a daily basis.

“Our big thing is we try to mix it up, keep it interesting, try to make it so it’s not monotonous,” Towles said. “We practice all over town. So, we’re (starting) from the school some days, but we’re down to the Maasto (Hiito) trails. We’re practicing from the fairgrounds, where our home course resides at the fairgrounds and the driving Park. We’re going to Chutes and Ladders. We’re going down to Hancock Beach. We’re going on the snowmobile trail from the bridge to Dollar Bay.

“We’re certainly fortunate to have the mountain, Mt. Ripley, in our town. We’re utilizing that, so there’s a lot of thought that goes into that.”

Having so many options helps the runner learn how to deal with all kinds of obstacles they may encounter in races.

“The variation of training is good for enhancing the training effects,” said Towles, “but it’s also a mental thing for the kids that we just keep throwing different stuff at them, keep them on their toes, and they don’t get bored.”

When it comes to training, U.P. schools have to think outside the box a bit when compared to their compatriots downstate. Many downstate programs have large groups of kids on their cross country teams, so that they have rigorous distance training because they have the numbers available to them, if injuries arise. With the small school sizes in the U.P., teams like Hancock have gone to more of a time approach to workouts, rather than distance.

“We are very judicious,” he said. “We’re very smart. We train at a level that challenges the kids, but it’s also something that’s realistic and we know they can handle.

We want to meet them where they are, so we do most of our general running for time, rather than distance. That lets everybody complete whatever they can complete, in the same amount of time. Our quality is more distance for time, repeats, and things like that. Generally speaking, we’re trying to meet each kid, sixth grader through high school, where they are and make sure they can get better without running the risk of getting sidelined.”

Towles said that it also helps to have the community support the teams feel.

“The community is behind us, (and) Hancock athletics in general,” he said. “The community is really supportive. The booster club is really supportive. We wouldn’t be able to have a program with this much momentum, where the kids are really excited, and coming off the way they are, if we didn’t have that support.”

With runners competing from sixth grade on, Towles feels that the Bulldogs are just hitting their stride with how good the program can be.

“We run a middle school and high school combined program, so we get kids starting in sixth grade, we have seniors that graduate that have been running cross country for seven years,” he said. “So that’s a great situation. We can see the talent that’s coming up that is younger, that’s reloading our team as we go year to year. I don’t see a reason this can’t continue.”

Since running can help with building stamina, Hancock is excited to have dual sport athletes compete as well.

“We work with dual sport athletes, so if girls want to play volleyball, and run, we’re totally open to that,” he said. “We want to work that out. We want to get them out. They can have the greatest experience possible.”