Every sports team on Carleton’s campus has a different personality, and as your new sports editor, I am going to try and tackle all of them. I decided to start with the team that I was once a part of and still have very close ties to: the cross country team.

This isn’t a fluff piece praising the team. It’s a critique of their love for each other. Walk to the Severance side of the Burton Dining hall, right under the mural of Coach Huyck, and you will be overwhelmed by thirty plus cross country runners every night. The cross-country team is one big family that eats, runs, parties, rooms and sleeps together. On a scale of one to CUT, they are about a solid seven, maybe eight during the off-season. The team is about as close as they get, and oh I forget to mention, they are all really awkward and skinny.

To run cross-country, one needs to love pain. Running long distances is unnatural for the body and is all about building endurance to an incredible degree. It is not the sport for everyone. If you are crazy enough to do it, then you have to spend massive amounts of time running with your teammates, which naturally leads to friendship.

This is common in all sports, but the difference between other sports and cross-country is that there is very minimal branching out. Tennis spends time with Soccer, Football with Basketball, etc. The cross-country team at Carleton isolates itself from other teams. Have you ever heard of the cross-country team spending time socializing with the Tennis team? I haven’t. Score one point for cult.

To be a long distance runner involves burning thousands of calories a day, which naturally leads to weight loss. For most runners, that simply means never gaining weight and being incredibly skinny. I can attest to this problem. There is no direct correlation between skinniness and awkwardness, at least none that can be proved, but the cross-country team tries. Conversations with team member’s drift into a realm of social awkwardness one would only find in Carleton’s most obscure corners.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many normal runners, but it only takes one group conversation to see the awkwardness of the majority. Cross-country runners are a rare breed, and at Carleton, they are the quirkiest of just about any sports team on campus. Score one point for skinny and awkward.

So in conclusion, the cross-country team is a cult of skinny awkward people. Is that a bad thing? No! Generations of runners have come and go through this campus with very minimal outside contact and end up relatively normal in the mythical real world. They are fun loving people, but don’t expect any of them to be a social captain; well, maybe Joe Hasse could pull that off.

Anyway, go out to Bell Field this Saturday morning and cheer the teams on as they race throughout the Arb. Admire their athletic abilities, the team’s skinny physique, and yes, their love for each other.