High school cross country: OHS runners press on after teammate's death

They gathered again Wednesday under a star-filled sky, just like most mornings since the early days of August.

The 6 a.m. workout for Odessa High School’s cross country team stuck to the light routine of any other practice one day before a meet — in this case, the Odessa Invitational today at UTPB Park.

But these days, of course, aren’t like any the runners or their coaches have ever experienced.

Everything changed Monday afternoon when OHS senior runner Joseph Salazar was killed in a motorcycle accident shortly before the team’s practice at UTPB.

Salazar wasn’t the best runner on the boys team. But he had run for the varsity throughout the season, and his personality was electric.

Odessa High’s close-knit boys and girls teams were drawn in with Salazar’s quick smile and even quicker practical jokes.

The program’s unity is something OHS boys coach Randy Thompson and girls coach Tracey Borchardt are banking on to help cope with the trying situation.

“You hope something like this doesn’t start pulling some of them away,” Thompson said. “Hopefully by staying active, by trying to stay in as much of a routine as possible, keeps them going on the right track.

“Things affect people differently, and we’ve been very fortunate that the kids have really helped each other out. They’ve really done a great job.”

The night of the accident, Thompson and Borchardt did their best to comfort their runners, who annually form one of the top cross country programs in District 3-5A.

They were back at 6 a.m. the next day, giving the students a chance to grieve together and with counselors while also maintaining their usual training regimen.

There is, after all, a meet to be run today.

“The same day (of the accident), a bunch of us were asking Coach (Thompson) and to ourselves if the meet was going to canceled or anything like that,” said OHS senior Hugo Corral, the team’s No. 1 runner and a state qualifier last season.

“Then we thought about it and Joseph wouldn’t want that. He would want us to go out there and win. We’re doing this for him.”

The intentions are noble enough and make Thompson proud of his boys team and Borchardt proud of her girls team.

Performance is secondary to the coaches, however.

Healing is the priority.

“Whatever happens, happens, because you don’t know how the kids are going to respond,” Thompson said. “I have no doubt they’re going to give it their best. Knowing these kids, I think some great things are going to happen. I will not be upset either way because this is a tough time and the main thing is I want to help this family get through this.”

OHS senior Lacy McKinney is a fourth-year runner for the girls team who had known Salazar and his older brother David — a 2007 OHS graduate — since they were in band together at Bowie Junior High.

She said tributes are in the works for Salazar such as shirts designed by the boys runners and a tree she hopes to get planted in his remembrance along with a page in the OHS yearbook.

McKinney said keeping the team’s practice schedule has maintained some normalcy, as did some of the team members helping run off a junior high meet Tuesday afternoon at Floyd Gwin Park.

“I don’t know what it is about running, but it helps you kind of get your mind off things,” McKinney said. “It was good to get us together. I think we needed that because we kind of need the comfort.

“It kind of gets easier, but it kind of doesn’t because he’s still gone and we still have to go on without him. It’s hard.”

However, it’s a reality that will continue to set in during the upcoming days, with the comforts of the team also providing reminders of who no longer is there.

OHS sophomore Coty Benavides met Salazar last year when his older brother, Andrew Benavides, was a runner for the Bronchos.

“My brother knew him before I did, but when he introduced me, we hit it right off,” Coty Benavides said. “I realize I have to appreciate everything I have. I did before, but now I really have to stick to it.

“I can’t think about what happened a lot, but I do want to remember him and not forget him.”

Thompson heaped praise on the efforts of counselors from the ECISD and Odessa High in addition to Odessa High principal Ron Leach for their presence at the greatest time of the students’ needs.

Now the process of healing will continue along with Odessa High’s season, which has reached its stretch run.

After today’s meet, only next week’s meet in Hobbs, N.M., remains before the District 3-5A Championships on Oct. 25 back in Odessa and the regional and state competitions the first two Saturdays in November.

This is the time of the season Thompson always points to for the Bronchos to shine, and he said Salazar had put in the extra hours since last season to earn his chance to line up against the best in the district, region and state.

Instead, it now will be up to the rest of the team’s runners to maintain his spirit along with theirs.

“The performances of the last two days have just really impressed me,” Thompson said. “At their age, doing these things like getting up at 5 o’clock these last two mornings and not missing a beat, these kids have really just grown up.

“You hate for it to be that way, to have to grow up this way, but they really have. It’s been tough.”