To the Band of Brothers: November 16, 2020
Good morning!
I traveled this weekend to Tallahassee to witness history in the making. The Belen varsity cross-country team raced for the state title at Apalachee Regional Park on Saturday morning. COVID made it impossible to attend a race all season, but it was going to take more than a virus to keep me away from our twelfth state title.
Imagine, twelve state titles! It’s a record in Florida high school sports. I can't do twelve push-ups, much less run like the wind for over three miles at a steady pace without keeling over and showing the world what I had for lunch and breakfast. I don’t think the racing world has ever seen such a machine like the Belen cross-country team.
I say machine because that’s how they run. Even though there are different members on the team, each with his own style of running, his own quirks, and speeds, together they run like one body. They look as if their mothers coordinated their births and had them run out of the womb together. They give the impression they’ve been doing it since birth.
Take team captain and leader Javier Vento ‘21. Hundreds of college coaches are salivating over the possibility of having this gazelle on their roster next year. I recently saw a news report on him. Every day, when he gets home from practice, he sits in a tub while his father fills it with 20 bags of ice. I understand now why in our hallways at school he walks around so leisurely and without any sense of urgency. His legs are frozen! Then, at the sound of the starting gun, they thaw out and he blasts the competition.
Talk about heart and dedication. It’s obviously contagious because every other member of that squad, including the up and coming middle school runners, are determined to follow suit. They are focused on extending the extraordinary legacy that is Belen cross country. They understand that being on top, for as long as we have been there, means there are hundreds of others wanting to take our place. So, they work hard, knowing the truth of Coach Vince Lombardi’s words, “the man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there.”
After the race was won, the team paused briefly for a couple of hugs and congratulatory remarks. Then, like clockwork, they went off to the side to begin their “cooling off” exercise. I learned this “cooling off” exercise entails another run through the park for an extra fifteen minutes.
You have to be kidding me. Is that a runner’s idea of “cooling off?” I always thought “cooling off” after anything strenuous required a bowl of ice cream, a recliner, and a television set. Athletic Director Carlos Barquín explained that the extra running cools you off because it rids the body of the accumulated lactic acid. I could have sworn that I once read in a chemistry textbook that there was nothing better to rid the body of lactic acid than air conditioning and a sudden increase in calorie intake. I guess I read the book incorrectly.
A huge congratulatory hug goes out to Coach Frankie Ruiz ’96. He’s the wizard behind the curtain. With Saturday’s victory, he became the high school cross-country coach with the most state titles in Florida. I can’t say much about his technique or training style, but as an educator I can tell you he has these kids well prepared and focused not only on winning, but on running as a team. Right before the race, after the prayer and invocation of Our Lady of Belen, he points at each and every one of his runners individually, one after the other, and they know exactly what to say to each other: “I’m not going to let you down.”
The boys from Belen usually give me reasons to be proud and Saturday was no exception. It’s amazing to see how all other schools recognize the prowess of the Belen cross-country team. The way our team performed proves we are correctly ranked as one of the top programs in the nation. Join me in congratulating them. Maybe now they can take a few weeks to cool off, Fr. Willie style.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.