NIWOT >> In emceeing Nike’s surprise rally at Niwot High School on Wednesday morning, Nike Global Running head coach Chris Bennett summarized the Cougars cross country program best.

“This is one of the greatest programs in the United States,” he said. “There are just over 27,000 high schools in the United States. There are over 500,000 athletes that do cross country. The boys’ field here at the national championships in Portland, Ore., in early December had 32 state championship teams, 70 individual state championship runners. It was the deepest field ever assembled.

“You had the defending national championship team there. You had the greatest team ever — from the East Coast of the United States — there. There’s a section of the course in the back. Fans don’t make it out there. I consider it the hardest part of the course, because no one’s watching. Niwot was not in the lead when they headed into the back portion of the course, but when they came out, they were in the lead. They never gave it up. It was a complete, total win by the Niwot boys. They are, emphatically, the best team in the United States.”

The Cougars boys were the first team from Colorado to win a Nike Cross Nationals title, just as junior Addison Ritzenhein was the first from the area to win an individual crown a year earlier. The girls’ team, for its part, placed runner-up two years in a row (2022 and 2023) in an impossibly difficult field.

Junior Hunter Robbie (15 minutes, 52.70 seconds) and senior Keegan Geldean (15:57.80) paced the boys with 21st and 27th-place finishes, as teammates Quinn Sullivan (16:00.90), Gabriel Marshall (16:04.70), Gavin Engtrakul (16:24.30), Rocco Culpepper (16:31.40) and Ryder Keaton (16:39.90) rounded out Niwot’s full-team effort.

Nike wanted to ensure that the trophy and celebration would make the 1,200-plus mile trip back to its new home, in front of the entire Niwot student body and faculty. The band and cheerleaders welcomed students in, to their surprise, as they worked together to honor the program that has become a national brand for high school cross country.

The boys knew they had it in them all season long and had won the 5A Colorado state championship in November to drive that point home.“This (rally) was definitely a total surprise. We had no clue this was going to happen. We had no idea,” Robbie said. “It was super cool. All the other teams were so talented, but we knew our coach peaked us for this race and that his coaching was perfect, so we knew we could win it.”

The program’s two-time Olympian and indoor 5,000-meter American record holder, Elise Cranny, brought her wisdom back to the school that helped mold her into the successful runner she is today.

Just a few months earlier, the Cougars held a watch party in the school’s commons to witness her second appearance at an Olympic Games, where she placed 11th in the 5K.

“To watch just the growth of the cross country and track program and just the school in general over the last decade has been so special,” Cranny said. “Being able to also be sponsored by Nike and be at NXN, be there in person to watch them win … I saw coach (head coach) Kelly (Christensen) pretty much right after the boys finished, and being able to congratulate him and still feel like I’m not here anymore, but even being back and living in Colorado again, I feel closer to it.”

The Cougars will now take the next few months off before making their 2025 track and field debut, where they will be the undoubted favorites to win multiple individual state championships — on both the boys’ and girls’ sides — while making a good run for the Class 5A team titles as well.

If this program hadn’t reached legendary status before, it certainly has now. Christensen could once only dream of the heights the Cougars have reached.

“Being someone that wanted to just make the national meet, I always just thought it would never happen because of that,” he said.

“I definitely teared up multiple times during the thing just because it’s just really cool for Niwot to have this happen, regardless of sport.”