By russellBUSH
Back when I first started writing this column I used to write about individuals and to be honest, more times than not that just created problems in a lot of different ways and the more I wrote the more I understood that fact and so I pretty much made the decision to not take that approach with this column moving forward. This column, however, I am going to make an exception.
Back during the Covid time when all us sportswriters had no sports to cover but tried to keep things rolling, we wrote things such as who the best athletes where at Huntingdon or whatever school we were writing about. Those athletes usually consisted of football players, basketball, softball and baseball players and ignored the other sports.
There is one sport that I love at Huntingdon and that is cross-country and I love it because the sport is not about winning but about finishing the race, which is what life is about sometimes. For the last four years there is one athlete that has run cross-country that has stood out for Huntingdon and as I write this column in the middle of football season, I am declaring that Colton King will go down in the history of the school as one of its greatest athletes.
Colton has dominated this sport and has dominated the area in amount of wins at meets and to be honest has injected an interest into a sport that most of us never think about. More kids are competing in this sport than ever before and the ones that are have watched Colton run and because of his success, the cross-country teams at Huntingdon are now participating in state meets at Spring Fling and several kids are improving their times because of what Colton is doing in cross-country meets.
To run the distance these kids run at this time of the year with heat being a factor takes hard work and dedication and the work ethic of Colton King has shown through the number of events he wins on a weekly basis and I believe that because of his dedication and hard work he will earn a free ride or a least a lot of help financially to get through college if that is his desire. It shows that you don’t have to play football or whatever to make your dreams come true.
The first time I went to a meet I was amazed at how when the kids finished they stood around to cheer on the ones still competing. They rooted hard for those still on the course to finish the race and it wasn’t about who won. Nowadays at meets across the landscape of West Tennessee, the first one standing to root the rest of the runners to the finish line is Colton King.
For more of my ramblings, check out The Beating Around the Bush Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and other places you find your podcast.
