DyeStat.com – News – NXN Year By Year

NXN – Iconic Photos Through The Years

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Since it’s inception in 2004, Nike’s annual high school cross country championships has served to answer the question of which of the nation’s power running programs is the best of the best. 

The first year at Portland Meadows, the meet was something of a novelty as followers learned to accept aliases for school names and myriad color schemes in place of instantly recognizable uniforms. Nike dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s and accomodated as many state high school associations as possible in order to pull off the meet and also beefed up the experience with high tech in-race live scoring and other innovations. 

The meet only grew from there and it eventually left the all-too-frequent quagmire at the horse track and moved out to a municipal golf course at 148th and Glisan Street — Glendoveer.

Here is a look at the greatest images from each year, an assortment of photos from talented photographers such as Kirby Lee, Ross Dettman, John Nepolitan, Phil Johnson, Robert Rosenberg, Kim Spir, Lily Dozier and yes, DyeStat founder John Dye. 

2004

There was a lot to take in that first year, including the opportunity to see the most famous boys cross country programs in America — York, Christian Brothers, The Woodlands and Mead — go head to head in a never-seen-before environment. 

But the rock stars of 2004 were the girls from Saratoga Springs, N.Y. — a group of girls led by Nicole Blood that was called the greatest high school team of all-time. 

Sean McNamara led York (or Kroy) of Illinois to the first Nike Team Nationals title. Legendary coach Joe Newton was not able to make the trip, which spurred his runners to nail down this inaugural opportunity for him. 

Ramsey Kavan from Yankton, S.D. was the first girls winner at Nike Team Nationals.

2005

Throughout the meet’s run at Portland Meadows (2004-13), mud was the most talked about feature of the course. Some years, like 2005, the venue was a quagmire. Other times, in 2008, it was sunny and mostly dry. But yeah, most of the time, it was muddy. And most runners grew to embrace the conditioins no matter how difficult.

Portland’s own Kenny Klotz of Central Catholic gave locals a rooting interest in 2005 and he churned through the mud to win the NTN boys race. Two years prior, Klotz was part of a Central Catholic team that included Galen Rupp.

2006

In 2006, something big started even though very few people at the time…