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Petaluma boys in state spotlight By Bob Padecky, Press Democrat Columnist Stereotypes, like a crystal vase in the hands of a 2-year old, wait to be broken. Take an absolute, do a little poking around, and it will fall apart easier than a transparent lie. Like this one: If you run high school cross country, you're a geek. You aren't really an athlete. You are a social misfit. You talk to a math book but to a real person? Come on. "Back in the '70s when I ran," said Petaluma boys' cross country coach Jim Lynch, "that was the stereotype. If you ran cross country, you were a geek. Real guys, real athletes, played football, basketball or baseball. But the culture has changed. You wonder why football players get jealous (of cross country runners)? They look at the cross country runners and their good-looking girlfriends." The perception of cross country running has changed because the very definition of it has. Hitting a ball, hitting a jumper, hitting someone in the head, those are contact sports all right. But so is hitting the ground with two feet for 3 miles. A torn ACL is a torn ACL. It doesn't hurt any less because it came climbing a hill. Real athletes run 50 miles a week -- just to stay in shape in the offseason. Real athletes watch what they eat and can run up and down hills like deer. Real athletes know what it's like to push their bodies to exhaustion, pain and suffering, play mind games with their opponent and can stand there on the victory podium without apology or embarrassment. Real athletes, who have experienced "compadre", know exactly what Cody Jinright means. "We are like a little band of brothers," said Jinright, a junior at Petaluma. "We're family." Jinright is talking about the seven cross country runners the Trojans are sending to the state championships Saturday in Fresno. Yes, real athletes love to win state championships and Petaluma has a legitimate shot at the Division II title. Any team needs a leader -- real athletes know this -- and the Trojans have one of those. "I am extremely proud to be leading this team," said Sterling Lockert in an understatement. The Petaluma boys aren't a team as much as a fast-moving centipede. They took the first seven spots in the SCL meet. They won the North Coast Section. Lynch said all seven are good enough, or will be good enough, to run college cross country. "Our seventh guy would be most teams' No. 1," Lynch said. A real athlete, by any definition, thrives on competition. He welcomes it, encourages it and seeks it out. So, too, the Petaluma boys. They want to know how good they are. They want the state meet like a starving man wants a steak. They want to see how much they can consume. Especially Lockert. Most definitely Lockert. "Sterling's greatest challenge now is to be in a race in which the caliber of competition will carry him to the next level," Lynch said. Meaning, Lockert is about to be pushed for the first time this year. "Whenever I got a good lead going in a race," Lockert said, "I'd have a tendency to relax and keep that gap. I don't intend to do that Saturday." Yes, the question is a valid one: Just how good is Sterling Lockert? What's inside of him? Can the state meet extract that? Lockert is curious himself. "When I go on (state cross country) Web sites," Lockert said, "my name never comes up. I hope to surprise some people." Those last two sentences alone pique Lockert's interest, not to mention anyone who has seen him run. Sterling Lockert is not on anyone's radar? Sure, Southern California schools traditionally are stronger than the NorCal, but that's why they run, don't they? And Lockert, in both mind and body, is aligned perfectly for Fresno. "It's nice to know I'm going to be racing at peak form," he said. "I feel great. I'm just waiting. I'm ready to go." Just like a torn ACL doesn't discriminate among athletes, neither does that thing called competitive hunger. To be there, in the mix, lungs burning, surrounded by those who want it just as much, the finish line 100 yards away, it's there, you can almost touch it . . . there's nothing geeky about that. Nothing geeky at all. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.
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