For those really paying attention, they may know Jon Griffith got involved in the Bridgeport High School Cross Country program as an assistant coach. They may also know he became the head coach of both the boys and girls back in 2012.

 

What they may not know is that Griffith started the program back in 1995. The amazing part? He started the program without ever coaching a single meet.

 

“I actually started it and ran it for two weeks back then when I was coaching freshman football, which meant I actually couldn’t,” said Griffith. “The reason for starting the program was I was coaching track and I needed distance runners.”

 

That may lead one to ask how he did it.

 

“When there was a break between practices during those first two weeks, I would run over and coach cross country during the breaks,” said Griffith. “It was touch and go for a long time, but they hired a coach and I did get involved heavily until I became an assistant.”

 

What that means is for the first 13 years in the history of the cross country program, the man who started it had nothing to do with it other than the first two weeks of its history. No knock on any of the past programs or coaches because there was an occasional talented runner or two, but there wasn’t anything in the form of championships on any type of consistent level.

 

Before 2008, the boys had to their credit three Harrison County championships. The girls? They had managed two county titles in 13 years.

 

Competing for a state title was unheard of. The goal was to get a runner or two to the state meet each year.

 

The real success for the program began after Griffith became head coach. In fact, the boys have state titles in 2013, 2014 and 2016. The team can throw in a runner-up finish in 2015 and 2019 as well

 

While the girls haven’t won the state meet, they did finish as the runner-up in 2018 and were third place this year. Elsewhere, it’s a different story. Since 2008, the girls have won every single Harrison County championship. There are Big 10 titles in 2011, 2017 and 2018. There was a Class AAA regional win in 2011 and regional wins in 2016 through 2019.

 

As for the boys, there has been a string of dominance Since 2008, when Griffith came aboard, the Indians have won every single Harrison County championship. The Big 10 includes titles in 2013 through 2016. The regional dominant is even stronger with a streak doing from 2013 all the way through the current 2019 campaign.

 

Griffith wasn’t sure any of it was possible when he took over. And there was good reason for it.

 

“When I first started the first team had five boys and two girls. We’ve had more than 50 kids in the last several years,” he said. “That’s a big difference because you’ll find some gifted athletes when you have those numbers.”

 

The issue wasn’t new to Griffith who said cross country runner Sydney Mucha pleaded with him to help. He eventually agreed despite not knowing the numbers situation entirely. The good news was it wasn’t his first time dealing with such a dilemma.

 

“When I started with boys track in 1989, the first day we had eight or nine boys show up. I knew numbers were important, so we began recruiting to get bodies,” said Griffith. “Even so, it was kind of a shock that first day of cross country and to look under the pavilion where we still gather and see essentially no one there. You go there today, and the pavilion is overflowing. Part of it the recruiting that helped lead to success and the success helped lead to making it easier to recruit the kids in our school to come out.”

 

Bodies alone, even talented ones, don’t allow you to win county, conference, regional and state championships. Griffith, already with decades of experience under his belt coaching track, knew the key was to learn in order to pass on knowledge to those he was coaching.

 

“The second biggest thing to the turnaround is education because I knew very little about distance running and had never been to, I think, more than one cross country meet,” Griffith said. “When I started helping, I learned as much as a I could as fast as I could.”

 

When Griffith attended an offseason clinic, he signed up to learn about distance running. Every clinic, every opportunity, allowed him to gather information and knowledge to help build a program that needed rebuilt.

 

“There was a lot of help along the way, particularly from Jesse Weiner, the cross country coach at Alderson Broaddus who gave me a lot of advice I still use,” said Griffith. “I guess the teacher in me knew, fundamentally, you get better by learning as much as you can from people who know a lot. The hope was it would pay off.”

 

The numbers above tell you it has paid off. And it could pay off again next year.

 

“The boys’ program is going to be solid next year despite losing some really talented seniors. We have several coming back, maybe eight or nine, that are solid and have some freshman coming out as well,” said Griffith. “We also anticipate some kids already in school coming out, we usually see a few transfers so it should be another year where we’re in the mix.”

 

As for the girls, it will be good. It also will be a little more difficult.

 

“We lost a lot of seniors and the realist in me knows it’s going to be a little tougher,” said Griffith. “We had one young lady dealing with family issues that couldn’t go out this year and we hope to have her back because you have to have numbers.

 

“We don’t want to be a team with five or six good kids, and some teams can do that,” said Griffith. “For the boys and the girls, we want 10 to 15 solid runners pushing our top five. That wasn’t possible when we started because we didn’t have 15 kids total. Now, we have that, and the goal is to keep the momentum going and we’ve got plenty of help.”

 

The help, he said, comes in the form of a talented middle school feeder program led by Amanda Bailey. It comes from another coaching source as well.

 

“Bringing on Nathaniel and Gina Lutyens as assistant coaches has had a major impact on the team as well,” said Griffith. “The three of us all have different strengths as coaches that when combined make us extremely effective in working with this large and diverse group of student athletes.”

 

Those same student athletes are talented too. Talented enough to win just about everything in front of them as a team when there weren’t enough to even field a full team a decade earlier.

 

Now, it’s common place. It’s that way because Jon Griffith built a program that’s built on winning.

 

The numbers back it up. And there’s likely more to come.

 

Editor's Note: Photos show BHS Coach Jon Griffith during meets and posing with some of his championship hardware as the cross country and track coach.