Nick Scheske is a student journalist at the Walter Cronkite school at Arizona State University assigned to cover the Desert Vista High School boys cross country team.

The Desert Vista boys cross country team travels great distances across the nation to compete among the best of the best in the running world. This season the team traveled to Norco, California and Walnut, California. The team also hopes to compete in the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon later this year. These three trips alone are almost 4,000 miles round trip.

In the past the team has traveled to Alabama, Idaho, Texas and even as far as North Carolina. Traveling this far is no easy task, and it costs a lot of money. To afford to make these team trips the team has two main ways it does its fundraising.

The first way is through tax credit funds, which is when a married household can donate up to $400 to a tax credit fund account. Tax credit funds can only be used for extracurricular activities. Coach Chris Hanson said, “all the sports at Desert Vista have them. We have it as well.”

Hanson said that the cross country team uses the money it gets from the tax credit funds for two things: out of state trips and to pay some of the assistant coaches. According to Hanson the school district will only pay a single cross country coach, so they need to rely on tax credit funds to be able to pay some of the assistant coaches.

“Those are huge things for our program. Without our assistant coaches we would not be the program we are,” Hanson said. “It’s the one thing I think Arizona gets right.”

Hanson went on to explain that he wishes he could be able to afford to pay the assistant coaches more. “The amount that we can pay isn’t what it should be but most coaches and teachers for that matter don’t go into coaching and teaching for the money," he said.

Coach Michael Bucci, the head coach for the Desert Vista girls cross country team, explained why he and so many other coaches choose to volunteer their time to the program. “To have your kids come through (the program) and you see the impact it’s made on them, you kind of want to give back," he said.

The other way Desert Vista cross country funds the program is through a booster club membership.

“We don’t do the door to door stuff,” Hanson said.

Not many sports at Desert Vista travel out of state and none as much as cross country. “The other sport that I think of, that does goes out of state, obviously, is the football team goes out once or twice a year,” Hanson said. “Wrestling might go out once; Baseball, basketball might go out once.

“We think that’s worth it. We think that the experience of racing out of state, the excitement it’s a motivator, it pays itself in dividends and that’s where we’re trying to get: to stay a top notch program in Arizona, and hopefully in the country.” 

The state that the team most often travels to is California. “California is great in terms of proximity and the competition is great,” Hanson said. Hanson went on to add how some California teams travel farther to get to meets like Woodbridge than Desert Vista does.

Nicolo Perciballi, the captain of the Desert Vista cross country team, said his least favorite part about traveling such long distances is “sitting on the bus. It is kind of grueling but it’s not that bad when you have your entire team around you.”

The coaching staff at Desert Vista finds these trips to be more than just racing. These trips are building memories, bonds and camaraderie.

Bucci said when you go on these extensive trips, “You walk away with a memory, it’s a collection of memories that you’re not going to forget.”

Hanson agrees. “The experience is a lifetime experience," he said. "These kids are getting experience they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”