3 miles easy at practice with a couple quick 400s. Felt pretty good. Only a few kids coming to practice, but the neat thing was that we are in the paper! Friday October 7, 2011 ADAMS -- Berkshire Art and Technology Charter Public School (BART) cross country coach Benn Griffin was chatting to one of his fellow coaches during a recent county meet. "[The coach] was telling me he had a young team, only one senior," said Griffin, chuckling. "I said, ‘One senior?' I have one freshman. The rest are 6th through 8th grade. That's young!" Competing in the very tough Berkshire County High School Cross Country League is a rugged row to hoe for any local school. At BART, it's even a little more difficult. For one thing, the school offers only three late buses per week. With several of his runners from out of town, Griffin has to limit the team to only three practices a week to ensure they have a ride home.Also, BART does not have enough property to lay out a 3.1-mile cross country trail, so the team has no home meets, although Griffin is trying to figure a way around that. He hopes that by next year, the school will be hosting a meet, although exactly where is up in the air. Then there is the continuity issue. Griffin understands fully that he probably won't have too many junior or senior runners on his team anytime soon, if ever. This is due in large part to the rigorous academic commitments at BART with which students have to contend. Seniors are required, for example, to take at least one college course per semester. Griffin had a senior who was planning to come out this fall, "but his college course was on Wednesday night, which is when our meets are. All he would have been doing is practicing, not competing, and he didn't think it was worth it." There is also a team rule specifying that if a runner, for any reason, misses three practices, he or she must sit out the next meet. The runners agree that the rule is a good one. "It fosters a commitment to the team," said freshman Dylan Quinn, the team's "elder statesman" from Cheshire. "It keeps you out of trouble," agreed Alexis Lesure, an 8h grade student from North Adams. So Griffin and his (very) young charges practice three times a week by running around Russell Field in Adams, and travel to every meet in which they must compete. But there is a camaraderie among the BART runners, who say they are often encouraged by the runners from other teams on their efforts. "People on the course sometimes encourage me," admitted 7th grader Samantha Beveraggi of North Adams, who reports she is "53 inches tall", which is 4 feet, 5 inches, for those doing the math. "The runners on the other teams are supportive," said her teammate Morgan Covert, a 6th grade student from Adams. "Competing against them pushes you to improve." Griffin has eight girls running and five boys. The minimum required for a school to score as a team is five runners. And for a while, he only had two boys, so the BART boys did not score in their first four meets. This week, he hopes to have all five running to enable his team to score The girls have won two meets and hope to improve on that record in the coming weeks. But realistically, Griffin is working toward seeing his runners improve. And most have. Beveraggi, for example, has improved her personal time by more than seven minutes since her first meet this fall. Chris Doubiago, an eighth-grader from Adams, has lopped several minutes off his personal best, as well. Still, there is some potential here, admitted Griffin. If his runners continue to improve, and in some cases, grow a little, who knows what may happen in two or three years? "Well, yeah," said Griffin. "If I can keep maybe half these runners for a few more years, we could have something." | 
