by Larry Eder
Compete! The story of the NIKE Cross Nationals 2025 and its relevance to the sport and the brand
The 20th NIKE Cross Nationals were held on December 6, 2025. The site was Glendoveer Golf Course, which has been the home of the NXN for over a decade.
Enthusiasts of the NXN sometimes like to discuss which course was better, the Portland Meadows old course (a horse track) or the Glendoveer Golf Course.
Suffice it to say, for someone who was witness to 17 of the 20 events, each site has had its iconic races, and challenging aspects of the end of the cross country season, with the weather that is Portland, Oregon in early December.
There has been snow, there has been rain, there has been torrential rain, there has been mud, muck and more muck.
The athletes who run the 5k on the NXN courses seem to excel no matter what the weather.
The boys and girls who race at NXN are among the top individuals and top teams in this wonderful high school sport of cross country.
Since 1971, the National Federation of High School Sports (NFHS) has kept track of sports participation in high schools. 556,000 boys and girls competed in cross-country in 50 states in 2025. That is the approximate number. That is a record participation for the sport. Add track and field (1.1 million), and you have 1.656 million boys and girls competing in athletics (cross-country, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field).
The NXN has brought about the recognition of the team aspect of cross country like no other event. While the Foot Locker (cancelled in 2025, and picked up by Brooks) celebrated the indivual cross country athlete, with nomimal team competition, NIKE took on the team competition and brings 31 of the finest teams in the country together, with the finest individuals.
The NXN was birthed from the NIKE Border Clash, held from 1999 to 2018. The NIKE Border Clash was the brainchild of then NIKE employees John Truax, a shoe dude, and Josh Rowe, a sports marketing dude. They convinced the higher ups that what NIKE needed to do was sponsor a cross-country race between the top 40 boys and top 40 girls from both Oregon and Washington for bragging rights on who was the very best cross-country runners in the Pacific Northwest.
In 2005, NIKE began the NXN, after dealing with the charming folks at Foot Locker. Foot Locker had a cross-country series that dated back to 1979, and had, over the years had nearly every running shoe company as a sponsor. Foot Locker literally annoyed every shoe brand to the point that they quit after 3 years. NIKE did one step more, they started their own National Champs, the NIKE Cross Nationals.
From the very first, the NXN was unique. The celebration of teams, the amount of swag, the appearance of NIKE athletes to encourage, cajole and entertain the athletes made it different. The truth is this, when NIKE puts its mind to do something, it does it first class.
The regional qualifiers are superb in themselves. This writer went to the NXR Southwest, where 3,500 runners competed, an the Swoosh TC athletes encouraged the runners to compete well. One of the NXR events had 9,000 runners! So, to say that there is enthusiasm for the NXR and NXN is an understatement.
The course at the Glendoveer is challenging. Tall grass, tough footing, some hills, and turns, all in the eyeshot of about five thousand fans, keeps the event entertaining. The production values of the streaming show, done by Runnerspace.com, makes this streaming event second to none. NIKE and Runnerspace pull out all of the stops.
Not only does NIKE bring in the finest teams, but most of the finest individuals. Case in point was Jackson Spencer, the #1 ranked Boys cross country athlete in the country was there. He was quite impressive in his win in NXR Southwest, where he ran 14:31 on the very flat course (Jackson has run 14:16 for the 5,000m). Tops boys were Calvin Seitz, MW winner, with Lucas Tanner, the only qualifier from Wisconsin, to be watched, among others.
On the girl’s side, nearly all of the top ranked Girls cross-country runners were on the Glendoveer course, from Abby Ritzenhein, Jaelyn Williams, Natasza Dudek, Blair Bartlett among the athletes to watch.
Here’s the secret on the championship races: there are no secrets!First of all, athletes have to endure a very long season, avoiding illness, and staying focused.
The NXN has changed the sport of cross country, in my mind, for the better! For many of the teams, where athletes do race in track and field and cross country, the focus, the big prize is the NIKE Cross Nationals.
In observing the NXN races, this writer gets the feeling that the fields of the races are living, breathing creatures, trying to hold on the athletes and spitting out others once they have exhausted them.
That idea comes back when I watch Jackson Spencer, who used his advice from his coach to win the NXN. Spencer stayed out of the lead as much as he could until after the 3k mark. Then, as he told Grant Fisher, “I gave it all that I had.” His win over Yohannes Van Der Meeten was two seconds, but this race was close. The quality of the Boy’s race is this: these kids love to race. Many did the NXR and Brooks regional races, and some of the top NXN athletes will be compting in San Diego next weekend.
The quality of junior athletes in the U.S. continues to improve in our country, and this writer credits NXN, Nike Indoor and NIKE Outdoor (with NB events), although there is also the cautionary tale of racing way too much.
The team battle in NXN is truly the theme. NXN celebrates the team in cross-country and it was embraced from Day one. I always wonder about the unnattached in the NXN, but NIKE has found a place and has truly developed the individual fields.
The NIL deals for most athletes who get sponsorship is footwear and some travel money, however, some athletes are making some money that could help pay for college or their futures. I am not real happy with NIL, but see that, if you are a brand, you really have no choice. Brands need key influencers and NILalso provides a way for brands to develop a relationship with their young athletes.
Niwot won the Boys Championship race, with a low score of 61 points, which, if one looks at the quality of the race, is , well insane. These athletes on the Niwot team are quite impressive, they would make a great college team!
This writer was at eighteen of the NIKE Border Clash events (1999-2018) and seventeen of the NIKE Cross Nationals (2005-2025 and into the future). I loved both events, and do see that NIKE was getting pressured to do one or the other, although both events were well recieved and enjoyed. NIKE sports marketing can only do so much and these brands that put on events actually have budgets!
Each year, during Mark Parker’s tenure as CEO of NIKE, we would get a few minutes, and Mark would gently remind me, almost chiding me, ” Running is in NIKE’s DNA.” During some of those years, he was fighting to keep NIKE relevant. Elliott Hill, the new CEO was at the Eliud and Sifan interview at the NIKE Innovation house in NYC Marathon week, then at several running stores. Hill knows that the future of NIKE, and his future and legacy depend on the love NIKE engenders for the NIKE Vomero series, NIKE Pegasus series and NIKE Structure PLUS. This generation, the 14-18 year olds who are racing all over Glendoveer Golf Course, are more than the litmus test of NIKE’s renaissance, they are the ice bath! Diving into the cold water of the lack of reception for NIKE running over the past two years has turned the brand around. They are not there yet, it will take 3-4 years of solid focus, but they are on the right move.
An aside: In 1981, when I ran the US Cross Country champs with my Santa Clara team mates in Burbank, California, the likes of Henry Rono, Steve Scott, Herb Lindsay, Alberto Salazar, Adrian Royle and 232 of my closest friends destroyed the Burbank Golf Course. I believe USATF paid the golf course at least $30,000 to fix up the course. One wonders what NIKE will have to pay to fix up the Glendoveer Golf course? This writer believes, from the reception of the Vomero PLUS given to all the NXN qualifiers, that fixing up the Glendoveer Golf course is a small investment compared on what NIKE gets from this event: NIKE influencers all over the country!
The women’s race was fascinating, as the team battle between Wayzata and Niwot was decided by five points, 142 points to 147 points, with Wayzata winning over Niwot! The girls race was close and challenging to the very end.
Jaeylyn Williams should get some cred, as the young Brooks NIL athlete tried to steal the event! Natasza Dudek and Blair Bartlett had to call deep inside to take the firs two positions!
Natasza Dudek collapsed for a few minutes at the finish. She was spent, she had given it her all and that is what #FinishonEmpty is all about.
Each time I see these races, I think of the late Steve Prefontaine and his coach, Bill Dellinger. Steve did nto miss a day of training at the University of Oregon over four years, Bill Dellinger would tell you. That consistency, that drive, that focus has come to inspire a brand that was first sold out of the back of station wagons at races. A side story is that when Jeff Johnson, NIKE’s earliest employee, was selling BRS shoes (Blue Ribbon Sports), he sent some of the shoes out in embalming fluid boxes! I love that.
That the sports behemoth, NIKE supports NXN should come as no surprise. The success of the event is because of many things, the lore of the event, the Swag from the event, the top level competition of the event, and how the team at NIKE orchestrate and build the NXR events (8) and the NXN.
The NIKE Cross Nationals is a phenomenon. Both the boys and girls have bitten into the NXN apple and do not want to release. Nor should they! Thsi may be the best event that NIKE does in sports. It captures the spirit and the focus on the brand, NIKE.
As NIKE now regains some of its footing, something is has won and loss several times over the last forty years, the NIKE Cross Naitonals has even more value as the 14-18 year old high schooler is the present and future of he sport, but also the present and future of their running footwerar business. Celebrating teams in cross-country, at the level done at NXN, is unprecedented.
It should go on for fifty years or more…
