1979–The inaugural Kinney National H.S. X-Country Championships were held in Balboa Park in San Diego. Brent Steiner and Ellen Lyons were the first winners. Finishing 8th in the Girls’ race was Lesley Welch (Peabody,MA), who went on to win the 1982 NCAA (Virginia) and U.S. XC titles. She would win a 2nd U.S. title in 1986.
Former St.John’s and Yale coach Steve Bartold gave some insight into how the event came to be. “Well, In the fall of 1978, over drinks and Thanksgiving dinner at my house on Long Island, my brother-in-law Jack Aneser, an advertising executive with The Kinney Shoe Corp., and myself got talking about running. His brother Rich, also a Kinney employee (and a member of Princeton’s 1975 NCAA Championship 2-mile relay team–along with former USATF CEO Craig Masback), was also involved in the discussion and helping to fuel the interest of Jack. “
“Kinney was working on a book about running trails throughout the USA. We discussed having a National Championship Distance Run (for H.S. runners), and would Kinney be interested in sponsoring it? Jack worked with the idea and Kinney bought it. They hired an ad group and I worked on the formation of the qualifying meets. (There were five scattered throughout the U.S. and held at different times during the fall)..”
“Local college coaches helped set up the races, but we also used high school representatives from each area to work as coordinators to make sure we followed all the H.S. rules. Since there was some concern later about an ‘unfair recruiting advantage’ for the involved college coaches, we decided to turn the meets over to respected H.S. representatives and it went from there.”
The meet took on different names over the years, most notably “Foot Locker”, which announced in 2025 that it would no longer sponsor the event. However, it now has a new sponsor and a new name-“Brooks XC Championhsips”!
Leading finishers
Boys: https://mnpreptrack.com/
Girls: https://mnpreptrack.
Past Winners: https://en.wikipedia.
