The impression the Herald gave in the story “Demons of the long road” (July 15) is that the football team is the only Demon sports team that will need to travel to the Front Range in order to find more challenging competitions, and the only team that will have a strain on its expense budget. The long road trips in a bus, depleted travel expense accounts and the heartbreak of having to leave great young athletes at home because the team cannot afford to take everybody is and has been the story of the Demon running sports teams.
The Demon cross country and track teams are no-cut teams, whereby all eligible athletes can participate. There are at least 50 participants who want to and need to get out and compete, see what the world of running is like and be seen by the rest of the running world. Currently, Demon cross country will have several trips to Colorado Springs, Phoenix and Stanford University – funding allowing. These excursions may sound frivolous, but they are more than just a competition experience for our high school students, they are true team- and character-building experiences.
Yes, Dave Preszler, “we are geographically challenged living where we live,” and that is why most of us choose to live here, but our students are very fortunate that Coach David McMillan has seen the value of getting his runners out of isolation. The running sports program is not looking for a hand out to ease the strain of travel expenses. The cross country team takes its fundraising seriously. Recently, at least 17 team members traversed the last 75 miles of the Colorado Trail from Molas Lake to Durango to not only demonstrate their great running abilities to the town, but also to include the community in the effort to build one of the best running sports programs in the state. Thank you for bringing to light that Demon teams have travel-expense problems, but the woes are not limited to football: All the teams need community help.
Jennifer Thurston
Durango
