WATERLOO - Alex Tyer once devised his own running program.

"I used to run from my house to school," the Logan Middle School sixth-grader said.

Eventually, he began putting 20-pound weights in his backpack for a further challenge.

So he had no reservations upon hearing about a new Waterloo Community Schools cross country club earlier this fall. He wanted to run.

"I enjoy running a lot. I have a lot of energy," Tyer said. "I love it and I think it's awesome. I wish I could just do it forever."

He's apparently not the only one. Forty-four boys and girls joined cross country clubs started this year at the district's four middle schools. They are led by coaches John Aldrich at Hoover, Tom Yuska at Central, Jake Young-Kent at Logan and Gordy Yuska at Bunger.

The young athletes have been running against other middle school students at area meets, and seventh- and eighth-graders will run in the statewide junior high meet Oct. 18 at Saydel High School. The four district teams recently competed against each other in one- or two-mile races on a course around West High School's campus.

"You have little kids' flag football; why not this?" said Tom Yuska, while waiting for runners near the finish line. "Gordy fought for it last spring."

Gordy Yuska's efforts resulted in establishing the clubs through the Echoes after-school program, which provides funding.

"We started it as a club sport to help build interest," said Shelly Smith, the district's coordinator of community education. A total of 18 students have joined from Hoover, 10 from Bunger, and eight each from Logan and Central. "Our goal is to introduce the sport and the activity," said Smith, with "the ultimate goal" of preparing athletes to join the high school cross country teams.

Gordy Yuska, the longtime former coach of West's cross country team, voluntarily worked with middle school students for years to prepare his future runners. Hoover eighth-grader Breanna Rodebush was one of those who started working with him two years ago. She finished first in the girls two-mile race.

"I love running long distances and so I just push myself and try," Rodebush said.

"I started it 25 years ago at Hoover and West Middle," said Gordy Yuska, and later at Central. Three days per week he would work with students at Hoover and the other two with those at Central.

"Back then, there wasn't any junior high programs," he said. "Now you have to have it. Everybody's doing it, all the good teams are."

But nobody was even volunteering to coach students at Logan and Bunger. Those students go on to attend East High School, which often fields small cross country teams.

Mike Penning said East girls cross country had a team of no more than three or four members before he took over as coach two years ago. Now it has 10.

"Hopefully with Gordy's efforts we can continue to grow," said Penning, of the middle school clubs. "It's something that Waterloo has needed for some time."

Offering the after-school club forced at least one Hoover eighth-grader to decide this fall if he would be one of the future runners at West. In past years, Alexander Hottle would run with the cross country team in the morning and go to football practice after school.

"This year was hard for me, because I had to choose between football and cross country," said the 13-year-old. But Hottle decided to join the cross country team and took first place in the two-mile boys' race at West.

And when he arrives at the school as a freshman next fall? Hottle plans on running.

Contact Andrew Wind at

(319) 291-1507 or

andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com.