Runners know the importance of their daily workouts. It’s how some get their day started and how others like to finish them up. Some use it as a competitive release, others a chance to self-reflect. Josh Rowe and John Truax use their runs for an entirely different purpose. For these Nike guys, a run is a perfect time to get outside, enjoy a breath of fresh air and oh yeah, come up with big ideas like Nike Team Nationals (now known as Nike Nationals).

Rowe and Truax admit that Nike Team Nationals (NTN) evolved as the result of several ideas. “Cross country is the ultimate team sport,” said Rowe. “In no other sport is your number five man the most important.” This thought was then paired with the idea behind the Oregon vs. Washington BorderClash, also co-founded by Rowe and Truax. BorderClash was such a hit that rival states from around the country started taking huge interest in this twist on high school competition. “We knew we didn’t have the resources to pull off Borderclashes all over the country,” Truax said, “so we thought to ourselves, how can we expand on this idea to include teams from the entire country? There was no high school event in the country that crowned a true national champion,” said Rowe, “and cross country being the purest of team sports, we knew we had to have a team championship.”

Rowe and Truax put this championship idea in motion, and began discussing the ideal location for the new event. Part of what makes Borderclash so successful is its setting on the Nike campus. “We talked about holding the race here on campus or cutting away some trails in the woods across the street,” Truax said, “but soon discoverd we could never facilitate the kind of numbers we expected to show.” Rowe and Truax knew Nike Team Nationals must also be held in Portland, so they went back to the drawing board aiming to design and build – somehow – a cross country course on the infield of a horse track. Equipped with signatures whoopty-doos, hay bails, and plenty of mud, the most sought after high school cross country course in the world was born inside Portland Meadows Thoroughbred Racetrack.

Rowe and Truax, however, still weren’t ready to get the race off the ground. “We also wanted to somehow update the scoring system of a traditional cross country race,” Rowe said. “We wanted to know the actual score of the meet during the race to see final results.” And so again, that’s exactly what they did. Rowe and Truax teamed together with Lynx System Developers, Inc. to create a state-of-the-art experience for runners and spectators alike: a live leader board that projects the place of each team at every kilometer to two 17-foot-wide video screens. The result? A truly unique event worthy of the incredible competition it draws.

Since its first year NTN has only continued grown. Each year has brought something new to improve not only the meet, but the sport as well. The NTN ’07 featured the addition of 9 Regional Championships to determine which teams would travel to Portland for the Nationals. Details for future NTN are still in the works, but one thing is certain: Nike Team Nationals will continue to take the greatest team sport to new heights.

Click HERE to check out more about Nike Cross Nationals.