By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Jackson Griggs runs cross country because he can and each stride he takes reminds him just how miraculous it is he’s even able to be out there.
It wasn’t that long ago doctors in three separate countries gave him little chance at a normal life let alone compete in sports on any level. Tuesday night in the Bulldog Twilight 5K, he ran the race of his life, beating teammate Luke Holcombe in a sprint to the finish to claim the first victory of his career.
The Southside junior ran a 16:31 and beat his senior teammate to the wire by eight-tenths of a second, a relative photo finish in cross-country terms. The two Panthers pulled away from Oxford’s Noah George, the third-place finisher, down the stretch.
“This means the world to me,” Griggs said. “It’s great to run for yourself and set goals for yourself, but just to glorify God through winning this race and showing what He has done for me and my parents as well for everything they had to go through through my childhood just to show all the hard work and everything has paid off. It’s just a great thing to do.”
His story is one of faith and perseverance. When Griggs was 3, his military family lived in Romania. One day he woke up and couldn’t move in the bed. He was rushed to the hospital where he stayed for about a week without doctors determining what was wrong.
He was airlifted to a larger children’s hospital in Austria and doctors weren’t able to diagnose him there, either.
That prompted a flight back to the States, where doctors at Chiildren’s Hospital in Birmingham diagnosed him with juvenile dermatomyositis, a fancy way of saying the ultraviolet rays from the sun were causing his muscles to break down.
He underwent a lot of physical therapy to relearn how to walk. Doctors told him he’d probably walk with a limp and not be able to climb steps very well, but he eventually started playing indoor soccer (a goalie) and ran cross country at Gadsden City as a freshman before transferring to Southside during the COVID pandemic.
He’s been in remission now for nine years, not knowing if the condition will ever return, and takes precautions whenever he ventures outdoors.
“It’s by the power of God I’m healed and I’m able to run,” Griggs said. “I run because I can, because God took away that gift and He gave it back and so I just aim to give glory to Him for every step that I take because it wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Griggs ran step-for-step with his teammate for nearly the entire race. The moment they hit the fence that signaled the start of the final stretch, Griggs was determined to reach the wire first.
Holcombe, who lost a sprint with George in the closing stretch of the Southern Showcase two weeks ago, took a brief lead, but then Griggs made his move and rode the red line all the way to the end.
“It literally took everything I had in the last sprint,” said Griggs, who was never better than 23rd in his previous two races this season. “I think it was maybe just my day barely over him. When it comes to heart, there’s nobody that’s got more than Luke. Luke’s got all the heart.”
White Plains’ Maddyn Conn won the girls race — her fourth win in five starts — in 19:46.0.
The White Plains girls and Southside boys won their respective team titles in the race that served as a dress rehearsal for the Calhoun County Meet.
Conn, an eighth-grader, and junior teammate Anna Strickland established the pace in their race from the start. Conn started pulling away about a mile and a half into the race and became the course’s first-ever winner by nearly 45 seconds.
There were a lot of firsts on the night. The race was the first ever run on the course and the first ever hosted by Anniston, a one-time county cross country champion that doesn’t have a full team this year.
Anniston coach Lisa Howard-Holland “never thought” the Bulldogs could ever host a meet, but she gave all the props to White Plains coach John Moore who designed the course so programs in the county that don’t have their own place could have a course of their own.
“It’s really big; I am overjoyed,” Howard-Holland said. “Since I’ve been here we have never hosted a track meet, a cross country meet, and to be hosting the first meet means a lot. I give kudos to Coach Moore. He already has a course and to see him come out and build a course from scratch just shows you the kind of person he is. He’s the leader of this whole thing. He said he was going to help you ever step of the way and, boy, did he.”
“While they’re 100 percent welcome to run on my course or Brad (Hood’s) course (at Pleasant Valley) or Landon Delozier’s course (at Oxford), if they had a course here, they’d be more apt to come run it, plus anybody in the community can run this,” Moore said. “I’ve been out here all week just working and I’ve seen people out here all week long.”
The meet drew 14 full boys teams, 12 full girls teams and individuals from several others. The boys race was run in just under 35 minutes, the girls race in 40. Proceeds will go to the Anniston cross country program and the Steel Magnolias for breast cancer research.
Bulldog Twilight 5K
GIRLS RACE: White Plains 42, Southside-Gadsden 64, Alexandria 95, Glencoe 117, Jacksonville 120, Pell City 132, Oxford 146, Pleasant Valley 146, Ohatchee 200, Clay Central 227, Cedar Bluff 266, Cherokee County 275.
Top 15: Maddyn Conn, White Plains 19:46.0. Anna Strickland, White Plains 20:29.7; Katie Keur, Oxford 20:46.3; Sarah Sloughfy, Jacksonville 21:17.3; x-Barit Snead, Sardis 21:25.7; Michaela Moore, Alexandria 21:26.0; Michaela Watts, Alexandria 21:44.6; Alexis Valentine, Southside 21:57.0; Emerson Maniscalco, Oxford 21:58.4; Adriana Sotelo, White Plains 22:23.0; Baylie Webb, White Plains 22:23.1; Zoie Menk, Southside, 22:26.9; Caroline Pinson, Pell City 22:58.4; Mallory Tucker, Southside, 23:01.2; Mallory Rich, Southside 23:11.8. x-not involved in team scoring.
BOYS RACE: Southside-Gadsden 32, Oxford 68, Pleasant Valley 75, Alexandria 96, White Plains 143, Pell City 158, Clay Central 165, Sardis 175, Jacksonville 194, Glencoe 245, Donoho 253, Ohatchee 282, Dadeville 288, Piedmont 311.
Top 15: Jackson Griggs, Southside 16:31.1; Luke Holcombe, Southside 16:31.9; Noah George, Oxford 16:43.9; Cayden Nelson, Pleasant Valley 16:51.3; x-Tanner Rice, Gadsden City, 17:20.2; River Richard, Pell City 17:38.5; Ryan Maudsley, Southside 17:39.5; Evan Somers, Oxford 17:48.8; x-Mithun Rameshkumar, Gadsden City 18:02.8; Jonah Medders, Alexandria 18:09.0; Evan Christopher, Southside 18:09.2; Alec Vess, Pleasant Valley 18:21.4; Evan Garner, Jacksonville 18:22.8; Ben Wade, Alexandria 18:31.6; Blade Devin, Saradis 18:32.9. x-not involved in team scoring.
Sports Powered by East Alabama Sports Today.
