North Rockland's Hughes glad he stuck with it

Jake Thomases
jtthomas@lohud.com

Don't tell Quinn Raseman how close he came to winning the state cross country meet.

You can tell him the part about how North Rockland's Nick Hughes outkicked him over the last 300 meters. He already knows about that, of course, having watched Hughes fly up from third place with a few hundred yards left to win the race.

That memory is painful enough. There's no need to inform the Ward Melville runner that Hughes almost didn't enter the race. In fact Hughes almost didn't run cross country at all this year. He almost quit running entirely.

No Hughes means no come-from-behind runner at the state meet. No come-from-behind means Raseman skates to a state championship. It all could have been different.

If only Hughes had just stayed depressed for a few weeks longer.

"It's the difference between two worlds. I was completely at rock bottom," said Hughes, the Journal News Rockland runner of the year. "Couldn't have gotten any lower. Now I'm on top of the mountain."

By June of 2009 he was fed up. Fed up with himself and the sport.

Spring track had been a disaster. A left foot injury kept him hobbled. Between winter and spring he'd caught four different bugs. His times were either sinking or, at best, holding steady. A trip to Junior Nationals, the last meet of the season, produced another disappointing time.

He wasn't getting any better. Distance running is painful and if he wasn't going to do it well, what was the point? It was time to give it up and get a job.

As he and North Rockland teammate James Naglieri were cooling down from the 2,000-meter steeplechase at Junior Nationals he shared his intentions with his friend.

"I told him," Naglieri said, "that was the stupidest thing I ever heard.

"After all he'd done I couldn't let him get away with that."

Naglieri told their cross country coach, Barry Baloga, who brought Hughes in for a talk. Baloga laid the situation out for him. The cross country team was going to be good, very good in fact, but it wouldn't be anything without its senior anchor. There was a chance to make up for the disappointment of spring track, to get back the love of running, if Hughes showed up in September in the best shape of his life.

So he did.

"We sort of spoke very candidly, or I did at least, about what he meant to the team and what he needed to do for himself," Baloga said. "From there I think he really got the urge and every day ran like a man possessed. I have literally never seen one of my runners run as hard every day as he did. And that's what won him a state championship, the determination."

The first week after he decided to come back he ran 36 miles. By summer's end he was at 70. Seven days a week he covered every road in Haverstraw and Stony Point.

By the time the season started he had transformed himself into the best runner in Section 1. Most of the fall he spent alone at the front of every race. If anyone was near him it was his teammates, who had fashioned themselves into one of New York's best.

At sectionals he won the Class AA race easily, finishing in 16 minutes, 5.35 seconds at Bowdoin Park. North Rockland took the team title.

Then came the big challenge — states.

Baloga snuck into the woods to watch the last mile of that race at SUNY Plattsburgh. He spotted the leaders with 800 meters left.

"My last picture of him was 15 yards behind two guys who were flying," Baloga said.

But seconds later Hughes tapped into his reserves.

"I've always had these kicks that came out of nowhere," he said. "It's like these adrenaline rushes. At that point it's like I haven't raced one step."

The gap shrunk. Hughes had nearly closed it entirely when one of the guys ahead of him fell down. Raseman, the one left standing, might as well have taken a dive too. It was over.

The kid who elicited hawk sounds from his teammates during workouts — "hawking" is slang for catching someone from behind — had pulled the ultimate hawk.

Baloga was still stuck in the woods when Hughes finished in 15:26.3. Hughes' mom and dad were caught behind the crowd and didn't see either. Only his grandparents were witnesses.