GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A West Michigan High School kicked off its cross country season in a unique way Friday night.
South Christian High School held its "Under the Lights" invitational meet at the high school.
Under the Lights began in 2021 after South Christian's coach Kori VanderKooi sat down with other coaches in the area to come up with a way to do something memorable for the student-athletes.
"We had the idea of running under lights on a Friday night since cross country doesn't often get a lot of spectators," said VanderKooi. "And as we talked through it, I was like, our campus is a perfect place for it."
The first year the schools got together for "Under the Lights" they had just 30 teams participate. This year, she said they had about 80, with nearly 3,000 runners participating.
"For a lot of them, this is their favorite race," said VanderKooi. "They have a lot of fun painting themselves up in glow-in-the-dark paint. And we have all kinds of different lighting on the course. We have lasers, we have disco lights, and it's just a lot of fun to run."
The race now has a waiting list for teams, according to VanderKooi.
"We take as many as we can," she said.
And every year, she said they continue to add more creative lighting and find ways to help things run more smoothly. For VanderKooi, though, it's all about the runners.
"It's just seeing the kids get out for their first race," she said. "It's a no-pressure kind of race, which often helps kids to run really well. It gives us a good gauge for what our season is going to look like or what our abilities are at this point. And it's just really fun to see kids having fun with their sport without feeling the pressure."
The cross country course was lit up and everyone was able to have some glow-in-the-dark fun while watching runners from 80 different teams compete.
South Christian's next home cross country meet is Saturday, Sept. 11 at 9 a.m.