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Devastating Wildfire Can’t Stop the Sportsmanship of Cross-Country Kids

By Bob Collins, MPR News, 11/16/18, 12:00PM PST

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“We’ve been racing against Gabe all these years, and to see him not go to state, it would have been another tragedy on top of one.”

I have long maintained on these pages that if you want to see sportsmanship in high school sports, the cross-country kids are your best bet.

So give it up to the cross country kids at Chico High School in northern California for proving me right. Gabe Price, 17, runs for rival Paradise High School, but Price hasn’t been too concerned with sports. His family lost its home in the wildfire there.

He missed the the meet for qualifying for the state championship. “The same day that the fire broke out, that was supposed to just be a regular day, and our team was actually set to qualify as a team,” Price tells NPR’s “Here & Now.”