[title subtitle=”WORDS Dwain Hebda
IMAGE LouAnn Hays and Nhi Blanset”][/title]
Washington County Athletes Share Special Bond
Cross-country running isn’t the most spectator-friendly sport. Unlike football or basketball where the action plays out in front of you, cross-country is for most a blur of humanity, over in an instant. Pick your spot on the course and wait for the herd to gallop by.
But over the past few seasons, West Fork High School boosters and competitors alike have been treated to an inspiring sight at these meets. Among the Tiger runners comes a lean Asian boy, his black hair bobbing with his cadence. And right in front of him, a lightning-quick lad keeping a spirted pace. The two are conjoined by a guide rope, and the younger boy never stops talking.
“Right turn coming up here,” he tells his companion. “There’s some gravel on the ground.”
Meet Paul Scott, West Fork freshman, and Rebel Hays his fourth-grade guide runner. The two athletes, who ran together during the fall cross-country season, interact as if of one mind and body; even though only one, Rebel, has sight for both of them.
“He uses a rope to guide me. He also uses speech. What direction he pulls, I follow,” Paul says. “He’s easy to trust, really, because it’s really hard to trust someone that you don’t know. Just like, if you crash into something with full speed, it doesn’t feel that good.”
“We walk the course first before every meet to find a hole or to lean right or left or straddle this or sprint this,” Rebel explains. “There was a dip in the conference meet with some water and I told him to run through it; there was a stump, I told him to pick his feet up.”
Blind runners are not unheard of, even in Arkansas sanctioned high school competitions. In fact, Paul isn’t even the only one in his family of four adopted children to run – his older brother Timothy, also in high school, and his two older sisters Rosanna and Jenna, now in college, also ran for West Fork with the help of a guide runner. In fact, it was the girls who first approached West Fork’s track and cross-country coach Tiffany Surber with the request to compete.
“In 2014, I was approached one day by the Scott family,” she says. “They knocked on my door and asked me if they could join my team. I was like, well I definitely want to make it happen. However, I’d never dealt with anybody that was visually impaired, students or athletes. I said I’d do what I can to make it happen and where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Tiffany’s phone call to the Arkansas Activities Association yielded the requisite information: Blind runners can compete with a guide wearing a bright jersey to identify them and a guide rope. The school’s superintendent gave his stamp of approval and the girls were welcomed to the Tiger squad with open arms. At first, Tiffany had volunteers assist in practice while she and another adult runner handled guide running during meets.
“It took time to figure that out. In the beginning, we would just match them up with anybody that could jog with them,” says Tiffany, a former standout steeplechaser with the University of Arkansas. “When I matched them up with other people, they were not very experienced runners. They were just doing their best to jog side-by-side with them in the races.
“Having run for the U of A, when I ran with Jenna, she was able to reach her fullest potential from the beginning. But anybody else that ran with them probably ran too slow with them because they were scared they were going to hurt them. Eventually, we were able to get some more experienced runners.”
Little did Tiffany know that waiting in the wings was a youngster tailor-made for the assignment of guide runner. Rebel’s cousin was on Tiffany’s team and was one of the volunteer guide runners. When she told him what they were doing in practice, he immediately told his mother it was something he wanted to do.
Rebel’s mother, LouAnn, was all for it in theory but seeing as how Rebel was a first grader at the time, she didn’t see how he could guide run for high schoolers. Not that Rebel is your garden variety runner to begin with.
“I’ve been running since I was three-and-a-half or four, I don’t know,” Rebel says casually. “I don‘t know what made me want to try it. I mean, I just like running.
“My first race was a race for the school in kindergarten. They did a race called the Cow Patty and the PE coaches encouraged a lot of people to run. I tried it and one of my other cousins ran it with me the first time and it was really fun. I liked it ever since.”
The following season, Tiffany was again in need of guides and she reached out to LouAnn, a science teacher and cross-country coach in her own right at Ramey Junior High School in Fayetteville. Rebel, now a seasoned second grader, got the call to help.
“Rebel won our Fun Run one year as a first grader. I was like, wow, this kid’s talented,” Tiffany says. “When he started out [guide running] in second grade, he didn’t do all of Paul’s races. He did a few. But by this time last year he started doing all of them and then this year, he became the main guide runner for Paul, which is awesome. The more you bond with that person, the easier it is, because you understand their pace, you understand their stride and you start to work together better.”
As the duo got more comfortable with each other through training, Paul’s times began to come down.
“I had a personal record I was trying for, doing a 5K in under twenty-one minutes and I was really happy when we made that record,” Paul says. “And next year, I want to achieve it in under nineteen minutes.”
Paul and Rebel also got to help the Tigers hoist a second-place team trophy at the 2020 3A State meet, both athletes mugging for the camera as the good buddies they have become outside of running.
“The team has given Paul his only real social outlet,” says Velleta Scott, Paul’s mother. “Rebel and he have a special relationship, but even the other kids, you know, they joke with him and he’s part of the team. They still include him and that’s pretty much his way of belonging here at school. It’s really been a positive influence.”
“The first time you ever see them, you’re overwhelmed with emotion. I cried,” LouAnn says. “As a parent I’m always proud, but it was more about thinking about helping Paul become successful. You lose the sense of being proud just of your own kid as you’re focused on helping Paul. I’m proud of them both.”
Both boys have grand aspirations – Paul wants to major in computer science in college and Rebel wants to be an underwater welder after a career in the NFL and winning an Olympic gold medal. For now, he’ll have to settle for helping his friend chase his dream, even as he waits to be old enough to run for his own junior high. Which is just fine with them.
“My sister has a disability, she was in a car wreck when she was younger and has a wheelchair, but she can still do stuff,” Rebel says. “I really think even though people have disabilities, that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends.”
“I feel really good because I achieved. I managed to finish the race. I feel that our team is very good because we work together,” Paul says. “I want people to see us and learn that everybody deserves a chance. Multiple chances, matter of fact.”
See Paul and Rebel in action here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/blind-cross-country-athlete-and-running-guide-s-lasting-bond-96799301971.
