SCCHS track, cross country coach making strides in building up both team and facilities

If a person has spent enough time in St. Clair County, one sees a pattern when it comes to youth sports. In the fall, the parks are filled on Sundays with youth football teams taking the field. In the spring and summer, football yields to soccer. At the ballfields, hundreds of families pack the baseball and softball diamonds on weekends. In the winter the gyms from Ashville in the north to Pell City in the south are filled with basketball teams competing with one another. At the high schools, there are vibrant and passionate programs in volleyball and wrestling.

Two sports that appear to have been traditionally overlooked in regards to facilities and attention are cross-country and track-and-field, but in Odenville, there is a coach and teacher who is working hard with his community and other like-minded coaches in the county to change that. Mason Dye, the cross-country and track coach at St. Clair County High School, has managed to lead an effort in creating an elite cross-country course that is widely regarded as one of the finest courses in the Southeast.

“We truly believe we have one of the best cross-country courses in the state,” Dye said.

One can see why. Immaculately groomed trails traverse through wooded areas on the St. Clair campus with clear direction and fun but formidable elevations and drops throughout.

 “It’s a good mix of terrain, with natural grass and trails through the woods,” Dye explained. “There are some sections that we have graveled to help increase the speed and safety of the course. It’s a good mix of hills and flat terrain to give our runners an honest and challenging course.”

Dye’s love of cross-country runs deep through his life. Originally from Cullman, Alabama, Dye immersed himself into the sport while attending Cullman High School. “I was really involved with the cross-country program in high school. It was a really good program and I had a really good coach,” Dye said. “I was lucky enough to get a full scholarship to the University of North Alabama to run cross-country. After my four years of competing in college, it was such a major part of my life that I wanted to continue on with the sport.”

Dye graduated with a business degree from North Alabama, but instead of pursuing a career in corporate America, Dye decided to take a friend’s tip and follow his heart into another field of work.

“A friend of mine saw a listing at Brooks High School in Killen, Alabama who were looking for a part-time track coach. I started working with their track program and started getting used to working with student-athletes from a coaching standpoint and fell in love with it. I knew right then that this is awesome … this is what I want to do with my life.”

In order to follow his passion, Dye needed to return to college. “I have gone back to school to complete a master’s alternative certification so that I can teach and continue to coach.  Dye’s journey from Killen to Odenville was helped in part by St. Clair County principal Brian Terry, himself a successful cross-country and track coach in the past at Leeds High School. Terry got the opportunity to hire Dye after mutual friends in the track community put them together. After working for two years as an instructional aide, Dye has started his third year at Odenville as a full-time history teacher while continuing to improve the cross-country and track programs.

“I feel really lucky to come into St. Clair County High School to become part of the program here.”

Odenville seems to feel lucky as well to have Dye at the school. Families of the team and Dye’s own parents, who have never missed one of their son’s meets as a coach, work together to maintain and improve the cross-country course and have been very enthusiastic supporters of Dye.

“We spend three to four hours a week on maintenance of the course. Cutting grass, trimming limbs and weed eating. Fortunately we have received a huge response from the family members of our runners who have joined together to build and maintain this course. This has very much been a community effort to make this course happen.”

Dye’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by the residents in and around Odenville. “We have seen a rise of people from the community coming out and walking or jogging the course. After working and improving on this course for four years now, it is nice to see the residents of St. Clair County coming to appreciate its quality, we are ready now for the rest of the state to see it.”

“One of the things we are trying to accomplish is to become a regional host for Cross Country. We would love to host a 3A, 4A and 5A sectional here. We are a great location and have a superb course to host an event like that.”

As for other projects down the road, Dye’s equal passion to acquire great facilities for track-and-field in the spring is also in the works.

“Right now we have to travel out of the county for every track meet we compete in. One thing we would like to see in our county is a rubberized racing surface (on an Olympic-sized 400 meter) competition-level track. That’s one thing we lack in St. Clair County, and that’s one of our goals up here. We are working (with the county and the other schools) to have a facility that we are trying to get built. The way the sport has advanced in the last 10-20 years, we need that type of facility somewhere in the county, whether it’s us or another school in the county, to recruit other schools to come in and host meets.”