Jan. 12, 2021

(Photo Credit: Jasmine Sessoms)

SAN JOSE, CALIF.— Freshman Andre Chaney, notorious for his outstanding abilities in both endurance and speed during last semester’s cross country season, shares his devotion for the thrill of racing. And the “secret” to his success.

Since Chaney’s older brother was in high school, Chaney attended the summer conditioning program with him. Because of this enrollment, he was expected to join initiatives like cross country and track. Expectations can be pressuring for most and some might not be able to handle them, however, Chaney was able to use this opportunity to his advantage. He started cross country around his younger years in middle school and had found enjoyment in running. Through this he has also developed confidence in his capabilities to achieve his goal to beat his older brother’s race time.

In his time during SC’s latest season in cross country, he states his best time participating was 19.5 minutes for a 2.74 mile race! From this, Chaney is no doubt very satisfied with his earned time. Summarizing his highlights from cross, Chaney includes training and spending time with friends after school was something he always looked forward to.

Although many have questioned whether or not he would continue running in a bigger league, Chaney has expressed how nice it would be to make something related to running as big as a career, however, he comments, “It depends on how good I am…It would be nice to go pro and all that, but you’d have to really train for that. So for now it’s just a hobby.” Despite not making a full decision into creating a career out of running, he’s still determined to participate in track and cross in his four years at Silver Creek.

Chaney encourages new runners who are interested in improving their stamina to not have such big expectations for themselves; to learn to be patient with their progress. Through personal experience, he connects to how much time it took for him to get where he’s at now, describing the summer of 2021 and his challenge of how he could barely run a mile. But Chaney overcame this difficulty by training consistently to gain back his progress he had made in the past. 

Chaney’s best advice for anyone, even if they’re not a runner, is to persevere in anything they like to do. His background highly notes that genes aren’t the only component of being good at anything, explaining how he doesn’t come with a common family athletic history. He believes it’s the built up progress that hones skills to even greater lengths.