More than just a race: How Montreat runners found refuge at North Greenville University
Photo courtesy of Natalia Nieto
Kelsey Watson, Sports Editor
Forced out of their damaged campus by hurricane Helene, the Montreat College cross-country team found a temporary home at North Greenville University, where they have been maintaining their training and participating in NGU’s homecoming events.
Jacob Simms, who is the director of cross country at Montreat, has a long history with The Ville and North Greenville’s head cross country coach Cameron Stober.
“He and I ran together for a couple years here in North Greenville, and we actually coached together for a couple of years after we graduated. He’s got some ties here. His wife actually ran cross country here as well. Graduated from here. His mom currently works in the education department on campus,” Stober said.
Not only did Simms run and coach at NGU, but he also lived on campus, as did his first child.
When Helene devastated North Carolina, Montreat students were forced to evacuate and for two weeks, had to find stable shelter on their own. Simms decided he wanted his team back together, so he reached out to family friend Jared Thomas, who is the vice president of student engagement at NGU, to see if it was possible for his team to stay there.
“He [Simms] reached out just to see if there was anything that we could do to help. And at that time North Greenville was already opening up a facility to help our faculty and staff, and also some of the surrounding camps that had been hit. It just worked out that our facility was the best for Montreat. It wasn’t a big ask. It was a pretty natural thing for us,” Thomas said.
Both North Greenville and Montreat are under the same food company, Aramark, so their meal situation wasn’t a hard thing to handle. Thomas gave a list of cross-country athletes’ names to the cafeteria staff, and the athletes sign in when they enter.
“Aramark made it clear that they’ll feed them. Like, we’ll figure out something. It really was a community response,” said Thomas.
These runners have been using NGU’s facilities and going off campus to run in the surrounding areas. While the athletes are doing zoom calls for classes and cannot practice during the day, they found ways to better themselves.
“The cross-country folks have been very hospitable in sharing their facility with us and being able to go around and go to the Swamp Rabbit and Lake Summit. We were fortunate to have those in proximity, and for the most part are having a very normal week of practice now,” said Simms.
Natalia Nieto, sophomore cross country team member for Montreat, said that while she was not on campus when the storm got rough, she had heard about the damage the hurricane left on campus.
Nieto said, “We have our gymnasium upstairs and then where we can lift downstairs. Downstairs was completely flooded, and they had to send a message telling people to stay out because they were worried that it could collapse because there is a creek that runs right next to it that led into like a little lake that we have. All of that was overflowing.”
For some time, Montreat students did not have a safe way to get in and out of campus because of flooding and broken roads. Once it was clear to leave, the entire campus was evacuated.
For the first two weeks after the hurricane hit, these athletes found their own shelter, but because Simms wanted his team to be together, the Montreat cross country team got to live a little bit of a normal college life again after moving into NGU.
Nieto said that while it is not the most ideal situation to be in, she is thankful to be back with her team and being able to resume somewhat of a normal routine again.
Montreat’s campus opened back up Sunday, October 20, but Nieto said Simms wants to keep them at NGU until they must go back.
“Montreat gave us Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to stay on virtually, so our coaches were planning to have us here until Tuesday because they said that the conditions weren’t going to be the best. They were trying to keep us here as long as we could,” said Nieto.
The athletes missed the Live in Louisville Classic because of the hurricane, but they have their first meet back in weeks on Friday, Oct. 25, for the NAIA Appalachian Challenge.
