Damn. They did it.
It was a sunny day in Jefferson City on Nov. 5, 2011. The Rock Bridge Bruins boys cross-country runners sat under a tree at Oak Hills Golf Center, still sweaty from their race. They had just competed at the Missouri state championship cross-country meet.
Suddenly, a smiling Neal Blackburn, the Rock Bridge coach, sprinted toward them and shouted out the meet results. The Bruins had won the state championship.
The runners jumped to their feet. They hugged, chest-bumped and high-fived one another. After a few moments of celebration, silence fell over the team and their victory started to sink in.
“We were just like, ‘Damn, we did it,’” said Zach Cook, a high school sophomore at the time.
Cook’s older brother Jordan was a senior in 2011. He was a four-year varsity runner for the Bruins and finished in seventh in the 2011 state cross-country meet. To him, the team state championship was a culmination of years of hard work.
“It was pretty surreal to have worked four years to get up to that point,” he said.
Now, nearly four years after the Rock Bridge state win, three of the team’s seven varsity members are still running in Columbia.
Jordan Cook is now a redshirt junior at Mizzou and one of the top runners for the Tigers. Zach is a redshirt freshman and Evan Schulte is a sophomore.
The three runners’ experiences at Rock Bridge gave them a sense of familiarity with each other that has only grown at Mizzou.
“It’s such a different atmosphere and the cohesion of all three of us is on a completely different level than high school,” Zach Cook said. “I’d say we’re way closer and running is more of a legitimate thing now instead of being second fiddle to school and everything like in high school.”
The story of the Schulte and the Cook brothers goes back further than just high school. In fact, Schulte and Zach Cook have been best friends since they were four years old.
Zach Cook and Schulte roomed together last season and now share a house off-campus. Cook is thankful for his lifelong friend.
“It’s just been awesome,” he said. “We went to the same Catholic church together, we were on the same soccer team for 10 years and then we decided to run at Rock Bridge together on the cross-country team.”
Their decision paid off.
Schulte said he started to fall in love with cross-country during his sophomore year of high school. Then, after a breakout track season his junior year, he started receiving interest from college programs. He finished fourth in the state cross-country meet as a senior.
Zach Cook also was a top high school runner. As a senior, he finished ninth in the state cross-country meet, just five spots behind Schulte.
To both Schulte and Zach Cook, Jordan Cook has been a leader throughout their cross-country careers. They say he has led by example both at Rock Bridge and at Mizzou.
“He’s made me a lot better both in high school, I always looked up to him in high school, and even now I look up to him even more,” Schulte said. “He’s just a really good leader to have.”
For Zach Cook, winning with his older brother was a special experience.
“Just being on the same team as my brother, winning state, I think that’s just something that a lot of people couldn’t say that they’ve done,” he said.
To the Rock Bridge graduates, Columbia has been their home for their entire lives. After making a huge impact on the high school cross-country scene, the runners have their eyes set on making a similar impact in college.
“It would be interesting to see this team do as well as we did at Rock Bridge …” Zach Cook said. “I think we’re really close to that and next year will be a big year for us.”