Hannah Bailey had just wrapped up her first season of high school track and field, after her sophomore year, when a Highland coach approached her.
You’re pretty good, they said.
Bailey didn’t do much more than shrug.
Later, though, as Bailey began to emerge as one of the Rams’ better distance runners, the same coach reiterated it, stronger this time.
No, you’re really good, they said. You could run in college.
That’s when it began to dawn on Bailey that she could do so, that she could become a college runner. On Thursday, she made those plans official, signing with Weber State’s track and field and cross country programs.
“It’s just crazy,” Bailey said. “I don’t know, it’s really scary to go into something so soon. I feel like I just already know what I’m going to do. But it’s also comforting to know that I already have somebody and a place to go. It’ll be sad leaving everybody. That’ll be really sad.”
For Bailey, who finished sixth in last year’s 800-meter state race and 19th in cross country, there was a lot to like about the Wildcats’ program. She visited the campus over the Halloween weekend, making the roughly two-hour trip to Ogden, where she noticed this: “It was close to home, but not too far,” Bailey said. “And then it had a lot of the outdoor stuff that I like. It’s right on the mountain, the whole campus. They said they do a lot of their practices on trail runs. I like being in nature, so that was really compelling too. And I met with a lot of the girls, and they were super fun.”
Bailey’s is an interesting story. She’s played soccer all her life, including on last year’s Highland team, which won a district title and advanced to the 5A state tournament, where the Rams fell in the consolation title game. She’ll tell you for awhile, she considered herself more of a soccer player than a runner, but she had never considered doing either at the college level — “until some coaches talked about playing soccer in college, and I was like, I don’t think I want to,” Bailey said.
“And then I started running. They were like, hey, do you wanna run in college? And I was like, yeah. I don’t know why but I’d rather run than actually play soccer. It was just recently that I really looked into it.”
Her running resume speaks for itself. In this last cross country season, she took fifth at the Pocatello City Meet, then third at the 5A District 5/6 meet, which was good for a trip to the state meet. There, Bailey helped the Rams cap a memorable year with a fifth-place finish. In track, Bailey carded four first-place finishes in the 800 and three in the 1600, making state in both events. She also won a district title with her 4x800 relay team — Bailey, Grace Kosmicki, Emma McCormick, Josi Dahlstrom — which took fourth at the state meet.
That actually does as good a job as any of capturing what Bailey will miss about running for Highland, about balancing soccer and cross country, about moving on to the next chapter of her life.
“Definitely the team and the girls — and the guys,” Bailey laughed. “The bond we have is really great. I love them a lot. And I just hope I can find people that I can just be myself around.”