The Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships — an iconic Balboa Park event drawing future Olympians for almost 50 years — is done, the title sponsor said Thursday, shocking fans and athletes nationwide.
But behind the scenes, a group including Santee’s Tracy Sundlun and led by Olympian Jorge Torres of Boston is trying to resurrect the event for elite high school runners.
Sundlun, a founder of the Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathon Series that began in San Diego, told Times of San Diego that he’d heard Foot Locker was going to let go of the meet a while ago.
And since then, he said, “we’ve been working on this.”
Sundlun said he’s only a soldier in the effort to find an underwriting sponsor, calling himself a “sergeant,” but that Torres was the leader.
In a phone interview, Torres said he was grateful for Foot Locker’s role in showcasing prep runners for 45 years and has been working for two weeks on keeping the national meet in Balboa Park and regional qualifying events as in the past.
Torres, one of only two boys to run the 5,000-meter course at four Foot Locker Cross Country nationals (including twice when the meet was in Orlando), later ran the 10,000-meter run for America at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Torres said Foot Locker “literally lifted the sport of running in American high schools and also in making future Olympians.”
“There’s too many good things …. to let it go,” Torres said of “this beautiful event,” which he won in 1998.
“And there’s a lot of kids in the future depending” on the meet, he said, “having the continuing tradition to uplift themselves to become Olympians.”
Torres said a member of his team is Julia Stamps-Mallon, who won Foot Locker as a sophomore in 1994 (and also ran in 1995 and 1996). He said he hoped to have details on reviving Foot Locker by September. (The nationals are usually held in December.)
Among the many people shocked at the Foot Locker news was Steve Brand, the Union-Tribune sportswriter who covered preps for decades and still freelances for the paper.
“It is devastating for the sport in general and San Diego particularly,” Brand said via email. “It was the only true national high school championship and the San Diego running community embraced it.”
In a post Thursday morning, Foot Locker said it ended the event “after thoughtful and careful consideration.”
“As we look to the future, this strategic decision reflects our ongoing commitment to evaluating where we can make the most meaningful impact for our business, our customers, and the communities we serve, including the running community.”
This spring, Foot Locker was acquired by Dick’s Sporting Goods. Queries to both companies were not immediately returned.
“As the longest running cross country race in the nation,” said the Foot Locker post, “it has brought together generations of runners, coaches, families and fans and helped build one of the most inspiring communities in high school sports.”
(The spiking of Foot Locker nationals was the second major blow to San Diego’s running community this year — following the March announcement by World Athletics to cancel the World Road Running Championships set for September 2025 in and around Balboa Park.)
Meanwhile, sportswear giant Nike continues to operate its own national high school cross country event.
But Brand notes that the two meets were not similar.
“Nike stressed teams, Foot Locker individuals,” he said. “The Nike course isn’t nearly as historic as Balboa Park, [and] weather has been a big problem for them but not for Foot Locker.”
Brand added: “It’s a sad day for both the sport and the city. Maybe if the U.S. military had stepped up and paid for everything, it might have lasted long. That’s the kind of sponsor they needed to survive.”
San Diego’s Toni Reavis, who blogs about running and helped pioneer running broadcasting, said he wasn’t surprised by the news.
“I think Foot Locker has been putting less into the event in recent years,” he said, noting that he worked “FLXC” when it was in Orlando at the Disney property between 1998 and 2001.
“But it’s been an iconic event for more than two generations of runners,” he said via email. “Nike cross nationals certainly added competition to Foot Locker, and perhaps that had some impact.
“But I’d suggest the acquisition of Foot Locker Inc. by Dick’s Sporting Goods, set to happen in the second half of this year for $2.4 billion, may have had some impact on the event’s fate.”
He said it’s typical in such acquisitions for the seller to “scrub the bottom line to show more profitability and less cost.”
San Diego coach Paul Greer, president of the local USA Track & Field chapter, said local high school legend and future Olympian Marc Davis won the 1986 championships “with his fists in the air as locals like me celebrated with him when he won.”
Greer said future Olympians who ran Foot Locker included San Diego High School’s Meb Keflezighi and Hilltop High’s Desiree “Des” Linden, both going on to win the Boston Marathon.
“Foot Locker championships was the start of their prestigious careers where they attracted national attention before having legendary professional running careers themselves,” Greer said via email.
Greer said he was optimistic “that we are just one large sponsor away” from reviving Foot Locker, someone “who sees the value of these individual national cross country championships and picks up the baton .”
He said the 2025 Foot Locker nationals was slated to select one male and one female for the upcoming Under-20 2026 World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida.
“It would have been good if the USATF Cross Country Council was notified ahead that this event was ending, but from my perspective this never happened,” Greer said.
Weldon Johnson, co-founder of the website letsrun.com, said his team had heard Foot Locker was going to end.
“It’s a sad day for the sport of running,” he said. “Foot Locker was THE dream for high school cross country runners for generations. Yes, [Nike cross country nationals] played a role in the cancellation of Foot Locker as it made it less important as there were soon two national championships instead of one, but the end of Foot Locker is on Foot Locker, not Nike.”
Johnson quoted Foot Locker as saying “their commitment to the running community remains strong.”
“If that is the case,” he said, “they should immediately sell the assets and (intellectual property) of the race to the group organizing in San Diego that wants to save the race. If they don’t, this is a huge slap in the face to one of the purest parts of the running community.”
Jonathan Gault, a longtime writer for letsrun.com, said the news was sad but not completely unexpected.
“Foot Locker XC was an incredible meet,” he said, “and for generations of high school cross country runners, it was the target to shoot for. Qualifying meant you were truly elite; winning made you a legend.”
The fact that Balboa Park was a constant for many years “created a nice link and way to compare performances across the generations — Chris Solinsky and [Olympic silver medalist] Galen Rupp ran on the same course as [2024 Paris double medalist] Grant Fisher and [Olympic 1500-meter champion] Cole Hocker.“
But Gault — who wrote a definitive history of the event — said it would be a significant undertaking to organize and stage four regional meets and a national championships.
“And the plan will have to come together quickly as athletes and coaches are already planning out their 2025 seasons,” he said. “But it is feasible. The big question is whether a sponsor will come on to fund it.”
NXN has eight regional qualifying meets compared to four for Foot Locker, he noted, “which makes travel easier for athletes and their families. And kids in California can qualify directly for NXN from the California state meet, rather than having to run another race (Foot Locker West) to qualify for Foot Locker nationals.”
“Once NXN added individual qualifiers in 2008, it was clear from that point on that there would be direct competition with Foot Locker.”
Endurance sport expert and broadcaster Bob Babbitt of North County had a hopeful reaction: “It’s too cool of an event to go away. My guess is that it will be back!”
No matter its fate, San Diego running coach Greer said the event that began in 1979 has a safe place in history.
“These championships served as the pinnacle of excellence for the sport of high school cross country,” he said. “Job well done and surely a legacy that will forever live in our hearts.”
