Lacey's Flannery Signs with Seton Hall

When Ryan Flannery took up running a few summers ago, he wasn't at all sure he would like it.

"I was big into basketball my freshman year, and I was looking for a sport to get myself in shape for basketball," the Lacey High School cross country captain said. "My neighbor, Andy Hopper, suggested I look at cross country."

The idea of distance running didn't thrill him, Flannery said: "I saw myself more as a sprinter." But Hopper encouraged Flannery to give it a try and helped the young man start training the summer before his sophomore year.

Cross country turned out to be perfect fit for a young man best described as tenacious.

"When you're in the middle of a race and you reach the point where you just want to give up, you have to have that mindset to push on through," Flannery said.

Flannery has had much to push through in the last year: his father died last summer and an uncle died in November. He has not had an easy life; his mother works overnights to support him and his brothers, and as a high school senior he works four nights a week in addition to his studies and his athletic pursuits.

All the hard work and his grit has paid off, as Flannery signed a national letter of intent on Monday to accept a scholarship to run cross country at Seton Hall next fall.

"I didn't know if I was good enough to be a Division I athlete," said Flannery, who reached the cross country Meet of Champions as a junior and had a personal-best time of 16:22 last fall. But Seton Hall coach John Moon assured him he has the potential to compete at that level, he said.

"His confidence in me sold me on going there," said Flannery, who also looked at Rutgers, Montclair State and Rowan. Flannery said he also liked the feeling of unity on the Seton Hall team, similar to the bond he has with his Lacey teammates. "Everyone there seemed to really enjoy going there," he said.

Lacey cross country coach Chris Miller had long believed in Flannery's abilities, pushing him to give up basketball and focus on cross country. It was a move that wasn't easy for Flannery.

"It was hard for me to understand that this was my best chance," Flannery said, eliciting a chuckle from both Miller and his mother. "Yes, it was," Michele Flannery said.

It has, however, allowed him to reach a goal that both of his parents wanted for him: a college education.

"Every mother wants to see her young ones do better," said Michele Flannery, who has raised Ryan and his brothers by herself for the last several years. "I'm so proud of him. He has a very demanding schedule; he works four nights a week as well as maintains his grades and plays sports."

"She's always pushed me about going to college," Ryan said. "And it was something my father was never able to do."

"Me going to college was very important to him," said Flannery, whose father, Michael, died in late July. "I knew I have to live on in his memory. I want to make him proud."

It's been a tough year, his mother said, because in addition to his father's death, Ryan's uncle died in November.

"I'm more proud of the tenacity he's shown -- he's been through a lot," she said. It's a tenacity Ryan has clearly learned from his mother, however.

"The fact that she can work overnights and do all she does for us," he said. "I don't know how she does it."

Miller said Ryan's tenacity brings with it a selflessness that has been a great example for the younger runners on the team.

"He has always put the team above himself," Miller said. "When his father died, he told me about it and then said, 'Let's get to work.' "

"Mr. Miller has been like a father figure to me," Flannery said. "I couldn't ask for a better coaching staff. And this team has a really bright future. I was really honored to be their captain."

"Ryan is something special," Miller said. "He will be missed."

At Seton Hall, Flannery plans to study communications with an emphasis on sports communications. The senior has his won sports talk show on the high school's television station, TV 21, and he hopes to someday be doing something similar in a much bigger arena.

"I want to be like those guys on ESPN," he said. "I want to be one of them someday."

For now, he's happy to be headed to Seton Hall, and to be pursuing a sport he almost dismissed at a level he never dreamed of reaching, but one he's excited to be attaining.

"It's not too far away and it has one of the top communications schools on the East Coast," Flannery said. "The pieces of the puzzle just fit."

"The world is his oyster," Michele Flannery said. "He has this opportunity; now it's up to him to make the most of it. He can do whatever he wants."