XC: A Story Easy To Root For
9/21/2011 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
MORAGA, Calif. - Go back six years and Rajpaul Pannu was a 194 pound sophomore in high school. When telling the tale he said he started to run just as a way to help his low self-esteem, which he figured he could boost if he shed a few pounds. Flash forward a few years later and Pannu quickly becoming one of the leaders of the men's cross country team. In two races this season he has finished in the top-30 twice, and led the Gaels both times.
Living with his mother, a single-parent, in Hercules, Calif., Pannu decided he felt it was time to make a change. His low self-esteem was starting to affect his grades and he didn't want to just do nothing with his life and live at home with his mom. He started running at first just to lose some extra weight, just with the idea to help build some self-confidence. The summer before his junior year in high school his friends really noticed the difference and encouraged him to try out for the cross country team at Hercules High School.
"I had started running every day, I finally broke 6:30 in the mile at the end of my sophomore year, which isn't much to brag about, however my friends saw something else," said Rajpaul Pannu. "They had noticed how much weight I had lost and told me I should give cross country a try. Initially I was like 'what the heck is cross country?' Everyone has heard about soccer or basketball, but I had never heard about cross country."
That summer he ran every other day, running five miles a day. When he wasn't pounding the pavement he was in the weight room, so by the time cross country season had arrived, he made the varsity team without any experience.
In his first race he finished 46 out of 60 people, which is pretty impressive considering he entered the event with very little knowledge of what a cross country race would be like, and just a few months earlier he was 40 pounds heavier. What further boosted his confidence was being named team MVP that season.
"No one really likes running, to be honest," said Pannu. "I just liked how it was working for me, helping build self esteem. Plus I felt I was doing something special with it, my friends saw the positive effects it was having on me and it helped push me along."
The effects were starting to show up in his performance in competitive events. In his senior season he improved from 46th place to second place and qualified for the state championships. Even more impressive considering that he had a stress-reaction in his leg and wasn't supposed to race that year. However, his relentless training on the stationary bike and his determination to succeed, he ended up finishing 17th out of 200 people in state, and finished a second faster than his goal time of 16:20.
Coming out of his senior year there were few opportunities for scholarships, a couple of schools offered him spots as a walk on. His eye opening times in cross country and track his senior year didn't leave many options for him. So he decided to go the junior college route, which was an easy choice to make since one of his greatest influences went that route.
Pannu ran both cross country and track for a season at Diablo Valley College. In his freshman year at DVC he made the All-Norcal Team for cross country and qualified for state that season. In track season he qualified for state in both the 5K and the 10K eventually finishing second in the 10K race en-route to being named an All-American. Following his freshman year the track and cross country programs at DVC were cut, so he was left to red-shirt that season and train by himself. He would enter races and run as an individual, it is there that he caught the eye of head coach Marty Kinsey and associate head coach Mark Carberry.
Flash forward a year later, and he is performing at a very high level for the Gaels. "During the recruiting process with Raj it was clear that we had a genuine good person who wanted to make a difference while at Saint Mary's," said head coach Marty Kinsey. "He has a unique personality and truly wants to make the world a better place. You're just drawn to him. A testament to this is that within his first couple weeks on campus he decided to run for class senate and won with almost 70 percent of the vote. That says a lot about him when he is new to the school and is able to impact that many people in such a short period of time. During one of our conversations with Raj we discussed our vision for this team, our hopes, and what we see the future looking like and Raj stood up and said, 'Coaches I want to be the person that leads this change, you won't be disappointed.' So far we have been pretty happy."
And in case that wasn't enough of a reason to root for one of SMC's up and coming athletes, Pannu is also very active in community service. During the holidays he works at the Bay Area Rescue Mission in Richmond, Calif. "It's a very humbling experience," he says. "It teaches me to be grateful for all my opportunities."
Pannu and the rest of the men and women cross country teams will return to the trails on Saturday when they travel to Palo Alto, Calif. to participate in the Stanford Invitational at the Stanford Golf Course.
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