On June 24th, 2025, "friends" with access to the "Dark Web," sent a picture supposedly showing members of the team being arrested as they entered the border in Arizona. Masked men, who appeared to be thugs, but might have been Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents, moved them to a van for transport to a "center" in Flagstaff! Our reporters, cleverly disguised as NJ clamdiggers to elude identification, are fast-moving westward to check out this story!
The story gets more and more confusing as one of our agents is purported to have sent the following picture "of my view from Arizona, and no mysterious agents or confined athletes can be seen!" Indeed, we think this is spurious and someone in this conspiracy is taking advantage of the fact that Geography is no longer taught in New Jersey schools.
The picture becomes even more confusing as our now on-scene reporter points to an apparent anomaly. He points to the picture provided by one of our agents and goes through what we know. Five Cherokee stars traveled to Arizona for training -- Ben Realley, Sean Sooy, Jack Tindall, Logan Bromley and Dom Pileri -- but the picture shows six! Who is this sixth person and how did he infiltrate the team?
The story continues with our agent sending pictures of different situations with no explanations: running to the sacred mountain, baking bread in a hideout, digging foxholes? What's next? Emigration? Will we never see them again?
Hey, where are they . . . Flagstaff, Arizona? And where's Roswell, New Mexico? That's about 500 miles or so! Not far enough? Well, some weird stuff is going on!
In the past, the July 4th Marlton 5K Race was a kind of testing session for present-day runners, who were probably a few weeks into their Cross Country training, and a "Hi! How Are You?!" for quite a few Alums who showed-up just to show how tough they remained after graduation! Today, with all the communications available today, the coach knows exactly how well conditioned his runners are so the July 4thb run has lost some of its importance. That was evident at this year's race . . . even Coach Shaklee made other plans!
Our photographer showed-up early - partly because their website said the race started at 8:00 AM when it actually started at 8:30 AM - and saw only Highland athletes warming up with their coach, Alum Mike Zurzolo '17! No other Alums, no Cherokee athletes!
OK, five of Cherokee's best are training in Flagstaff, AZ but where are the rest? They were going to run anyway, weren't they? It was a beautiful morning, with low temperatures and low humidity, where was everyone? That includes Alums too! Really, only one!
It was pretty lucky, I suppose, because our photographer's camera acted up and he took quite a few blurred pictures!
That said, one team member did show up, Bruce Novoa, but he ran with his little brother, who did pretty well, and without a number; and one Alum ran as well, Josh Lowery '25.
One "record" remains! For the past 12 or so years, a Cherokee Alum won the race and, this year, Coach Mike Zurzolo '17 stepped up and kept the streak alive! GO MIKE! GO CHEROKEE!
Further details at: Run Sign-up.
Here are a few pics of the runners. Bruce ran incognito; Josh's pics were too blurred to sharpen well, and he can be forgiven for wearing the flag pants (which businesses sell as patriotic!) to cover his junk since he is soon to join the Army GO JOSH! and is unlikely to wear them there. GO JOSH! BE WELL!
Dublin, London, Paris, Florence, Budapest, Warsaw, Berlin . . . great trip! Nah, we didn't go to any of them but five of our guys went to Flagstaff, AZ, trained for a month "at altitude," and that's pretty cool!
Because of its altitude, Flagstaff, Arizona is a special training base for many Olympians, wanna-be Olympians, and college runners, so they asked, why not competitive high school runners?! And, if the quick messages home suggested anything, it's that they met quite a few of those top runners along the way! In addition, they checked out the spectacular Grand Canyon and other sites as well. We wonder, however, how well five normal high school guys can focus so much on training, closely supervised by parents, for a whole month, without exploding? Interviews coming! . . . maybe.
Ben Realley, Sean Sooy, Jack Tindall, Logan Bromley and Dom Pileri returned to reality - to unusually hot and humid days of Southern New Jersey - late at night on Wednesday, July 23rd and, despite the time shift between Flagstaff and Marlton, and other possible excuses - they made it to practice the following morning! GO CHEROKEE! GO PARENTS WHO WOKE THEM!
Before moving on completely, here are some of the pictures from their adventure, from Flagstaff through the Grand Canyon, provided by Mrs. Tindall and other parents who followed them throughout the month, and these and others are available on our Google link!.
Monday morning, 7:00 AM, Cherokee High School. The television news makes it sound like the earth is on fire and runners will all burn up in the heat. ". . . OMG, The temperature will be over 105 degrees and the 'feels like' gauge says 10 trillion!"
For Cherokee runners it's not like that, Yes, it's hot but the guys have been running in the heat since the end of the Track season and have acclimatized more than most. They look for shade, They hydrate. They're used to it. (Well, except for those who spent a month in Flagstaff, Arizona, enjoying the cool temperatures and light air. Getting used to NJ is a bit of a push for those guys!)
One thing is sure: judging from the heat patterns of the summer, a lot of those upcoming September races will be run in excessive heat! Yes, we're used to it!
Despite the morning news, the conditions during the practice at 7:00 AM were moderate. It wasn't that hot and it wasn't that humid. And the athletes took advantage of it!
Our photographer did the same: he was there to catch some of the practice! (Note to Ben: you look fabulous!) Here are a few of his shots and these and others are posted on our Google site.
Same time, same place . . . 7:00 AM, Cherokee High School. Coach wants some aerobic work and picks the Cherokee Challenge trails as the best place to train on a hot, humid morning. The shade does help, a little, but a bit of a breeze would be appreciated, as well.
Pictures show what it's all about, so our photographer got out of bed early enough to catch some of the action. He needs a tad more work on the website but here are the pictures he took on our Google site.
Cooper Lutkenhaus, a 16 year old Sophomore from Texas, ran a pretty decent 800m the other day. 1:42.27 . . . 50.66 and 51.61 . . . hmmmm.
Coach Shaklee, no spring chicken, kicked off his own 10-mile practice the other day. Think about that too!
Seventy-nine degrees and dew point in the seventies . . . the beginning of school looks mighty good!
OK, maybe not, but practice is no longer fun!
Coach had 1000's in mind, a bunch of loops around the fields. Guys looked good, by the way!
Photographer looked good too! Sitting in his chair with umbrella overhead and camera in his hands! The man's a genius, except it was "seventy-nine degrees and dew point in the seventies." He's still having trouble with his website app but his pictures are available at our Google link.
On August 17th, 2025, a group from Cherokee traveled to Canadensis, PA for a week-long "adventure in running" at the RunningWorks Camp there!
RunningWorks has over 25 years experience at Canadensis, first sponsored by Villanova Coach Marcus O'Sullivan, former Penn Coach Cricket Batz Shaklee and Cherokee Coach Steve Shaklee, and now run by three former Chiefs and now coaches, Kevin Cuneo, Tim Callinan and Kevin Schickling! The earliest reason for establishing such a camp was to educate the athletes in the sport -- Running in general and Cross Country -- and that remains so.
For almost all of those 25 years, our photographer worked the camp as the SLJO, his Army designation given to the lowest ranking officer in a unit who performed all the crappy jobs in that unit -- the Shitty Little Jobs Officer -- and he should have received an award comparable to the Medal of Honor for his performance! Among his jobs, he served as the camp photographer and his pictures are available on the camp website. Retired now, today's picture-taking job was left to Nick Chan and Seawon Park, who will post their pictures on the camp website at the end of camp. We will, in turn, make those pictures available here on our site.
A key reason for settling the camp in the Pocono Mountains was to escape the summer heat of New Jersey and, usually, the temperature is a good 10 degrees cooler at camp. Today, for example, overnight it was 70 degrees and, at 9:00 AM, it was 82 degrees here in South Jersey, while, at Canadensis, it was 61 degrees overnight and 68 degrees at 9:00 AM this morning. A significant difference.
On August 19th, 2025, reports of a broken arm and one of our guys gone home but all else is pretty good. They had a cool night in the mid-50's and looked forward to a day in the 70's. Tomorrow, however, it looks like heavy rain . . . ho hum. Everything else looks pretty good but I'm glad I'm not there for the rain!
On August 21st, 2025, we're getting reports of Cherokee's cabin still noisy from chatting athletes at 11:00 PM and we wonder how chatty they'll be for the morning run?! Also, we're reminded of one chatty cabin, back in the day, when the counselor took the entire cabin out for a late-night run. Never heard much chatting from that cabin again! We're also getting reports of late night raids on other cabins and we're waiting for the details when the counselors and athletes get home tomorrow!
We heard that Coach Shaklee was preparing his own "Welcome Back" when the team returns to school! The sound of the Coach's voice may rival Joe Cocker on a very bad day with its gritty, raspy sound, but that, and his expert guitar accompaniment, is expected to be a warm experience for his returning athletes. GO TEAM! GO COACH! GO CHEROKEE!
Camp pictures used to be available soon after the camp closed but things were a tad slow this time! Eventually some appeared and our photographer looked carefully through their work for anyone who looked like a Chief! If he missed you, don't worry, he'll get you at the Cherokee Challenge! Also, these pictures and others will soon be available on our Google site!
