Jason Bowen - Times Journal - Jul 26, 2023

For the second time in six years, Patrick Laney is starting an athletic program.

Laney was the head coach for the fledgling Scottsboro High School soccer program, a coach full of energy and excitement while admitting he was learning on the fly.

Laney learned pretty quickly, and while he gave the all credit to the players, Scottsboro was a playoff team in both girls and boys soccer in the program's second season.

Now Laney is leading program construction in another sport at a different level, charged with building the new Northeast Alabama Community College cross country program. 

"I will say this, I do know more about cross country than I did when we started soccer at Scottsboro," Laney joked. 

Laney also worked as an assistant coach with the Scottsboro cross country program, one of Alabama's top high school programs, thus his familiarity with the sport. He's also a runner himself, and the chance to coach the sport at NACC is something Laney is still on Cloud 9 about even after being on the job since October.

"Coaching in college wasn't something I'd ever aspired to do, but I saw this opportunity and was really excited about what it could be," said Laney, who still teaches at Scottsboro High School.

Despite a later start than most coaches had to recruit — Laney was hired a few weeks before the end of the 2023 high school cross country season — Laney went to work on the recruiting trail to build relationships with runners and coaches.

"Every kid we signed is a great kid. I signed kids that are smart and self-motivated, and since I've got to hang around them a lot, kids I knew I'd have fun hanging around with," Laney said. "These kids are excited to be here and be apart of this. When I was talking with kids, we rarely lost them to another school, they just didn't want to run. Northeast is a phenomenal school and that's an advantage in recruiting. We're going to win the conversation when it comes to academics."

The first NACC women's team will consist of five runners while the NACC men's team has six runners.

The NACC cross country program's first signing class for the women's team featured Scottsboro's Shelton Linville and McCall Chandler, Pisgah's Kimberly Miller, Boaz's Arely Garcia and Fort Payne's Raven Fairley. Chandler and Fairley are sophomores already attending NACC.

The NACC men's team's signees were North Sand Mountain's Josue Luna, Pisgah's Brodie Ferguson, Scottsboro's Jackson Howes, Sand Rock's Austin Yoder, Boaz's Eber Perez and Glencoe's Conner Cothran. All six of the men's teams' runners are freshman, including Howes, who spent the last two years on a Morman mission following his high school graduation.

NACC runners train on campus together voluntarily each Tuesday and Thursday and run on their own the rest of the week.

Laney said the program is still welcoming walk-ons with the possibility of some scholarship money being available. 

"I'd like to have a few more if possible because it's hard to bank on being healthy the whole time (in regards to having a team score)," Laney said.  

The Mustangs' men's and women's teams hit the course officially for the first time on Sept. 1 in the Foothills Challenge at Choccolocco Park in Oxford. That meet includes teams from all different collegiate levels ranging from JUCO to NCAA Division I.

NACC will compete in the Alabama Community College Conference and the National Junior College Athletic Association.

Laney said he believes the NACC teams can do big things despite the program' just getting started. 

"I think we can compete (in the conference)and I don't think (finishing) Top-15 in the country is crazy," Laney said. "Maybe that's some naivety on my part, but I do believe it. I think we've got the kids to do it."

Laney said the expansion of athletics at NACC — cross country this fall and softball next fall join the school's now six-year-old golf program — has sparked a lot of interest in the sport and the school. 

"There not many church services that go by that after someone doesn't ask me about it," he said. "People are excited about athletics at Northeast. This area has a lot of talented athletes, so to see there be a local (college) they can compete at has people excited. I'm excited, not just about cross country, but all the sports we have. Athletics are going to really compliment Northeast's rich academic reputation."