Immediately after Blaine High School’s home cross country meet on Sept. 16, three high school girls — who were at the meet as attendees — found themselves speaking with cross-country coach Roberto Aguilera Jr.
“Join cross country!” Aguilera told the girls. “Y’all should’ve joined since day one!”
This is not uncommon for Aguilera. He has built a reputation as a persistent recruiter.
“There’s no silly business. I mean it,” he said about encouraging students to join cross country.
His persistence has paid off. Now in his fourth season as the cross-country coach, the program has more than doubled in size.
When Aguilera started as the coach in 2023, the program had just 11 runners on the team, all of them boys.
Participation has increased each year. This year there are 27 runners, seven of which are girls. He hopes to continue growing the program each year.
Blaine School District Athletic Director Chas Kok said that having a girls team of five athletes or more is a big deal. It allows for the Northwest Conference, which Blaine is a part of, to have an additional berth in the state championships.
Blaine cross country has met this requirement of at least five girls the last two years.
“I expect that number to continue growing,” Kok said, “just because I think Roberto does provide an environment that's fun for athletes, and helps provide an environment that creates a lifelong skill and lifelong learner.”
This school year Aguilera started as a paraeducator at the high school, which has given him even more opportunities to scout talent and encourage students to join cross country.
Aguilera knows that cross country can be a tough sell — it’s difficult on the mind and the body — but he wants everybody to be a part of the community that he’s helped to build.
“(Cross country’s) one of the most demanding, grueling, physical exhaustion sports that you have,” he said. “I think it really takes it to the next level of, like, ‘You are tougher than you really think you are,’ and I think that’s what proves the sport to be one of my favorites.”
Because of its difficulty, Aguilera has done his best to make it fun for the kids. He wants all the athletes to be able to lean on each other when the going gets tough.
Ultimately, Aguilera’s goal is to help his athletes become better people, on and off the course. He hopes they’ll learn to push themselves to do difficult things.
Freshman Samson Clark said cross country is tough, but it offers an opportunity to grow — something that he admires about the sport.
“Even if you don’t do good, it gives you a lot of potential to grow in your mindset,”
Clark said.
Clark praised Aguilera and assistant coaches Elee Faulkner and Taylee King for their attitudes, and their encouragement to improve every day.
Aguilera, who was the lone coach for the first three years, said that Faulkner and King have been a huge help in running practices and building a culture focused on improving and having fun.
Aguilera and the other coaches arrange weekly team-bonding dinners and events to build camaraderie, which has helped to create the community he wishes he had in high school, he said.
Aguilera, who ran at Ferndale High School, said that he felt like he was alone at times during his high school career. When he wanted to take the next step toward improvement, he didn’t have many teammates there to push him.
Aguilera, who’s 28 years old, said that being a young coach gives him an advantage because he can relate to his athletes. He noted that Faulkner and King are both young coaches too.
“I think when you're a young coach, you can really help inspire, because you are in some sort of generational connection (with the athletes) where you can see eye-to-eye to them and understand what they go through in a day, what they struggle with,” Aguilera said.
Senior Steven Phelps-McDonald joined the team in 2023 as a freshman — the same year Aguilera took over as coach. Phelps-McDonald said that he had participated in some of the high school team’s practices while he was in middle school.
Once Aguilera came aboard, his impact on the program was obvious, Phelps-McDonald said.
“Once Berto came along, he was someone who was young, who knew how the sport worked, who was really good at it,” Phelps-McDonald said. “He’s always been promoting (the program) ever since I’ve known him. He promotes it to every single person that he sees, and he’s like, ‘Join the cross country team.’”
In addition to running at Ferndale High School, Aguilera ran at Whatcom Community College, where he won a Northwest Athletic Conference North Region Championship in 2021.
As a coach, Phelps-McDonald called Aguilera “incredible.”
“He will never be mad as long as you try your best, and he’s also really funny, and he knows what he’s talking about,” Phelps-McDonald said. “He’s not just here so that we can run. He's here to help us get better at running. He's truly an incredible coach. I couldn’t imagine this program without him … Berto is definitely the biggest influence on this team.”
Many of the cross-country runners on the team call Aguilera “Berto.”
Aguilera joked that some coaches require their athletes to call them strictly “coach,” or their last name. But Aguilera thinks that “coach” is a title that needs to be earned.
Though Aguilera has done a lot to build the program up from when he took it over, he still hasn’t met his goals.
Aguilera has aspirations of district and state championships. Once he gets a couple of those under his belt, he might have his athletes call him “coach.” He’ll continue to work toward those goals, but until then, “Berto” is just fine.
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