Creation of The Elephant Brigade Shows Increased Student Interest
In the fall of 1979, there was an apparent spike in interest levels for running as a group of students formed a group they called the Elephant Brigade (Chriss, 1979). According to an article from the October 12, 1979 issue of The Trinitonian, the Elephant Brigade consisted of about 15 students who enjoyed running and they would meet up on early weekday mornings to run through the trails of Brackenridge Park, around Olmos Basin, or through the neighborhoods down Contour Drive. The group was meant to be informal and fun, inviting runners of all different levels to join and participate in a few weekend races.
The founders of the group were students who had enjoyed running in high school and felt that organized long distance running was an element that was missing from Trinity’s campus. They aimed to fill that need themselves and their long term goal was to create a formal cross country team (Chriss, 1979). The organization of the Elephant Brigade suggests that there was a growing interest for organized distance running at Trinity and once again students seemed to be the driving force behind this movement. This was the first documented mention of the idea to create a formal cross country team which suggests that the setting of this goal may have provided the initial spark for the process of establishing a varsity team on campus.