David Apel: President of the Trinity Cross Country Club

David Apel attended Trinity University from 1983-1987 and his involvement in the creation of the Trinity Cross Country Club was an influential factor that greatly contributed to the later development of the Trinity University Cross Country team that is known today. Apel had been an avid runner in high school and he continued to run on his own once he got to Trinity, even training for the San Antonio marathon his sophomore year. As many distance runners know, it is difficult to train and stay motivated when you are doing it alone and by the beginning of his sophomore year Apel had realized that he had missed competing in cross country more than he had expected (Apel, personal interview). According to an article in the October 5, 1984 issue of The Trinitonian, Apel had participated in the annual Turkey Trot with about 200 other Trinity students and the size of this group of runners led him to think that there could be enough student interest to form a cross country club. With the help of Coach Jim Potter the Trinity Cross Country Club was officially sponsored with David Apel serving as the club’s president and by October of 1984 the new club sport had attracted about 15 interested runners (Hardin, 1984). This relatively quick surge in the number of participants suggests that the interest in long distance running among students was still present, but it just needed someone to guide it.

Apel’s work was not done when he got the Trinity Cross Country Club established because he had a larger goal in mind, one that echoed the ultimate goal of the Elephant Brigade several years before him. Apel had high hopes for the future of distance running at Trinity and his goal was to use the running club to help make cross country an intercollegiate varsity sport on campus (Hardin, 1984).  By the fall of 1985, the club had really started to take hold and Apel knew that maintaining a consistent number of people was going to be the key to its success. According to an article in the September 13, 1985 issue of The Trinitonian, when the Trinity Cross Country Club was officially recognized it was also granted an interim status which meant that cross country would become an intercollegiate sport if the club proved that there was a serious interest in running at Trinity University. This suggests that action was needed to help foster the growth of the club if any progress was going to be made towards establishing a varsity program.

As founder of the club, David Apel had begun actively recruiting members of varying abilities and he had created a list of road races and cross country meets for the group to compete in. He stated that the running club was meant for runners who just wanted to have fun and also for those who wanted to be competitive (Scheiner, 1985) which makes it clear that his priority during this time was making sure the club had the numbers to continue. Apel studied abroad during his junior year and he believes that the club took a small hit during his absence, but when he returned for his senior year the running club had bounced back as well. As a senior, Apel was hopeful for the future of running at Trinity because he had seen the club grow over the years and there was a group of about 12-15 people running together on a regular basis (Apel, personal interview). At the end of the spring semester in 1987, David Apel graduated from Trinity University and the Cross Country Club remained just that, a club team on campus.