(December 26, 2012) Only three years old, the mountain bike program at Sachse High School has already made a name for itself as the best in Texas. Sachse’s six-member team recently won the Texas High School Cycling League State Championships—its second title in two years.
The SHS program was started by teacher Christine Tucker in the spring of 2010.
“One of my students saw the cycling awards in my classroom and said he was also a mountain biker,” she explained. “A couple of days later, he told me he wanted to form a team.”
Tucker instructed that student that she needed at least five signatures before approaching Sachse’s principal at the time, Steve Hammerle. The next day, five boys enthusiastically signed up. At the end of the 2009-10 school year, two of those students were already competing in local races.
According to Tucker, Sachse organized the first official public high school team in Texas.
“I had tried to get an official team together once before and was told by the United States Cycling Federation that no other public schools in Texas had a team. Being the first is important because we want to show other public schools that it can be done.”
Last year, Sachse joined the Texas High School Cycling League—a statewide organization founded by the mountain bike sponsor at Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas. At the League’s 2011 state championships, SHS raced against Jesuit to win its first title. More than 38 schools were represented at this year’s championship race, and once again, Sachse’s team came out victorious.
“I was very surprised,” said Tucker. “There were some really strong students from other schools. The Sachse team had to train really hard and work together as a team in order to get enough points to win.”
Practicing twice a week after school and racing every other weekend for three months in the fall, Sachse’s mountain bike president says he wasn’t surprised by his team’s success.
“I was expecting to win because I knew we had a really good team and strong riders,” commented junior Zachary Smitherman.
Submitted by Tiffany Graber, Communications Specialist, Garland ISD.
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