Kids In The Hall: Coach Bill Aris, Fayetteville-Manlius NY

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Back in early 2006, nobody knew there was a rising tide beginning to well up at Fayetteville-Manlius High, a few miles east of Syracuse, N.Y.

Not even Bill Aris. 

The cross county coach had recently taken his first boys team to Nike Team Nationals, his first group of "Stotans," and they had finished third on the muddy Portland Meadows course. 

The association that close watchers of high school cross country made between F-M and national relevance was with the boys, not the girls. The girls team had finished 10th at the 2005 New York state meet.

But Aris knew that there was a good young group coming up, and a key addition came from an encounter in the school hallway. 

"I'm walking through the halls of the school one day in the spring of oh-six and I come across a girl that someone told me was a very good athlete and a good basketball player," Aris said. "I took one look in her eyes and I saw what I call Linebacker Eyes. Assassin's Eyes. OK?"

Kathryn Buchan had the competitive zeal and disposition that Aris was looking for in a school where the soccer, lacrosse and field hockey often claimed most of the top female athletes. 

"She was a very nice girl, mind you," Aris said. "But there were other saintly girls, like Courtney Chapman, who also had Assassin's Eyes."

Aris knew that if he wanted to take a girls team to Portland, he needed athletes who were driven to succeed. 

"I had a very simple conversation with her," Aris said. "I told her 'I've heard good things about you and by looking in your eyes I can tell that you've got what it takes to be a great runner.'

"I'm not always right with this, but when I look in a kid's eyes I can usually tell if they've got the intellectual and mental fortitude to do this."

With Buchan, he was right. 

In the fall of 2006, Buchan, a sophomore, ran with super-talented freshman Mackenzie Carter at nearly every race. At the New York Federation meet, F-M knocked off defending national champion Hilton and also Saratoga Springs, the 2004 national champion. 

In Portland, Carter and Buchan placed fourth and fifth overall, respectively, to lead the F-M girls to their first national championship. 

The F-M girls have won every championship but one since. 

Buchan won a New York state indoor title in the 1,500 meters and was part of two more national titles in cross country before graduating and moving on to Cornell University. Her twin sister, Kristen, was also part of the 2007 title team.

"To the dismay and disgruntlement of the basketball program, Kathryn decided she liked running so much, she gave up basketball," Aris said. 

It's one of many stories contributing to the lore of Fayetteville-Manlius running, which is now best known for its girls' success.

2006 NTN GIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP RACE VIDEO

Note: A new book, written by acclaimed author Marc Bloom, detailing the rise of the Fayetteville-Manlius cross country program under coach Bill Aris, is due to hit bookshelves sometime in 2019.