How Bleckley County High School became a cross country powerhouse

When Shelly Cranford went to Bleckley High School, where he graduated from in 1983, the cross country team wasn’t a top priority. Their coach wasn’t a runner and wasn’t fully devoted to cross country. 

That’s why, after Cranford graduated from the University of Georgia, he quickly made his way back to his alma mater in Cochran with one goal in mind: to turn the cross country and track teams into communities worth being part of.

“That was always my vision,” said Cranford, who has been working at the school for 36 years. “I just wanted to return to Bleckley County [and give] something back to kids that maybe I didn’t really have when I was in high school.”

Today, there is little doubt that the coach has achieved his goal — not only is he cherished by his student athletes, but the small-town team also has some of the best runners in the state.

At this year’s GHSA state championship competition, Bleckley High School took home a heavy load of hardware. Their boys’ and girls’ teams both took home first place in A-Division 1, and both the boy and girl top finishers were from Bleckley, sporting their hard-to-miss purple and gold checkered jerseys. Out of the top 10 runners for both boys and girls, Bleckley runners represented eight of them.

Ella Gibbs, a junior, strode to first place for the girls with a time of 18:52.51. The boys’ winner was senior Caleb Darsey, coming in at 16:56.65. 

Both Gibbs and Darsey are defending state champions. This is Gibbs’ third-straight first-place finish at state. 

Running is in Gibbs’ blood. Her mom ran on the cross country team under Cranford when she went to Bleckley, and her dad ran the Boston Marathon in 2013 — the year of the infamous bombing.

“I knew that I was gonna run cross country and track years before I even got into middle school,” said Gibbs. 

She and her teammate, sophomore Lily Farrell, finished within milliseconds of each other, but the third-place runner didn’t cross the finish line until over a minute later. Their win wasn’t unexpected, but it was impressive nonetheless.

“It’s safe to say that Ella Gibbs is yet again the favorite to win this race,” MileSplit Georgia Editor Ryan McClay wrote in his predictions prior to the race. “Her biggest competition comes from her own team as Lily Farrell is a darn good runner in her own right.”

While Gibbs has always been a runner, Darsey jumped around different sports growing up, trying to find the right one. 

“I just gave cross country a try, and I was decently okay at it. I wasn’t very good, but I was good enough to where I’d continue to do it. Then in 8th grade, I kind of started getting faster,” Darsey said. “Then I quit (cross country) my freshman year to try football, and that didn’t work out. So I came back my sophomore year, and I was really, really fast.”

He certainly found his niche — Darsey was recruited to run at Augusta University after he graduates in 2025. 

Coach Cranford’s influence on the team is evident, especially seeing as Darsey intends to study education so he can “become a teacher and coach like Coach Cranford.” Several of his other former students, he said, have also gone on to become teachers and coaches.

“It’s hard to go anywhere without running into somebody that used to run for me,” he said. 

When asked what the secret sauce to Bleckley’s success was, both Gibbs and Darsey responded without hesitation: Coach Cranford. 

“He just has built up such a great program, and he gets students and kids involved at a young age, like he did for me,” Gibbs said.

Getting kids involved as soon as possible is something Cranford does by design, and it eventually leads to those kids becoming part of a dedicated, tight-knit team. 

Bleckley Middle School also has a cross country team, and both teams practice together, 6th through 12th grade. 

“(The students don’t) start over with a different coach or a different philosophy,” he said. “We do the same thing with 12th grade that we do 6th grade. They may do more than what these kids do, but the basic training philosophy is the same.”

This model also allows the high school students to become role models to the younger kids. Just recently, the majority of the high school team members went to the middle school state competition to support their teammates. 

Now that this season has come to an end, Gibbs and her teammates are preparing to bid farewell to Darsey and his fellow seniors — most of them will run track in the spring, so they still have some time. Even so, that doesn’t make the transition any less emotional for the runners who have bonded over the course of several years. 

“The state meet was a very emotional one,” Gibbs said. “We’ve just been teammates for forever, so it’s just gonna be weird not having them at practice next year.”

Cranford has no doubt that next year’s seniors are up to the task of leading the team next year, though. But being a coach, he said, is more than just making stronger athletes. 

“I hope they know, number one, that I love them, but I also hope they know that I love what I’m doing, that I love this sport, and I love them being a part of it,” Cranford said. 

“I tell them now, ‘So look, I could’ve retired from coaching five years ago if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.’ I said, ‘I want to be out here with y’all.’”