We are sending our talented photographer Eric Flores to the NCAA-II Cross Country National Championships again this year. It will be another great adventure in his young life, one he will tell others about for years to come.

And, of course, he will bring back photographs that capture the excitement of one of sports greatest and most colorful events as the best runners from throughout the country chase the Gold of collegiate team distance running.

Because, make no mistake, this is a team sport. Teams with the greatest individual runners in America are no better than their fourth and fifth scorers, while the sixth and seventh runners take places away from others en route to possible All American finishes. In the mad dash of tightly packed harriers to the finish line it can be almost impossible to make an accurate count of who placed where until the unattached individual runners are removed from the places and the scores sort themselves out.

Believe me, I would love to be there. But I no longer can run these courses with camera in hand, and Eric can. After all, he’s a runner, himself, and furthermore has developed a keen eye for the aesthetics of the sport, shooting photos with an artistic sense in which he finds wonder in just about anything, even birds flying overhead (though we have yet to use one of his bird photos, but if he could get the bird’s name, we might).

As exciting as the championships are, oftentimes just getting there is almost as exciting. A year ago, Eric took a wild ride in a vehicle with the equally wild “Greenies” that follow the Adams State runners to the Big Show, a non-stop trip to Joplin, Mo., some sleeping in tents near the course no matter the cold, then waking to paint themselves green virtually from head to toe before racing around the course carrying the Adams State banner and yelling “ASC, ASC, ASC!” to the amazement of onlookers and envy of other teams.

That is the spirit of Adams State cross country, and it has been an integral part of the program ever since that first men’s NAIA national title back in 1971.

Now the number of National Championships won by the ASC harriers has reached such a figure that one has to sit down and try to figure it out. Let’s see now — by my reckoning, the ASC men have 17 national titles and the women have 16. At one point, before Damon Martin was hired as the women’s coach in 1989, the men had 11 and the women 1. Furthermore, the last six men’s titles have come when the women also won — an Adams State double-double as they say in volleyball and basketball. The other double-double came in 1981 for a total of seven times that the two teams have won championships on the same day.

They will be trying to do it again next Saturday in Slippery Rock, Penn. — a location that has become synonymous with excellence in ASC history. The last time the ASC teams were here was 1992, the school’s first year in the NCAA. The other teams that day might well have thought no newcomers from the NAIA such as Adams State and Western State were going to be able to challenge the top teams at the NCAA-II level.

They never saw it coming.

Neither did I, nor the legendary coach Joe I. Vigil. “I saw it with my own eyes, and I still can’t believe it,” said coach Vigil. The ASC men perfect-scored the race — running 1-2-3-4-5 with just 4 seconds separating 1 and 5.

And as if that weren’t enough shock for the other teams, coach Martin’s women’s team raced to the title in front of small college dynasty Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, winner of the previous 10 NCAA-II titles.

It was a day among many great ASC cross country days that I will never forget. I went to 12 consecutive National Championships from 1985 to 1996 while working as the college’s sports information director, traveling all over the country, and it always was an adventure just getting there.

A person has to be card-carrying crazy to take some of the trips I did, but I guess I fit the description. One came in 1996 when I drove to Albuquerque, flew from there to San Antonio for the birth of my second grandson, flew back to Albuquerque, and with a gas credit card and $5 in my pocket drove 32 hours non-stop to get to Eureka, Calif., barely in time for the national race, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge just two hours before Woody Harrelson climbed on top of the bridge in protest of the cutting of the Redwoods, stopping all traffic for many hours. It was a good thing I beat Woody across the bridge or I wouldn’t have made it.

In 1992, my young assistant, All American David Bell, and I were determined to get to Slippery Rock and had plane tickets from Alamosa to Denver to Chicago to Pittsburgh. But a snowstorm hit Alamosa and the plane was grounded, so I drove helter-skelter through the storm to Denver with David hanging on for dear life as we slid through La Veta Pass in almost zero visibility. We barely made it.

And what we saw in Slippery Rock that day will be with us for all time.

Now it’s Eric’s turn to see the magic in Slippery Rock, but he has to get there first. He travels with the team to Denver on Wednesday, and then flies out on a different plane than the runners. Eric’s plane will take him to Charlotte, No. Car., which seems to make little sense, and then on to Pittsburgh. Amazingly, if all goes according to plan, he will arrive in Pittsburgh at almost the same time as the runners.

His return is going to be a little trickier, since he has to leave Pittsburgh almost an hour and a half before the runners depart, and then ends up in Phoenix before departing for Denver, arriving a bit later than the runners.

Needless to say, Eric is kind of nervous. I told him to never show his nervousness at any of the airports because then he might find himself body searched by equally nervous security folks, not a pleasant experience, I’m sure, and miss his connecting flight. And furthermore, if he does miss a connecting flight, I might have to make another drive of a thousand miles or so to try to find him.

What he will witness and photograph will be one of the greatest sights of his life. Both races could be close, with major challenges from the defending champion Abilene Christian men and, as always, the Western State men and women.

But the opportunity is there for Adams State’s eighth double-double, and as coach Martin said the other night, “It’s now or never.”

Now would be nice. But whatever happens, the Valley’s pride in Adams State cross country will continue for years to come.

Because theirs’ is the real never-ending story.