Harvard XC History

This is a fan-run database publishing all known information about the history of the Harvard High School cross country team.

Harvard High School, located in northern Illinois in McHenry County, first formed a boys' cross country program in 1970 that lasted only four seasons.  The program reformed in 1979, this time with both a boys and girls' team.  Success was minimal until the late 1980s.  David Wood became the boys' first Sectional qualifier in 1982, and the first time the boys' team qualified for Sectionals was in 1984.  The girls had their first Sectional qualifiers of any kind in 1983 when the team advanced.  The program started to truly take off in 1988, when Natalie Bannwolf became Harvard's first cross country runner to qualify for the state meet and also became Harvard's first All-State cross country runner.  In the program's history, the girls' team has had 3 regional titles, 3 teams qualify for the state meet, 8 individual state qualifiers and 3 All-State runners.  The boys' team has had 2 regional titles, a state-qualifying team in 2011, and 4 individual state qualifiers.  In 2010, Bret Willhoit became the head coach of both teams, leading the boys' team to its first state-qualifying team in team history in 2011 and the girls' team to its third in 2013.

Since 1979, the boys' team has had 18 head coaches while the girls' team has had 15.  The boys' and girls' teams had separate head coaches from 1995 to 2001.

In 2014, the Harvard school district began a cross country program at Harvard Junior High School.  With runners starting the sport earlier, the future for Harvard cross country looks even brighter than before!