Nobody has won next year yet

Five boys state titles tell what Jake Clawson has accomplished at Deerfield-Windsor. His former runners explain how — and what lasts.

ALBANY — Whatley Fountain had won a state championship by 52 seconds. His coach was explaining why that settled nothing about next year.

Jake Clawson sat in a student’s desk during his planning period at Deerfield-Windsor. Across from him, in another desk, a visitor asked how he would help Fountain improve after winning the GIAA Class AAAA cross country title.

“Just because he won this year doesn’t mean he is going to win in 2027,” Clawson said. “Nobody has won that race in 2027 yet.”

He sounded matter-of-fact. The Knights had just won their fifth boys team championship since his arrival in 2015, and Clawson had allowed himself a couple of days to enjoy it.

Allowed is the operative word. His mind keeps moving toward the next race, the next challenge, the next group. He acknowledges that it can become mentally taxing. Sometimes he has to make himself stop and appreciate a victory.

During the conversation, a middle school runner entered the classroom to return his jersey. Clawson talked about what the boy could become.

Five championships explain what his teams have accomplished. The runners who have left explain how he keeps doing it.

They remember his demands. They also remember the coach who stayed after soccer practice, predicted a school record when a runner thought he had stopped improving and delivered two words one athlete still carries.

One call. One offer.

Clawson’s own running career began with a father watching his son play soccer.

Growing up in North Carolina, Clawson was quick enough that his dad signed him up for a 5K road race in eighth grade. Members of the high school cross country team entered, too.

Clawson beat them.

That earned the sport his attention. His first cross country practice as a high school freshman nearly cost him his place in it.

He got into a fight with another runner.

Clawson believes he probably should have been kicked off the team. The coach liked the way he ran and gave him another chance.

He became a successful high school runner and went on to compete at Western Carolina University, where success became harder to find. By his assessment, he was a very good high school runner who was not a great college runner.

Both experiences stayed with him. He knew how it felt when the work paid off and when it did not produce the results he wanted.

He had no particular plan to turn those lessons into a coaching career.

After earning his doctorate at Auburn, Clawson submitted 52 applications for teaching jobs.

One school called. One offered him a job.

Deerfield-Windsor.

His college running background interested the school. Clawson looked up the cross country results and took on the program alongside his classroom duties.

Whatever his original career plans, he was clear about the assignment.

“I didn’t come out here to lose,” he said.

Finding a race worth winning

First, Clawson wanted runners to take the sport seriously.

Practice would have a purpose. Improvement would require effort. Winning would be something they worked toward together.

Jackson Eubanks was a junior on Clawson’s first team and became captain of the first state championship team. Before the coaching change, he said, some runners approached cross country as an activity or another line on a college application.

Clawson gave them a reason to invest more.

“He has the confidence, the passion, and almost a ‘swagger’ that inspires guys to really commit to the grind and do what has to be done to be successful,” Eubanks said.

Once they won, their ambitions grew.

Jon Durham remembers the bus ride home from the 2018 cross country championship. The team was already discussing winning a title in track and field.

“That mentality is a testament to the culture Coach Clawson has built at Deerfield-Windsor,” Durham said.

It also helps explain why Clawson looks beyond familiar opponents when building a schedule.

Local meets often bring the same runners together on different courses. He wants his athletes to discover what happens when the competition gets deeper and the course gets harder.

In Jacksonville, the Knights face heat, humidity and a competitive field. At Bleckley County, they encounter a demanding course and a program with multiple state championships.

Clawson sent Fountain to Atlanta to compete individually against another strong field. Even the runner who would win state by nearly a minute needed somewhere to be challenged.

“It’s not really winning if there is no chance of losing,” Clawson said.

The coach who declared he had not come to lose seeks races where losing is possible. His runners need experience responding to difficulty before a championship depends on it.

A place and a responsibility

The work begins in middle school.

Clawson tries to bring as many children as possible into the program, looking for talent and desire, then helping develop both. Older runners show newcomers what the commitment involves.

Garrison Slaughter remembers being the eighth grader receiving that introduction.

Clawson told him he was needed. He told him he had the talent to become great.

Slaughter heard an invitation and an obligation.

“I was a part of something bigger than myself, and I had people who were relying on me, just like I was relying on them,” he said.

He eventually became captain, responsible for explaining those expectations to the next group.

“Nobody was above the standard,” Slaughter said. “It didn’t matter whether you were the captain or you were in eighth grade.”

For all his insistence on commitment, though, Clawson understood that he could not make the decision for every runner.

Charlotte Augenstein had to reach it herself.

She played soccer and basketball, too. When she asked to complete cross country workouts after soccer practice, Clawson supported her.

He came out to time her.

As she improved, Augenstein began to understand what further improvement would require. His experience as a Division I runner helped her imagine competing in college. His patience gave her room to decide how much she wanted it.

She ran at Georgia, then used her final NCAA season while pursuing a master’s degree at Wake Forest. She has competed internationally and now runs professionally in Austin, Texas, while pursuing a career in the medical field.

Clawson calls her “the most successful person I’ve coached.”

She remembers a coach who let her find her way.

“Nobody can take that away”

Durham needed something different near the end of his junior track season.

He thought his progress had stalled. Clawson saw a school record ahead.

“Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you will set the 5K school record in the fall,” Durham recalled him saying.

Durham did.

“It was his constant belief in my potential that motivated me to trust the training, push through the difficult days, and ultimately accomplish my goals as a runner,” he said.

Clawson also taught him to think beyond his own finish. Cross country might appear to be an individual sport, but everyone had a role on the team.

Durham remembered that responsibility when, within the first 100 meters of a race, he felt his hip pop.

Intense pain followed. He thought he had torn a muscle.

“Regardless, the only thought going through my mind was that I had a job to do as the captain of the team,” Durham said.

He kept running, concentrating on placing in the top 10.

He finished 10th and earned All-State honors.

The following Monday, Durham hobbled into Clawson’s classroom on crutches. He told his coach for the first time that a piece of bone had broken off in his hip during the race.

Durham recalled discussing whether he would be back for track season. Then Clawson reflected on what he had accomplished.

“You were just an All-State runner on a broken hip in a stacked race and are now a four-time All-State cross country runner,” Durham recalled his coach telling him. “Nobody can take that away from you.”

That performance became part of the program’s history — and, later, a challenge for Slaughter.

Before the state track meet during Slaughter’s junior year, Clawson told him he had not yet produced a legendary performance. Durham had given them one.

“Man, that lit a fire in me for that meet, and he knew exactly what he was doing,” Slaughter said.

Over three days, Slaughter competed in seven races and won three. He earned the boys high-point award as Deerfield-Windsor won the team championship.

After Slaughter received his trophy, Clawson came over.

“Legend Status.”

Beyond the finish line

Clawson is Deerfield-Windsor’s director of curriculum and teaches AP U.S. History and AP U.S. Government. He believes the work his runners do can prepare them for challenges that carry no medals.

They learn to accept responsibility, work without an immediate reward and stay with something difficult long enough to improve.

His former runners describe those lessons in their lives now.

Eubanks works as an aerospace engineer in Atlanta. Slaughter studies finance at Auburn, with a minor in real estate development, applying the discipline he learned as a runner to his studies and career ambitions.

Durham, a 2022 Deerfield-Windsor graduate, expects to graduate from Auburn in December with a nursing degree.

Over the summer, he joined members of this year’s team for a few runs. He no longer had a place in the lineup to earn or a school record to chase.

He came back anyway.

Now the Knights have another championship to celebrate and a break until after Thanksgiving, when practice resumes for spring track and field.

In Clawson’s classroom, a middle school runner had stopped by to return his jersey. His coach was already talking about his potential.

The next season’s races were months away.

The work had already begun.