Alpha Crush To Celebrate Running Coach's 10+ Years of Leadership

ALPHARETTA, GA – Alpha Crush Running Club, a youth distance running group for athletes aged 7-18, is hosting a 1k/3k/5k race on Aug. 4, 2018 at Milton High School for alumni, current athletes, honorary invitees, and families of our runners. The 1k fun run starts at 9:00 am, the 3k/5k run starts at 9:30 am, and race-day registration begins at 8:00 am. Awards and announcements will take place at 10:45 am.

It’s no wonder, Coach Matthew was named the 2016 Georgia USA Track & Field (USATF) Coach of the Year for youth cross country, as well as a past USATF Georgia President’s Award winner. Coach Matthew is a USATF Level 1 Coach and a VDOT Certified Distance Running Coach. He also is a very active official at local USATF, GHSA & AAU meets, is a longstanding USATF Georgia Association youth committee volunteer, and is the acting USATF GA VP of communications (Board of Directors and Executive Committee).

Coach Matthew started his local coaching career in 2007 as the assistant coach of the Alpharetta YMCA Spirit Track & Field Club. In 2011 Coach Matthew, along with Gary & Lynn Fravel and John & Michelle Olsen, started their own independent non-profit club, Alpha Crush Running Club. The club offers track and cross country seasons and has helped produce hundreds of high school track and cross country athletes.

The club’s stated mission is “to help athletes that want to run high school distance get ready while they can, in middle school (and earlier!). High school distance running is challenging and takes a couple years of training. So to hit the ground running, as it were, you need good preparation.”

While the club and Coach Matthew try to strike a very strong balance between competition and having fun, we are extremely proud of our accomplishments:

• By its own records the club has had 11 alumni recognized as college scholarship athletes
• The alumni also includes the 2017-18 Gatorade Georgia Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year, Sam Bowers (Milton High School)
• Alpha Crush hosts the ACRC Invitational which is one of the largest youth cross country meets in Georgia other than the USATF & Georgia state meets and is part of the annual USATF youth cross country circuit – the meet is going on its 8th year
• In 2017-2018, Alpha Crush had 42 alumni athletes representing 13 high schools compete at the Georgia High School (GHSA) State Cross Country Championships; similarly, the club had nine former athletes qualify for the GHSA State Track & Field Championships, including two athletes that were state champions and another eight that were top-10 finishers at the state meet
• At the 2017 GHSA state cross country meet, Milton & Cambridge high schools were both cross country state champions with 8 of the 21 competing athletes on the two rosters being ex-Alpha Crush team members (Cambridge’s girls and boys teams were champions).
• Alpha Crush has had numerous athletes compete at the USATF Junior Olympic National Championship level, in both track and cross country. Five athletes have earned Junior Olympic All-American honors nine times in cross country (a top 25 finish) with three of the athletes having earned the honor multiple times, and two athletes have earned Junior Olympic All-American honors in track (a top 8 finish)
• The reigning Georgia state record holder in the marathon (14-15 boys age division, set in 2017) is Alpha Crush alumnus Hayden Marshall (Milton High School)

The August 4th event is being coordinated by the club and specifically by graduating high school seniors who are Alpha Crush alums – all of the planning committee athletes were varsity track and cross country athletes at various high schools. The day will honor Coach Matthew but also celebrate the club, its current athletes, and all alumni & their families.

About:

Alpha Crush Running Club works with youth athletes who end up primarily attending six local high schools in the Alpharetta/Roswell area: Cambridge, Roswell, Johns Creek, Milton, Blessed Trinity, and Alpharetta High School. That said, in an ordinary season, ACRC’s roster has athletes who will ultimately attend more than 20 different high schools. Alpha Crush is a GA Association USATF-registered competitive club and at any given time has 100-120 athletes on its active roster. For more information go to www.AlphaCrush.org and as Coach Mathew says, “It’s on the website!”

Contact: Gary Fravel, Alpha Crush Running Club, 678-523-6733, gfravel@gmail.com

Artwork by Alpha Crush Alum, Carleigh Hyser.