Remembering Ryan Talented Cross-Country Runner’s Tragic Death Stings Family And Friends

Last week University of Oregon distance runners Rob Aubrey and Greg James conducted their own private service for Ryan Cross.

Cross, 21, a record-setting distance runner at University High School, was just beginning the next phase of his athletic career at the University of Montana when he fell through ice covering a Missoula irrigation canal that empties into the Clark Fork River. His body has not been found since that Feb. 10 incident.

Aubrey and James, former opponents from Mead High School, laid a picture of Cross and lit a candle near the place where America’s best runner, Steve Prefontaine, died at age 24 in 1975, said Bob Barbero, Cross’s distance coach at University High School. The location has become a Eugene shrine.

Their action was a tribute to Cross’ talent. Such was the way he touched those with whom he came into contact.

“Everybody says he was free spirited, but he was a really caring person” said Barbero. “That’s why he had a lot of friends.”

Those friends and family will gather today in the U-Hi cafeteria from 2 to 5 p.m. to remember Cross following a 1 p.m. memorial service at Hazen & Jaeger Valley Funeral Home. An earlier service was held Thursday in Missoula for the UM track team still reeling over his death.

The services will be the first acts of healing for the Cross family - father Barry, mother Debbie, brothers Shannon, Eric and Travis, and sister Robyn - who have run an emotional gantlet the past two weeks.

Emotions have ranged from sheer disbelief to anger and finally intellectual acceptance.

“We’ve all accepted the fact Ryan’s gone,” said Barry Cross. “We’re all dealing with it internally for different reasons.”

Emotionally, he said, the memorial services will help.

“Until we find him I don’t expect we’ll come to full intellectual and emotional closure,” Barry Cross said.

Cross had apparently walked out onto what appeared to be solid ice, unaware that the normally placid water below had turned deadly swift from the thaw. It was the kind of action Cross was known for.

“Ryan was adventuresome,” said his father. “He’d do things kind of for the challenge of it.”

He was also a talented runner who was to have competed for the University of Montana at the Bozeman Quadrangular meet the next day.

Cross was training with the intent, said Barbero, of running a mile in less than four minutes. He had helped plan Cross’ workouts and received a letter from him the day before his death.

Three years earlier, as a Titan senior, Cross had set school records of 4:11.6 and 9:17.59 while finishing second in the State AAA 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs.

“He was a serious runner,” said his dad. “It was one of the few things he was serious about.”

Barry Cross coached him in soccer and basketball until age 13. It wasn’t until his sophomore year in high school that he discovered his aptitude for distance running.

Following high school, Cross accepted a scholarship to Montana but didn’t understand why he was red-shirted as a freshman. He had academic difficulties and last year ran at Clark Community College in Vancouver, Wash.

Last fall, he re-enrolled at Montana, where he was one of the team’s top three cross country runners.

Still Cross told Barbero in November that he was considering transferring again.

“I told him what he needed was called an education,” Barbero said. “He had talent, a gift and was willing to work. We mapped out the basics.”

Even during the cold snap, Barbero said, Cross was cross country skiing 13 miles a day, lifting weights and running or biking indoors.

“He was confident he could break four minutes. That was his goal,” said Barbero.

Academically, socially and athletically, things were falling in place for Cross, Barry Cross said. His son took it as an omen.

“Things were perfect. He was in great condition and feeling good,” he said.

And then, this. Today, his friends and former teammates at U-Hi will be home to play one last tribute to Ryan Cross.

“It will be good for the college kids to come back and have each other,” said Barbero. “It’s going to be an emotional weekend.”

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