Q&A With Franklin's Gunnar Shockley

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What sports do you play?  Cross Country and track. 

What is your favorite subject in school? Do you have a favorite academic memory?  Academic memory? Well, my freshman year in honors geometry, I had Mr. Burnett. He’s the greatest teacher I’ve ever had. He taught the whole class the concept of slope in 5 minutes, and our 8th grade algebra teacher spent the entire year trying to do that. I remember the entire class was like: wow that’s actually really easy. 

How long have you been playing sports?  I’ve been running cross country since 2015, but I first played sports around the age of 3.

What does the support of your school and the community mean to you?  Cross country doesn’t really have any community support outside of the parents of runners. Although, the boosters bought us a really nice tent. Would’ve been nice to have this before freshman year haha. 

What is your favorite memory/game playing sports in high school?  I have lots of good memories that come from games/meets I’ve played/ran in. Hard to pick a favorite. Most of my good memories come from the sights and feelings I’ve experienced while traveling and playing in rural Ohio. For example: my 7th grade year, we had to run at Eaton for league. It was beautiful fall weather and I ran my best time I had ran in junior high. Another great memory I have is when I was playing JV baseball and we beat Monroe to avenge our only loss that season. I had 3 hits that game. Hard to believe that was freshman year.

How have your friends and family supported you as a student athlete?  They’ve tried really hard to go to as many meets and games as they can over the past 6 years. 

What will you miss the most about your team when you graduate?  The fact that I got emotional while reading that question really tells you how much my team means to me. I really look forward to running with some great people every fall and it’s hard to come to terms with this being the last year as a teammate with all of them. It was hard seeing guys that I’ve ran with since junior high, graduate last year. But it’s even harder knowing that I can never compete with the team I have now, ever again. I’ll really miss the competitive but welcoming and supportive attitude that my team has. 

What are your plans after high school?  I’m hoping to go to BGSU for sports management or Human Resources. 

Is there anything else you would like to add?  The cross country program has gotten so much better since 2015. Mainly due to Coach Bond joining Coach Applegate and the great sibling runners we have(Bond brothers, Black Brothers and sister). One of these years, they will take down the cross country banner and add a league championship title to it. We’re not quite there yet. But gone are the days of Franklin Cross Country having no competitive drive or motivation. We’re beating teams that we haven’t beat in years. Maybe decades. This is a new team. This is a new era. And it’s only up from here.

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