Throughout his freshman year at William Woods University, Layne Norris ran a small number of cross country and track meets and dealt with injuries.

Still, the Wellsville-Middletown graduate was glad that he got an opportunity to run in college for the first time.

“It is a different world, but I really enjoyed it,” Norris said. “High school was fun. It was nostalgic and you can reminisce about it, but I feel like people are a little too serious when it comes to college sports. There’s a lot of fun with training and competing. We’re competing so hard with the same colleges every week throughout the year.”

Norris is already preparing for his sophomore cross country season at William Woods, which begins on Sept. 8 at the Cottey College Invitational in Nevada. Last year, Norris competed in just one cross country meet. He hopes that number will increase this fall.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Norris said. “I’m hoping that I could have a healthy season and run every meet. I think we have five meets scheduled this year. I hope I can go to all five of them and compete.”

Norris said he didn’t get to train much during the offseason since he worked two jobs this summer.

“I ran when I could,” Norris said. “I wasn’t too tired or too worn out from working. There was a little lack of motivation there because of poor mental health. That’s what every athlete needs to address because that’s a big part, especially when you’re a college athlete and have to balance everything with life, school, work, training and competing. In cross country and track, it’s 80 percent mental. Having struggles with mental health is not going to help you out too much. I learned that the hard way, especially this past year and this summer.”

Norris was coming off an outstanding running career with the Tigers, earning all-state honors in track in his junior year and in cross country in his senior season. He graduated from W-M in 2022.

Norris said he found out earlier in his freshman year at William Woods that competing at the college level is much more challenging than it is in high school.

“It was definitely an eye-opener, but I walked into it expecting to get my doors blown off,” Norris said. “When it happened, it didn’t hurt as bad. It is definitely an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world, even if it didn’t go as well as I would have hoped.”

Norris suffered an ankle injury during his senior track season at W-M that carried over into his freshman year at William Woods. In cross country, he competed in only the Southwestern College Mid-States Classic. He raced in just six meets during track season.

“It took a really long time to get it healed,” Norris said. “It was really rough because there were a lot of times where I couldn’t train like I needed to. There was a lot taking days and weeks off and I couldn’t get back (to shape). It was really hard on me mentally.”

Norris said his best performance in his freshman year came in April, when he finished 10th with an 18:50 in the 5,000-kilometer run at the Lincoln University Open.

“That was a big breakthrough because I trained for only two or three weeks and I was getting closer to my high school times again,” Norris said. “That was a huge confidence booster. Unfortunately, I couldn’t carry that momentum too far because of nagging things here and there.”

Norris has some advice for anyone who wants to compete in a sport in college.

“What I would say is not to take yourself too seriously so you’re not too shocked when you’re not one of the best out there,” Norris said. “You’re there to enjoy it. Don’t do it because someone told you that you’re good at it. Do it because you really enjoy it.”