Paul SchwartzThe first individual state champion in Saddle River Day history almost didn’t get to the starting line of his historic race on Nov. 8.
Misha Theberge thought he’d end his junior cross-country season early after he ran what he thought was a poor race at the Lou Molino Bergen Meet of Champions on Oct. 25, coming in 26th, much lower than he expected.
“I’d put in so much hard work and I didn’t think I was getting results,” said Theberge, the North Jersey Male Athlete of the Week, presented by HSS. “And when you’re not getting results, it’s hard to find a reason to keep going.”
“He looked so despondent, sitting on the ground at Darlington with a dazed look in his eye and I told him not to make an emotional decision but to wait a day or two and see how he felt. He’d put too much into this to just stop,” said coach, Jen Maylath, who was a standout runner at Cliffside Park and St. Peter’s University. “I knew what he was going through and I knew it was just not his day.”
Theberge, after talking with Maylath and friends from the Pascack Running Club, a group of older runners he sometimes trains with, knew that giving up wasn’t for him.
And giving up didn’t square with the reason he had rededicated himself to a sport he’d grown to love in honor of his late grandfather, Charlie Soumas, who died in 2024.
“He would always tell me two things, ‘never, never give up’ and the story of the Greek courier (Pheidippides) who in the legend ran more than 24 miles from Marathon, Greece to Athens to announce a major battle victory, crying ‘rejoice, rejoice, for we are victorious,” said Theberge, who is of Greek and Argentinian heritage.
So when he pulled himself together and won the Non-Public B state championship two weeks later, Theberge pointed to the sky as he neared the finish line in honor of his beloved Greek grandfather and to honor his favorite soccer player, Argentinian legend Lionel Messi.
“Messi does it all the time when he scores a goal and I started doing it, Theberge said. “This time it really felt natural.”
