For runner and Servite High School senior Paul Resong, running is, quite simply, the purest of all sports.
“In other sports, like football or soccer, there’s a bit of a mind game as well as the physical activity. In running, it’s just gutting it out, using your body to its fullest potential. Running is the sport while everything else is a game.”
It wasn’t until his freshman year of high school that Resong shifted his focus to running. With a background in both soccer and baseball, running was a part of his youth athletics, and he knew from an early age that this might be something at which he could excel.
“I was always naturally fast,” says Resong. “In grade school, I was the fastest in my class.”
Resong’s events are of the middle distance variety, the tricky races that are more than a sprint but less than a mile, races that require a combination of speed and endurance.
“The middle distance events are different than a sprint because you can’t sprint the whole way, so you have to go about 95 percent for part of the race and then 100 percent for the rest of it,” says Resong. “Training for these races, you have to run longer distances, faster.”
A member of the Friars varsity track squad since his freshman year, Resong specializes in the 4 x 400-meter relay, 400-meter and 800-meter races. He currently holds three Servite High records and is going for more, with hopes of doing well enough to have success in this year’s CIF championships.
As one of the team’s captains, Resong considers himself to be more of a “lead by example guy,” where his actions speak louder than his words. His actions and his leadership have been on display this season in particular, when Resong came into his senior year with a new level of resolve after spending most of last year battling a nagging hamstring injury. His determination has driven him to post some of his fastest times yet, catching the eyes of many, including Servite’s track and field coach Richard Gibbs.
“I have known other athletes who would have given up,” says Gibbs, of Resong’s return from injury. “Paul has only rededicated himself to the sport and the team. That’s what makes him who he is and one of my all-time favorites. Regardless of how his season ends, Paul will be successful in life because of his inner strength and faith.”
Like most elite high school athletes, training isn’t limited to just the months of the sport’s season. Resong began working out in late summer, lifting weights and running four days a week, working carefully in the rehabilitation of his hamstring. For many runners, the beginning of the calendar year means fitting in a weightlifting session in the morning before school and running one to two hours in afternoon practices five to six days a week.
Servite’s competition season includes seven dual meets and seven invitational meets during the spring. The Friars came in at No. 9 in an OCVarsity.com preseason ranking of the top 10 high school teams in Orange County for the 2015 boys track and field season, joining top-ranked Dana Hills High School and Trinity League opponent Mater Dei High School, who was ranked at No. 4 in the county.
In addition to leading his team, Resong is a leader on campus, serving in Servite’s Priory Leadership Program, the school’s student body government. As an assistant prior, Resong leads activities and mentors fellow classmates on the qualities of leadership.
Resong is also a member of Servite’s First Aid Club, where the 18-year-old works alongside the local Red Cross to raise awareness and facilitate blood drives on campus with the school’s students and alumni.
Additionally, Resong takes his service beyond the campus and out into his community, serving locally through the Boy Scouts of America program, having earned his Eagle Scout ranking last summer. And he volunteers his time at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Seal Beach, where he helps with confirmation classes and participates in Mass services.
In his final year at Servite, Resong reflects back on the privilege of being able to represent the Friars, both as a student leader and an athlete. And as with many who attend the Anaheim, all-male high school, the brotherhood among the student body is a bond not easily broken.
“Being a brother with everyone here means that you’ll be there for them,” says Resong. “If they have a problem and they come to you with it, you’ve got to help them out. It’s your obligation and your responsibility. It’s not something you feel like you have to do, but you want to do it.”
The Garden Grove resident has plans to study physics or biology in college, with the goal of continuing on to medical school. And his future plans definitely include running, as Resong would like to continue to compete at the collegiate level and beyond.
“I definitely see running as something I can do for the rest of my life,” he says. “It’s taught me so much, that you’ve got to persevere to reach your goals. If you work harder than the guys next to you, you will eventually surpass them.”
