Moore High School runner Rachel Freeman left an impact on coach, team for which she never got to run – Oklahoman.com

Steve Guymon will be at the office early Wednesday, waiting on letters of intent to arrive.

He is women’s cross country and track coach at Ouachita Baptist University, and when he was hired by the small Arkansas college a year ago, he was given a directive to grow both programs. Because of that, more than a dozen recruits will be making their commitments official on Signing Day, sending him a National Letter of Intent.

But Guymon will be thinking a lot about the one who won’t be coming.

Rachel Freeman was supposed to sign with Ouachita on Wednesday.

Monday, she was killed when a pickup hit her while she was running with several of her Moore High School teammates.

“I’d have loved to have had the opportunity to coach her for four years,” Guymon said.

He paused.

“We feel kind of cheated.”

Those in Moore and throughout the high school running community know the feeling. As the reality of the tragedy began to set in Tuesday morning came news a second student had died. Yuridia Martinez, a sophomore, died from injuries she suffered in the incident.

Four others were hit, three of whom remain hospitalized.

An official from Moore Public Schools said the six were “violently struck.”

The horror of it is almost too much to imagine, and the ripples have reached well beyond the metro area and even the state.

Guymon went to an early morning Bible study Tuesday in Arkadelphia, which sits halfway between Little Rock and Texarkana on Interstate 30. Before he headed to the office, he sent a text to his three adult sons.

“It’s not what you take from this world,” he wrote, repeating some of the wisdom heard that morning. “It’s what you give it.”

Soon after, Guymon’s phone rang.

It was Rachel Freeman’s dad.

He shared the news about Rachel’s death.

“I’m still in shock,” he said an hour or so later.

Not even a year ago, Guymon had never met Rachel. When he moved to Ouachita Baptist after two successful decades at Harding University — the school in Searcy, Arkansas, is as far northeast of Little Rock as Arkadelphia is southwest — he sent letters to high school coaches around the region. He had lots of scholarships to offer as Ouachita expanded its programs.

One letter went to Brian Givens, the coach at Moore High, and he gave it to Rachel.

“Then out of the blue, she just calls me,” Guymon said. “I’ve been in this business a long time. I started coaching in ’84. There’s certain people you really enjoy just talking to and visiting with — you look forward to making that phone call — and she was one of those people.

“She just had that real happy, bubbly sound every time you talked to her.”

Guymon invited Rachel to make an official visit to campus. The football team had a home game the weekend she was there, and Guymon wanted her to experience a slice of campus life.

He also wanted to be at the game because his son played for Ouachita. Guymon’s parents, who are in their 80s, made the trip from Memphis for the game, and before the coach introduced Rachel to them, he had a warning.

“If you get around my dad,” Guymon said, “he’s gonna recruit harder than I do.”

Guymon was right. As Rachel talked to his parents, the coach could tell they thought as highly of her as he did.

“Man, you gotta get that girl,” Guymon’s dad told him later. “That girl has got personality. She’s the kind you can build a program around.”

Guymon’s dad even tried to make Rachel a deal — if the football team won its game that day, she would commit to run at Ouachita Baptist.

The football team won, and even though Rachel didn’t commit that day, she called Guymon a few weeks later with good news.

“Tell your dad,” she said, “I gotta go there.”

Guymon was ecstatic. Rachel wasn’t the most decorated runner in the recruiting class — at 5-foot-3, she didn’t have the long, lithe build of many distance runners — but the coach knew her personality and attitude would change the team. She worked hard and stayed positive. Those kinds of things rub off on others.

She might’ve made varsity, but if she didn’t, Guymon knew she’d be a team leader.

“With her,” he said, “golly, she had so many qualities to offer.”

The 17-year-old was already reaching out to her future teammates. She’d text them. She’d call them. She was already making plans with the girl who was going to be her roommate and the two others who were going to be suitemates.