A calendar year ago, the Corry Beavers sent multiple athletes to the state track and field meet. One of those athletes was Blake Cook, an outstanding hurdler, who came up short placing 15th in his events. A year later, there is a different story coming home. Qualifying for both the 110 and 300 hurdle events, Cook had his eyes set on one thing: doing what he wanted to do last year.
Cook’s career started in 8th grade when he was convinced to run track by local math teacher Thomas Brady, who told him the wonders of being a track athlete. Cook stated that he would “Lose all the time” in middle school, and “wasn’t that good” at running, but something clicked for him. One day in 8th grade he decided to try out the 100 meter hurdles event because he wanted to try as many events as possible. In 9th grade he decided to run the 300 hurdles, which is where he found his bread and butter. The motivation behind this was him being a good 200m dash runner, and a hurdler, so he decided to run it. In Cook’s first ever race, he ran a 45 second 300H, qualifying for districts in his first meet of the year.
His sophomore year, he ran indoor, which opened his eyes to new ideas on hurdling and how to get better. In the outdoor season, the team hired a new coach to lead the hurdle team to higher achievements, which did happen later in the year. Falling short of states in the 300, Blake only had one hurdle event to run at the state meet, the 110. He fell short. Cook stated that he “was not disappointed in his time, nor his placement at the state meet.” Coming up short in the 300 at districts, and the 110 at states, Cook says made him feel “Obligated to win,” and that he wanted to “make history in Corry.” This was really shown in the 2025 outdoor track season this year, where Cook decimated multiple hurdle records, setting a new school record every meet, even at districts.
In contrast to last year, Cook qualified for states in both hurdle events at the district meet, getting first in each event. Going into the state meet he had one thing on his mind: the obligation to win. Day one went well, but he did not do as well as expected, making finals by a smaller margin than he wanted. Going into day two, Cook was laser-focused on the gold medal. He started the 110 race and finished 3rd overall. Cook said he was “disappointed in my first performance, so I knew I had to do better in the 300.” Going into the 300 with the passion and anger that was built up from his first race, Cook ran his fastest time ever coming in at 37.56, hawking down an opponent in first place, winning gold and foreshadowing a bigger accomplishment he is looking for next year: the state record.
Even though he accomplished his goal, he said that he “didn’t know how to feel”, and did not really get hit with reality until the next day. He said the emotions hit him like a truck, and he was overwhelmed with happiness and satisfaction from completing his goal. He said this quote from the movie “Coach Carter” is what he thought of the whole time he was on the podium: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
The satisfaction of his hard work paying off is what got to him, he said, and all the fine tuning he did at the beginning of the season made him win. Corry sports are on the uprising and it is truly inspirational for the younger generation of athletes.
