Cross Country, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Gary Martin
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: My junior year, the day I ran my fastest 5K at the Souderton Invitational Twilight Meet. I remember I had a really fun warmup, and I wore Halloween socks because it was the first weekend in October. Varsity girls were the last race of the night, so the race went off around 7:15 p.m. I went through the mile on a PR at the time because I got so boxed in that I couldn’t slow down if I tried, and by the third mile, I was able to see one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. I forgot about everything else and just stared up at the sky, and before I knew it, I was finishing the race in my best time ever.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Freshman year our coach took the team to Tyler State Park cross country course for a workout. At one point, the team was jogging to the next point on the course, but I had only been running for three weeks or so, and I lost them almost immediately. I jogged around by myself for a while and was very anxious until I heard, through the woods, the distant sound of Coach Green yelling, “YOU GOTTA MOVE.” I turned off the path and had to run up a huge hill through a forest until I finally found Coach and the rest of the team (which was finishing a mile loop for the workout).
Music on playlist: Anything Taylor Swift (especially “Midnights” or “Reputation” for running), ABBA, and Carly Rae Jepsen.
Future plans: I’m planning to study history in college and one day go to law school. I want to do family law and/or someday become a judge.
Words to live by: “There’s no chance unless you take one.”
One goal before turning 30: I want to run Broad Street and maybe even a marathon.
One thing people don’t know about me: Sometimes I really like to watch documentaries, and The Cosmos (hosted by Niel DeGrasse Tyson) was one of my favorite shows in middle school.
By GORDON GLANTZ
Greg Green has been coaching track at Lower Moreland High School since 1986.
From that time until the present, he has seen superstars come and go.
But those aren’t always the student-athletes he gushes about the most.
There are those with victories that go beyond gold medals and personal bests.
There are those like Ava Devlin, who overcame her own fears – and Crohn’s disease (CD) – to be an integral part of the cross-country team and a solid contributor as a middle- and long-distance runner for the indoor and outdoor teams.
“I get just a big of thrill, if not more of a thrill, watching the Ava Devlins come along and get better,” said Green. “Seeing the reward on their faces as they continue to grow. That’s the best, it really is.”
When Devlin first joined the cross-country team in the fall of her freshman year, it was to be a manager.
“Very humble beginnings,” recalled Green. “She was my manager for about three weeks, and she only wanted to be the manager because a couple of girls that she was in middle school with decided to run cross-country and Ava wanted to be part of a team.”
But Green formulated a plan.
He recalled: “After a couple weeks, I mentioned to her mom, ‘Ava can be the manager, but I’d like to see if we can get her to start running a little bit.’ The mom was a little nervous about it. I said, ‘She won’t run in a meet until she can run 30 minutes without stopping. She might not get into a meet until the end of the season, or maybe not at all, but let’s see if we can get her to start running.’”
Devlin looks back now and recalls the trepidation she felt, and it was understandable.
She started feeling ill in first grade and was officially diagnosed in 2013, at the tender age of 8, with Crohn’s.
Devlin had played some softball when she was young, but was cut from the middle school team, and that was the extent of her athletic career.
“I told him I didn’t want to (run),” she said. “He said, ‘If you are going to be on this team, if you are going to come to practice, you have to run.’ I ran so slow. He said it didn’t matter, as long as I held on without stopping. I lasted for about 3 ½ minutes, once around the high school building, and it felt so hard.”
But, then something strange happened on the apparent road to nowhere. She got somewhere, albeit in baby steps, running 10 minutes the next day and then 20 the following day.
“I remember when I ran for 20 minutes, I was super excited,” said Devlin. “I was allowed to go to a meet to watch, but I wasn’t allowed to get my own uniform until I ran for 30 minutes without stopping.”
She had achieved that once seemingly unattainable by end of that September.
“I was really excited to run for 30 minutes without stopping, even though it was probably so slow,” she reflected.
“It’s a great story,” said Green. “As a child, through grade school and middle school, she really struggled.”
Nonetheless, there were times when it all seemed to be a bit too much, all the practicing just to a run at what seemed to be a snail’s pace and shuttling back and forth to CHOP for infusions between practices.
“Sometimes, in my freshman year, I really wanted to quit,” she admitted. “Every day, it was like, ‘Oh, God, I have to go to practice.’ It was like so hard, but I never quit. I wanted to get better.”
Paying Dividends
The thing about running is that the stopwatch tells no lies.
It told one truth here: Ava Devlin’s hard work had paid dividends.
Just in her freshman year, she went from 37 minutes to the range of 32-33 minutes and then shaved off another 5-6 minutes as a sophomore and won the Most Improved Award.
“I thought that was incredible,” said Green. “It was really good, but I’m a pusher. I’m never satisfied. That’s just the way I coach. I don’t like to put limits on anybody. I told her she could be on the varsity team, and she wound up making the varsity halfway through her junior season and ended up going to the district meet and the state meet.”
She peaked as a junior, running around 22 minutes, before a hip flexor and tendinitis have kept her running around that time again as a senior.
“In her senior season, she struggled a little bit for three quarters of the season,” said Green. “There were higher expectations. But she got it together and still wound up running in the state championships again for our district championship team.”
Devlin not only taught herself a lesson, but one she would share with others with any ailments that may make them want to stop pushing on.
“I would say that you should always try and not quit when you think you want to quit,” said Devlin. “You don’t know how good you can be if you don’t quit. If you can just stick it out for another month or two months, you are going to realize that you really can get better. You just have to keep on pushing yourself. If you quit early, you are never going to know.”
Big Apple Time
Barnard College in New York City has an unforgiving acceptance rate around 11 percent, but that’s where Devlin – boasting a surreal weighted GPA of 6.1 -- will be next year.
With an eye on a law career, she was on the Lower Moreland mock trial team as the plaintiff attorney and defense witness. She also played clarinet in the wind ensemble and both clarinet and saxophone in the and jazz band.
For good measure, she was the president of the school’s National Honor Society.
The fact that Devlin will also be going there as a high school athlete is almost hard to believe.
“I did not think I’d be doing any sports in high school,” she said with a chuckle. “In middle school, I hated running, like when we had to do the mile in gym class.”
At most, she may consider running club cross-country at Barnard, but will most likely just run for the peace of mind it has brought her.
“It’s 100 percent part of my life now,” she said. “I think it will always be part of my life.”
That is exactly what Green had in mind when he made her start running several years ago.
“That’s great, and that’s what I try and teach the kids,” he said. “If you keep running forever, you will live a long and healthy life.”
And, according to the coach since the mid-1980s, it is all connected.
“I always tell the kids this – and I believe it – that once you see success in one thing, you will start seeing success in the other parts of your life,” said Green. “That has helped her a lot.
“She has come out of her shell a little bit. She was a little quiet in her freshman and sophomore years. I think the running and getting good at it really brought a lot out in her.”
Devlin still realizes that she couldn’t have achieved success beyond her wildest dreams without a lot of support.
The list starts with her mother, Jeanine Devlin, who did a lot of shuttling back and forth from practice and CHOP, and her dad, Richard Devlin.
And then there are here coaches, Green and Alana Jacarusco.
While Siri Hellenbrand is the friend most responsible for getting her to join, she wanted to thank “running buddy” Lizzie Allen.
Staying Aware
Devlin also drew great strength and comfort from learning she was not alone in her struggle. She went to Camp Oasis, an overnight camp in Kintnersville, Pa., where the campers, all counselors, have either Crohn’s or colitis. She went five years in a row, up until COVID, and plans on being a counselor there in 2024.
According to Wikipedia: “(Crohn’s Disease) is believed to be caused by a combination of environmental, immune and bacterial factors in genetically immune people.”
It is extremely rare, affecting about one in 200,000 people, and there is no known cure.
Devlin, for her part, wants to raise awareness about CD and help erase any stigmas that may be attached with it.
“A lot of people don’t know what it really is, but there are one or two kids at my school who have it,” she said. “I went to a summer camp for kids who also have it, so it’s more common that you’d think in younger people. It’s not officially curable right now, but there are a lot of treatments out there.”
Considered in remission at present, Devlin is on medication that she gets through an IV every 8 weeks.
The family has done their part by taking an active role in the annual 5K Walk (or run) at CHOP to raise funds and awareness for pediatric Crohn’s and Colitis.
While they have walked in it since 2015, she ran in the 18U race and finished first in the female division.
Said Devlin: “It felt like a big milestone in my running and my involvement in the community because I felt like I was really doing my part of it as myself and as a leader instead of just letting my mom do all the fundraising.”
She knows the genetic links comes through her father’s family and pointed to environmental causes, such as processed foods, as reasons CD is more prevalent in the United States.
Devlin could feel she has been dealt a bad hand in life, but has a more balanced view.
“I think it helped me to appreciate things more,” she said. “When you think something is annoying or really bad, it’s like, ‘Come on, it’s really not that bad.’ You can push through it and do better. There is always someone doing better than you are, but there is always someone doing worse than me, too. You are not the worst off the world. You are going to be OK.’”
Green can see her carry this perspective over as a leader within the team, especially since her reputation for overcoming adversity already precedes itself.
“She is a good leader,” said Green. “She is always there for the team and always supports them. She knows she is not the best track and field athlete. She knows she gets more out of cross-country, but she loves being around the (track) kids and the kids love being around her. She is very positive with them and tries to encourage them. And, because I tell her story all the time, I think the younger kids all look up to her as a great example. And especially the new kids that come out. That could be any of them as long as they continue to work hard and believe in themselves.”
And Green has zero doubts or concerns about Devlin continuing to excel at Barnard.
“That’s a tribute to her running,” said the coach. “She believes she can go there and be successful, and that’s because of what she accomplished at Lower Moreland.”
