Cross Country, Indoor Track, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Justyn Warner, Canada record holder in the 100m
Favorite team: New York Giants
Favorite memory competing in sports: After winning the open 800m at the 2013 indoor state meet, I looked up in the stands to my Mom crying and smiling and Dad pointing at me saying, ‘you did it.’ It was a feeling like none other. All credit goes to them. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Funniest moment while competing in sports: Going to dinner with the team after the 2013 indoor track meet to celebrate our win
Music: Anything and everything, but I’m a big Jake Owen fan…rock, rap, country, hip hop
Future plans: Go to college, run track and hopefully become a pro one day
Favorite motto: “Work hard, stay focused, and you can have whatever it is you want in life. The safest thing in life is wasted talent.”
One goal before turning 30: To become an Olympian
One thing people don’t know about me: I like building things and working with my hands.
By GORDON GLANTZ
With eclectic taste in music, running the gamut from country to rap to rock, Brad Rivera has surely heard Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” a few times.
Whether or not the song is a personal favorite, it could be the senior Bensalem track star’s theme song.
Even in the summer, when he is recharging his engine from the fall-winter-spring grind, the urge gets the better of him, and he gets out for a run without worrying about winning or losing or what his splits or final time might be.
“I just enjoy running,” he explained.
His longtime coach, Mary Ellen Malloy, would know this as well as anyone.
She began coaching him in second grade at the CYO level and continued through AAU and then high school.
“His mother brought him to me and said, ‘Make him run. He has too much energy,'” said Malloy, who also coached Rivera’s older step-brother, a self-made overachiever, Darren Rivera. “It just grew from there.
“He just started running, and he has been running ever since.”
Running was in Rivera’s blood as his parents – Kim and Ron – also ran in high school.
“I was hyper-active or whatever,” said Rivera. “The doctors wanted to put me on medication, but my parents decided to put me into sports. I just gravitated to running.”
And he wasn’t just a kid working off excess energy.
“No way,” confirmed Malloy. “He was just a natural, especially for a little kid. He ran like an adult.”
An adult?
“He had a coordinated stride,” she continued. “There was no wasted motion.”
Rivera says he was “just running” at the time but now understands.
“I was like eight-years-olds, so I didn’t know what that meant,” he explained. “Not to sound cocky or anything, but when I look at it now – like on film – I can see I the form and technique I had, and, if I saw that (in a young runner), it would definitely catch my eye.”
Malloy and Rivera have developed a close bond over the years.
“I’m the only coach he ever had,” she said. “He’s like my son. I know what he is thinking, and he knows what I am thinking.”
And what she is thinking now is about a future without coaching Rivera, who is weighing options, none of which will be in the Philadelphia region.
“He is interested in Penn State, and Penn State is interested in him,” said Malloy, who added that Rivera may also attend a two-year school, out of state, to continue his track career.
Rivera says that he has also had contact with Pitt and Arkansas, as well as junior colleges in Texas and New York State.
“I keep telling him that I will move to wherever he goes and volunteer,” said Malloy.
In all seriousness, the change will not necessarily be negative in his progression.
“She has been my coach my whole life and is like my second mother,” said Rivera. “She has really molded me into a runner.
“(College) will be the first time that I’m going to be coached by somebody else. It’s going to be weird. At that same time, I’m looking forward to it. I’m anxious to work with somebody else and see what their philosophy is.”
As for Malloy, Rivera calls her “an evil genius” for unique training methods that always seem to have him peaking for the right race at the right time.
Whatever she is, she proved prophetic this past weekend in between the first and second day of the District One Championship meet at Coatesville Area High School.
“We’re looking for gold,” she said.
And gold is what they got, with Rivera playing a key role in the team capturing the Class AAA district title in dramatic fashion.
It came down to the final event of the day – the 4x400-meter relay – and Rivera ran the second leg and could only watch as the anchor, Qhyle Elijah, brought it home.
The first-place win gave the Owls the title by a half-point over Coatesville.
Rivera was the runner-up in the 800 and ran the first leg of the winning 4x800 relay. Three-fourths of that quartet placed fourth at states last year.
The strong spring follows a stellar winter for Rivera and Co., as they claimed the school’s second indoor track title in February, which was sweet revenge for him after just missing the cut for states in cross-country.
“I got extra hungry after that,” he said. “From the first day out, that was the ultimate goal, to win the state title.
“It’s been a great season.”
Rivera, a year after finishing ninth, won the 800 at states in the indoor season and led off the winning 4x800 relay and second-place 4x400 relay.
He handled it like he always did, with the poise of an accomplished runner.
“My aunt was there and said, ‘Did you hear me cheering?’ The truth is, you hear the crowd but not really any voices,” he explained, providing insight into the mind of a runner. “I just try to relax and tune everything out and focus on the race and the task at hand. I try to do what I have to do.
“I try to run for the time. If you run your best time, I figure the place will come with it. I just try to do my best. You can come in dead last, but there is not much you can do about it if you ran your best time.”
While Rivera is more accustomed to being first than last, there is more to Rivera than gold medals around his neck.
“He is a leader,” said Malloy. “He doesn’t like the title, but it falls on him.
“He’s not vocal. But he’ll say, ‘come on, you guys.’ Is he a good teammate? He has grown into that role, (yes).”
While track is an individual sport, and team titles tend to be born from the achievements of individuals, Malloy says Rivera sees himself as part of a team.
Malloy says it shows in his exuberance about the relay teams, the ones that made the ultimate difference this spring and during the winter.
“He can share the glory with the other guys, and that means a lot,” said Malloy. “He’s one of the guys.”
The greatest measure of Rivera’s impact is on the track community in the Bensalem area.
“More people look up to him than he even knows about,” said Malloy, who recalled a day when some young runners, about the age Rivera was when he began working with her, spotted him running while they were at a practice.
According to Malloy, one of them asked: “Is that Brad Rivera? You mean,I can grow up to be just like him?”
That is, if they were born to run.
