Being the best, or fastest, member of a team can come with some extra pressure and added responsibility. Senior Jesse Frank is one of the faster runners on Winona State University’s cross country team and embraces the extra responsibility that comes with being a leader for his team.

Despite Frank’s current standing with the Warriors, he was not the best at every sport he tried growing up. In fact, he says that he was terrible at sports from Tae Kwon Do to tackle football.

“I was a bench warmer, and even though I was a running back for four years, the only time I scored was when I outran everyone,” Frank said. “That was a significant moment that made me reconsider my choice of sport, especially since I was easily the smallest kid on the football team.”

Frank is a quadruplet and has three sisters. Being very close with his siblings growing up, they did everything together. Even though his sister was faster than him at the time, Frank got a real taste for running in seventh grade when he joined the track team.

After a couple years of track and field, he then went on to run for the cross-country team his freshmen year of high school.

“I saw cross country as an opportunity to do something on my own and as a chance to be an individual for the first time in my life,” Frank said. “That first season of cross country was incredibly fun. I met my best friends, I discovered my passion for running and now I have been running ever since.”

Off the track, Frank has found success in the classroom, majoring in pre-medicine and molecular biology. He has been a member of the NSIC all-academic squad for the last two years.

“I am very proud of my academic achievements as a student-athlete. I appreciate the recognition for my hard work both as a student and as an athlete. Earning NSIC all academic something I will continue to strive for,” Frank said.

Frank is the oldest runner on the Warrior cross country team and with that, he says he feels more responsible for how his teammates perform on race days.

“I think that being the one of the fastest runners does give me more responsibility, but not nearly as much as me being the oldest member of the team. I think the expectations are there for me to perform well since I typically set the pace for runs, and some of my teammates base their race goals with relation to where I am in a race,” Frank said.

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift”. the tattoo on Frank’s ribs reads.

“I really like the quote because it is applicable to both my role as an athlete and as a student. It serves to push away any of my negative thoughts and reminds me that I need to try my hardest or else I will be throwing away all my hard work,” Frank said.

So far, his hard work has paid off so far as he produced a career-best time of 25:49.0 at last year’s conference race in Moorhead.

Frank and the Warrior runners have one more invitational race on Friday, Oct. 19 in Sauk Rapids, Minn. The NSIC championships are after that and take place on Saturday, Nov 3.