Creekview runner’s decision to leave football for cross country pays off

What began as a quest to get into better condition for football season had some unexpected consequences for Malachi Burnett.

The senior from Creekview High School in Cherokee County no longer puts on pads or a helmet. He has instead developed into one of the top cross country runners in Georgia, and will defend his state title when the GHSA hosts its championships in Carrollton on Friday.

“I just did track to get in shape, and I ended up being pretty good at the 800 and my coach convinced me to do cross country instead of football,” Burnett said. “He knew from the beginning that my thing was to play football, but he’d just make a joke or a suggestion that I should do cross country instead of football.”

Burnett kept hearing the same message repeated day after day. After watching his time continue to drop, Burnett decided to take the big step.

“I said, let’s just do cross country,” he said. “I don’t think I would have been nearly as competitive in football as I am at running. I definitely think I made the right decision.”

“I just did track to get in shape, and I ended up being pretty good at the 800 and my coach convinced me to do cross country instead of football,” Malachi Burnett says. (Courtesy of Drew Burnett)

Burnett, who has signed to run at Liberty University, has the best time in Class 5A this year, running a 14:54.73. The only better times are from Jameson Pifer of Class 6A Collins Hill (14:37.67), Aaron Brodrick of Class 3A Oconee County (14:41.39) and Cameron Collier of Class 4A Midtown (14:54.09). Cross country times are difficult to compare; the races are all 5K in length but take places on different courses with different characteristics.

The GHSA will hold its state cross country championships in Carrollton. It will conduct the Class 4A (9 a.m. boys, 9:45 a.m. girls), Private (10:30 a.m. boys, 11:15 a.m. girls) and 5A (noon boys, 12:45 p.m. girls) races on Friday; and the Class A Division 1 (8 a.m. boys, 8:45 a.m. girls) and Division 2 (9:30 a.m. boys, 10:15 a.m. girls), Class 6A (11 a.m. boys, 11:45 girls), Class 2A (12:30 p.m. boys, 1:15 girls) and Class 3A (2 p.m. boys, 2:45 p.m.) races on Saturday.

Burnett ran a 15:50.11 at the state meet last year and won the race by 26 seconds. He likes the Carrollton course because of its challenging hills. That’s where Burnett said he is able to mentally grind and gain an advantage over others.

“I just like courses with hills a lot,” Burnett said. “That’s why I love our state course at Carrollton. It’s got a lot of hills and that’s where I get my advantage. A lot of people start to take it easy on the downhill and I’m thinking, ‘All right, I got up the hill, now it’s time to kill the downhill as well.’ Some are still recovering from the hill and we’re going full throttle down the hill.”

Creekview coach Kirk Scharich has watched Burnett’s development as a runner and a team leader.

“He’s just a hard worker, very determined, very disciplined, and he makes his teammates better,” Scharich said. “He gets people together for Sunday runs and that’s really helped our program and hopefully we can be right there for winning state as a team, as well. A lot of that has to do with Malachi.”