The Covington Boys Cross Country Program began in the 1960’s and over the years has continued to be a very successful program, rich in tradition at Covington High School.

The tradition took off in 1969 as Ron Leach became the first Buccaneer runner to qualify for the state meet, where he finished in 15th place. Leach made a return trip as a senior in 1970 and became the first runner in school history to win a state championship. He was joined at state by teammates Mike Stacy, Gale Long and Tim Gibboney and the Buccaneers finished third as a team.

Since, there has been several individual runners and Buccaneer teams who earned state births. Gale Long became the first runner to make the trip three times (1970, 1971, 1972) and Scott Fisher followed with three state births in 1982, 1983 and 1984.

Ryan Stover became the first Covington runner to qualify for state in all four years of high school (1985, 1986, 1987, 1988) and finished in the top ten at state all four times.

Asher Long is the current school record holder with a time of 15:26.65 and was a three-time state qualifier in 2021 (25th Place), 2022 (18th Place) and 2023 (3rd Place).

The distance in the beginning was 2.5 miles and in 1982 it was increased to 3.1 miles (5,000 meters).