Real life captain of Disney’s ‘McFarland, USA’ team visits GT Academy

TRAVERSE CITY — Grand Traverse Academy hosted motivational speaker Thomas Valles today.

You may remember the name from the 2015 Disney movie “McFarland, USA”, about the cross-country team at McFarland high school in California.

Thomas captained and led his school to the first ever state championship California had held in the sport and came out victorious.

Thomas has been traveling and sharing his story to kids across the country to try and inspire and motivate those who may have similar familial issues to what he had, or challenges he faced.

Valles spoke at GT Academy middle and high school today and was out at cross country practice, motivating the athletes and watching as 15 kids hit new mile PR’s.

Valles met GT Academy head coach Kevin York at a conference last year, and York made it his mission to get him to Traverse City.

“So over the last eight years I’ve been showing the McFarland USA movie to my high school classes. I find that it’s super impactful. There’s just so many things that I feel like throughout the movie and the overall message just is so motivating” (Kevin York).

“I had some adversity growing up, and I just wanted to share the personal challenges that I had, that if any kid, whatever school they come from, whatever socioeconomic background they come to, anything is possible.

It was really insignificant, but if champions can come from a little town in McFarland, California. Then champions can come from Traverse Academy here and that’s the message I want to give these kids” (Thomas Valles).

Valles jokes he’s not as young as he used to be, and these days only runs around 80 miles per week.