The cross country course at the Delaware River Equestrian, Agricultural and Marine (DREAM) Park began its life in 2000 when the Army Corps of Engineers decided to make the area a dumping site for soil dredged from the nearby Delaware River. The State and Gloucester County then decided to create parkland and build a regional equestrian facility. Some time after that, Coach Ringo Adamson of Rowan University, who lost several of his team's cross country courses to builders (destroyers?) as the campus expanded, saw the possibility of creating college and high school cross country courses at DREAM Park safe from bulldozers! With the cooperation of the county, he designed courses that were first used by runners in 2018!
In that year, the Olympic Conference began using the course for Batch Meets and the Olympic Conference Championships, and Cherokee made its first appearance in September! There were problems, as much of the area was a building site and the course seemed perpetually muddy, soft and slow, but the Varsity team came home victors in their first race there, the Conference Championships! Junior Ethan Wechsler '20 won the race and set the course record: 15:41! Following him in 3rd that day was Junior Chris Spisak '20 who finished in 16:02!
In 2019, Cherokee's Varsity returned to DREAM Park, won their 5th Conference title in a row and Ethan Wechsler '20 set a new course record of 15:13!
In the crazy, Coronavirus, year of 2020, the team was limited to racing at only DREAM PArk and, while they lost the Conference Championship to Cherry Hill East by only 3 points, they rebounded at Sectionals and won the meet for the 2nd year in a row! Senior Nico Grilli ran Cherokee's fastest time of the year, matching Chris Spisak's '19 2018 time of 16:02!
Only three years old, DREAM Park doesn't have the history of places like Holmdel Park but in the future it is likely to become the greatest cross country site in South Jersey!
To be sure all of Cherokee's athletes are remembered for their performances at DREAM Park, here is a comprehensive list provided by Coach Shaklee:
December, 2020.