By By Chandler Myers
The Escambia Academy cross-country team debuted new T-shirts on Thursday evening, which are dedicated to their head coach Joel Lambert.
Lambert, the owner of Roaster’s Gallery and a former track star at the University of South Alabama, has coached the Cougars’ track and cross-country teams for the last four years and has coached three individual state champions and coached the Cougars to a team state championship.
Dale Ash said her son Alan came up with the idea of dedicating the T-shirt to Lambert and the team came up with a slogan.
The T-shirts are worn during warm-ups at meets that the team attends.
The slogan of the T-shirt is, “Cougars embrace the serenity of running,” and located inside the cougar paw on the shirt is the serenity prayer.
The serenity prayer has long been important to Lambert, who said the prayer helps him in life.
Coaching the Cougars has been a great opportunity, according to Lambert.
Lambert said the kids are always ready and willing to practice or give their all at meets.
He added that the chance to coach the team just happened to fall into his lap.
The first cross-country meet for EA is on Sept. 4.