Throughout his life, Jeff Cramer has cherished every aspect of cross country, but most of all, Cramer has treasured the connections he has forged with his runners. This year, Cramer completed his 26th and final year as a cross country coach at Midtown.
Cramer has become a memorable figure in the Midtown community, through his vivid storytelling, unique approach to coaching and his amiable personality. Along the way, Cramer has touched the lives of hundreds of athletes.
“Mr. Cramer has had an impact on the community for decades,” cross country parent Karri Hobson-Pape said. “I think he’s really been a treasure for Atlanta and certainly for the Midtown High School community and alumni for many years.”
Since he started running in high school, cross country has been a main passion throughout Cramer’s life. This season, Cramer announced his retirement with a heavy heart.
“[I’m] really sad,” Cramer said. “But I think you have to go through that sad period that’s part of the separation process. You have to acknowledge the fact that you are grieving about it.”
Cramer has chosen to welcome this new chapter in his life with optimism and graciousness.
“Your life is full of transitions and if you don’t actually embrace the concept of transition, then you never really grow,” Cramer said. “If you try to stay the same person for your whole life, you never really grow. You just stagnate. You just try to hold on, and I’ve never felt as if that was a good way to live life.”
After coaching and teaching on and off at various schools in the Atlanta area, Cramer came to Grady to teach physics in 1998. Cramer said that at the time, the cross country program was overlooked and insignificant compared to other school sports. He took over, and the team’s transformation began.
“I started the cross country program, and we built it up really quickly,” Cramer said. “I mean we went to state the first year … we didn’t take the girls the first year, but we took the girls the second year and every year after that. And of course, at the end of four years when my son graduated, everyone said ‘Well, he’s probably going to leave the school,’ but I ended up staying on for another 15 years as a teacher and then I ended up staying another 22 years as a coach.”
Cramer approached cross country with the goal of inspiring runners through curating close personal relationships that carried on for many years following high school.
“You have to know how to build personal relationships with your athletes,” Cramer said. “You’re not creating athletes by giving them hard workouts. You’re creating friends and then they choose to do as much as they can in the workouts as a result of that relationship that you’ve already built with them.”
Coaching cross country enabled Cramer to strengthen his relationship with his own son, Wil Cramer
“I’m not sure what our relationship would be without cross country,” Wil Cramer said. “I think we’ve always connected over running, generally. I remember going to races and triathlons with him as a child and watching him run. And him running with me as an elementary [and] middle schooler was how I got into the sport.”
Wil Cramer ran all throughout high school with Cramer as his coach. The relationship Wil Cramer built with running during those years guided him to start his career in the running industry, working for various running companies.
“The experiences that we’ve had going to races together as I was growing up, [were] very formative for me as I work in the running industry now,” Wil Cramer said. “So, I see a lot of the focus on community through running that I think I can attribute to him [Cramer] getting me interested in has really formed how I live my life now. So, I do a lot of stuff within the running community; that’s something I definitely wouldn’t have gotten into without him.”
Cramer has become a father figure to a number of athletes he has coached in both cross country and life.
“You end up playing that father figure with a lot of people, and you don’t really realize it,” Cramer said. “But that’s one of the things where I think the most lasting impact takes in the people that I stay in touch with.”
Hobson-Pape said Cramer’s unique ability to deeply connect and positively influence the lives of his runners stands out as one of his best qualities as a coach.
“Mr. Cramer serves as more than a running coach,” Hobson-Pape said. “He has personal conversations and again cares about them in more than just running. He cares about them in life, in school and hears about stresses that might be affecting them. All of that really speaks to part of the reason why he’s such a great coach.”
Although Cramer has shepherded the team to a number of historic finishes, including the girls team second-place finish at state in 2022, he bases his success not on the placement of the team, but on the experiences they gain together.
“I love being at the state meet every year,” Cramer said. “Every year, when I get out there, I feel so full of pride for however good the team is. I don’t care how good they are; I just like standing there at the starting line and watching them take off and then cheering for them around the course because it’s always the same course, but a different group of people every time. And the years that we’ve been able to get on the podium, I love standing up there on the podium with them and taking pictures, but I don’t really care about the trophies. I just like the experience of being with the team. I like having the pictures to look at. I have 26 years of scrapbooks at my house.”
Cramer attributes his success to his ability to learn from and listen to the challenges and successes of other people and coaches.
“One of the key things in coaching is that you have to be in dialogue with everyone else,” Cramer said. “You have to share your ideas with other coaches. You have to be willing to take what’s been successful for them and then share with other people what’s been successful for you. And your own program becomes better and better when you’re willing to share with other people.”
Senior and co-captain Cary Schroeder has been on the team for three years. Schroeder said Cramer has supported her through all her highs and lows in cross country.
“He has helped me by always being supportive and pushing me in practice, even when I’m having an off day,” Schroeder said. “I like that he never lets us quit, but knows when something is up and needs to be addressed.”
According to Schroeder, her personal friendship with Cramer has been formative in her journey through cross country and motivated her to persevere.
“He has forged deep relationships by talking to his athletes about their day-to-day life and telling us stories and treating everyone with the same attitude and respect,” Schroeder said.
Throughout his time as a coach, Cramer has gotten multiple major surgeries, one of which was open-heart surgery. Cramer returned to coach the team one week later.
“I had two or three major surgeries, and my commitment was to be back at practice within a week,” Cramer said. “[It] didn’t matter what the surgery was; one week out, I’m going to be back.”
Cramer said the level of commitment he has been able to show is due to his family’s fervent support and dedication.
“After I had my heart surgery… [my wife, Ann Cramer,] drove me because I couldn’t drive,” Cramer said. “She drove me to practice every morning at 7:30. And she stayed in the park during practice and walked around the park with her cell phone on meetings. And then it was time to come back. We packed up back in the car … and then at four o’clock she would do the same thing again.”
Ann Cramer said she has loved Cramer’s career in cross country, as she has been able to develop a close relationship with a number of families in the community.
“This year, I know several other families really well from the community, so I feel connected to the team because I have personal relationships with the families,” Ann Cramer said.
However, Ann Cramer said she was overjoyed with the announcement of Cramer’s retirement because of the new opportunities he will be able to embark on with more free time.
“I’m happy because, for him, it will be another transition that will be built upon [where Cramer] will figure out something new and wonderful,” Ann Cramer said.
After 50 years of coaching, Cramer has begun to see himself physically slowing down. Although he adapted to this process by shifting from running with his runners, to cycling and driving, he has come to the decision that now is the right time for him to take a step away from the program.
“I’ve been aging, and I was able to stay pretty much at the top of my game up until about 55 years old,” Cramer said. “At that point, I could really tell that my body was slowing down; I just couldn’t do as much. What I’ve tried to do is to adapt to be able to do as well as I could with whatever I had available. Instead of running, switching to cycling … I think that has been a big help for me in facing the reality of aging.”
Despite no longer being able to dedicate his time to the cross country team, Cramer is optimistic about the opportunities that additional time will allow him to explore.
“People keep asking me, ‘What are you going to do with your time now?’ It’s not really so much, ‘What am I going to do with my time?’ but what I keep telling them is, ‘What am I going to do with the opportunities that are presented to me?’ because I now have the time to take advantage of them,” Cramer said. “So, I’d rather look at the opportunities.”
According to Wil Cramer, his father’s dedication to the team will have a lasting legacy that will span far beyond his retirement.
“It’s probably a very bittersweet thing for him [Cramer], for us, but I’m excited for him,” Wil Cramer said. “I’m proud of him for deciding it’s time and making the steps to retire. I think he can be very proud of the legacy that he’s left behind in terms of all the different generations of runners and parents and people in the community that he’s interacted with and impacted that I think is really impressive and something to be proud of … and I think the culture and the program is in a better place because of his involvement. So it’ll be exciting to see where it can go from here.”
