Every year on homecoming football game day,  the OHS Cross Country team runs the game football from the opponent’s team town back to Owatonna. Senior captain Phillip Koslosky said, “The thing I like about the football run is that every year the OHS Football team faces a different opponent, so it’s fun running from different towns.” The Owatonna Cross Country team started their first run back in 2006 from Rochester Century High School. The furthest the Cross Country team has run was 92 miles from Winona. Past cross country runners heard about other teams doing a football run and decided to start the tradition in Owatonna. Head coach Mr. Dave Chatelaine thought it was a great idea. Mr. Chatelaine said, “One day the Hauer brothers asked me if the Owatonna Cross Country team could start a tradition for homecoming because they heard that Austin does a football run, so they thought it was a great idea”.

The setup consists of four vans with six to eight runners.  The first van starts in the opposing town, where they start running back to Owatonna. Two runners run at a time with the game football for two miles, and then the next two until everyone in the van runs four or more miles. After everyone runs four or more miles, the next van starts wherever the previous van left off.  The team looks forward to running every year, some even putting more miles than needed. This year the team ran 48 miles from Mankato West High School to Owatonna High School.