PARKERSBURG–Alex White and Max Habeb have both signed on to run for the cross country team at Fairmont State University. After their fourth and final season running for Parkersburg South High School in the fall, they decided on their own to continue their running careers at the next level. It just so happens that both runners have competed together in high school and now they will be attending the same college with the plan of running for the same team again over the course of the next four years. South cross country coach Jason Evans was very proud of the the two team members. “I’m ecstatic because any time they get to continue the running at the next level, that’s a good thing for them and the program, I think,” Evans said. “I’ve seen both of these guys come up through their freshman year. They both ran as freshmen and then they ran all four years of their high school career. So I’ve got to see them grow-up and mature into young men, and it’s so exciting. It’s good for them and it’s good for South.” With ambitions to compete at the college level both South teammates began their college search looking not only for a school, but for a team. Alex White approached Fairmont State University with no knowledge that his high school teammate was also looking into the same school. In fact, both South students had no idea that the other was visiting and researching Fairmont State. White had a few reasons for why he has decided to attend Fairmont. “Affordability, and the coach. When he was discussing with me about the team he really wanted a person and not just anybody coming on, like compared to other schools I’ve visited,” said White. “I reached out to the school and then from there the coach started talking to me more, and now we’re here.” White’s high school teammate Habeb had a different approach for how he began examining his options at Fairmont State University. “I’m pretty sure a lot of colleges sent mail out and that’s how I found out about them,” Habeb said. “But then actually looking at them, they did have degrees that I wanted to know about. It was a nice school, nice campus, and everything. Small school.” Both Habeb and White have been competing as runners for some time now. Habeb has been competing for the schools he has attended since his seventh grade year and his teammate has been running for a similar amount of time. “I’ve been running cross country for five years and track and everything for six,” said White. A big part of deciding on where you will attend college is picking a field of study that you have a deep interest in. Both of these runners may have university and high school teams in common, but their fields of study are on two very different sides of the degree spectrum. Max Habeb has decided to look into the field of computer science. “Within computer science it would be cyber security,” said Habeb. White, on the other hand, is enrolling into another program. “Psychology. I really liked their psychology course,” White said. “I got to talk to their teachers and everything. They’re really nice.” They will start attending Fairmont State in the fall which will be the beginning of their new life at a university. The two runners are launching their higher-ed studies not only as teammates looking to compete for their school, but also as college roommates. “We didn’t really think about anything. We’re lucky to even room together,” White said. “We didn’t even plan any of it out, it just happened that way.” The process of getting enrolled as a cross country competitor for a university varies in length. There are a lot of factors that go into such a big decision for an upcoming high school graduate. For White, “It was a long process.” “Alex has been looking at a few things,” Evans said. “I’ll be honest, when I found out a couple of weeks ago that Max was signing, I was surprised by that one, because I didn’t know that he wanted to continue his running career. But I knew Alex did, and I knew Alex had been looking at a few places.” The process for Habeb was a quick decision. The whole process for him took about a week. “The first time I visited the school was to look into the degree of cyber security, and I got a little bit of exploration in that. The next time I went, I went to tour the campus a little more and to meet the coach” Habeb said, “I reached out to him [fairmont coach] and we got talking pretty fast.” Fairmont State University is a Division II school and a school that competes in the Mountain East Conference. Both White and Habeb are looking forward to attending their new school.