In sports, it happens like this for a coach sometimes: you toil away for a decade or so, teaching the fundamentals to kids, who may or may not be eager, who may or may not be gifted, but who are rarely both.

And then one day a kid shows up out of nowhere and everything changes. It happened to Gulfview Middle School cross-country coach Tammy Loux, who has been coaching the sport for 18 years.