2023 Foot Locker Cross Country champion Drew Griffith, a senior at Butler HS (PA) and Notre Dame commit, has signed an NIL deal with New Balance. Last month, Griffith ran 15:06.9 to become the first boy from the Keystone State to win the national title. He is also a two-time WPIAL champion and 2023 PIAA champion. He boasts personal bests of 4:07.24 for the mile; 8:48.01 for two-mile.

Now that you're a New Balance athlete, everyone wants to know, what’s your favorite shoe?

It's definitely the 1080. Right now it's the v13, but I've been running in them since I started running. I had the v11s and I was like, “Wow, this is the best shoe ever.” So I've been loyal to New Balance my whole career.

I love that your career only spans a couple versions of the shoe. If you could go for an easy run with anyone in the world, who would it be with and why?

I think right now it'd be Yared Nuguse because I am going to Notre Dame next year. I think he'd provide some valuable information and he's also just killing it right now.

Perfect segue! Why did you choose to commit to Notre Dame? I am sure every college in the country was chasing you.

As soon as I stepped on campus it just had this atmosphere that it felt like home. The team is so welcoming and treated me like family. And the coaches just really pushed for me!

You're still relatively young in your career, but what advice would you give to a younger version of yourself now that you have the wisdom of a high school senior?

Follow your dreams. A couple of years ago I thought swimming was going to be my entire life and that wouldn’t do any other sport. Then all of a sudden I found this spark for running and realized, ‘Hey, I'm pretty good!” So I went out for the track team and found out I was super good and I thought ‘I can do this.’ You never know where you're going to end up, but just keep pursuing what you're doing.

New Balance has quite a roster of athletes and it’s growing rapidly here. But of all of the professional athletes on that New Balance roster, who's your favorite?

It's got to be Jake Wightman. I think what he did at the World Championships two years ago was super special and I've been a fan ever since.

Good pick! So what’s the best workout that you've ever done? I'm assuming that you might have been wearing something besides the 1080s for this one.

Last indoor season we started off a 1K and I ran five seconds too fast – I think 2:48 to open it up. Then after some strides, I did 5 x 800 with 400 jog rest, cutting down. The first was 2:11 and then I had to keep getting faster and finished at 2:00. For me that was pretty quick.