Francie Tedder didn’t like finishing second, so she did something about it.
“I remember my first Girls on the Run race I ever did; I got runner-up, and I was so mad,” Tedder recalled. “So, I was like, ‘OK. I have to lock in. I’m going to actually put work into this.’ ’’
She was in third or fourth grade at the time, just starting her competitive running career with a 5K on Hutchinson Island through the local chapter of the Girls on the Run. The non-profit organization’s mission is to inspire girls in grades 3-8 “to be joyful, healthy and confident” through a curriculum integrating running.
Mission accomplished, as Tedder is still on the run. Now 17, the Savannah Arts Academy senior heads a girls' cross-country team seeking its third consecutive GHSA Class 2A state title and fourth in five years.
Francie Tedder after winning her first state title with Savannah Arts in 2024. (Photo Savannah Arts Academy)
Tedder said that’s her top priority, continuing “a high standard” set by the 2022 squad that won the program’s first state championship. It featured a senior class led by Margaret Wade, Lyric Olson and Ava Coffey. Tedder followed as a freshman in 2023 when the Panthers placed third.
“I kind of always had these footsteps to fill,” Tedder said.
She came to Savannah Arts from Charles Ellis Montessori Academy, where she also excelled as a runner. Tedder recalled finishing fourth in the 2-mile race as a sixth-grader at the city championship.
“I was also very mad,” Tedder recalled, noting as a silver lining that the top four finishers of that race would reunite on the 2024 SAA team and collect a state crown. “That’s pretty cool.”
As a freshman, Tedder got better at handling her results through Panthers teammates such as her friend Leah Nyce, who was two years ahead and generally faster.
“I think that taught me a good lesson that … basically I need to be in the race against myself most of the time,” Tedder said. “But I always do like to win, too. It’s not bad.”
All she’s done this season is win, going 4-0 in four meets.
The team’s co-captain with junior McKay Bennett, Tedder opened the season on Aug. 27 with first place at the Frazier-Hite Invitational (21:10.97), followed by the fastest finish at the Stinger Invitational (19:46.85) on Sept. 3 and the Southern Georgia XC Championship (19:58.30) on Sept. 10.
The 2024 state championship team at sectionals, one week before Tedder won her first state title with the Panthers (Photo Savannah Arts Academy)
After SAA head coach Steve Ricciardi gave varsity runners the day off over the long season for the Raider Invitational on Sept. 16, the Panthers were back at it on Sept. 26 at the 5K@The Farm in Guyton.
Tedder led the Panthers over the 3.1-mile course in 19:06.44 for the victory. Bennett was fourth (19:57.04) and fellow junior Ava Treece was sixth (20:31.12) as the team’s core trio came through. Other key contributors were seniors Madeline Balthrop (eighth, 20:39.29) and Morgan Irvine (12th, 21:11.24) and sophomore Eleanora Smith (19th, 22:19.63).
Tedder’s personal record for the 5K is 18:36, set last Oct. 16 at the Run the Plank Invitational in Brunswick. Teams' scores in cross country are determined by individual runners’ placements in the field, with every course different and conditions varying.
“As a senior, that is my focus going into a race is to win it,” Tedder said ahead of the Guyton meet. “It’s just hard to focus on times. I haven’t PR’d yet this season, but I’m still happy with my performances just because cross country is really about where you place within a race. I can’t be mad if I place as well as I possibly can.”
Steady as she goes
“She’s just so incredibly consistent, and as a coach that’s such a nice thing,” Ricciardi said before the Guyton meet. “She doesn’t yo-yo race to race. She continues to slowly improve from year to year and race to race.”
Tedder is so dependable that she’s almost taken for granted, Ricciardi said, noting another coach commenting, “Francie’s Francie.”
Along with putting in the hard mileage throughout the season and the year that builds elite conditioning, the 6-foot Tedder is deceptively fast, Ricciardi said.
“Because she is so tall, people don’t realize how fast she’s moving,” he said.
She also stands out from the crowd because of her personality, with Ricciardi using descriptions such as “carefree” and “she doesn’t run stressed.”
“That’s where she’s different from some of the other runners I’ve had,” the coach said. “She’s very, very light-hearted and she’s focused, but she’s not that hyper-focused, unbalanced kind of person that a lot of runners can turn into if they’re not careful. She’s pretty well-balanced. She’s got a good, light-hearted attitude about things. She doesn’t seem to get really stressed much.
“She seems so calm and collected,” Ricciardi added. “But (she has) the toughness a lot of these kids don’t get the credit for. Because of the sport, people don’t realize just what they put themselves through. If you go to any finish line at a cross country race, you see what these kids put out there. It’s amazing.”
Starting early
Tedder calls Ricciardi as an “incredible coach” who has built the program’s winning culture.
She also credits some of her personal success to her mother, Anne Hart, the publisher of SouthernMamas.com and formerly a longtime columnist for the Savannah Morning News. She is Francie’s “self-appointed nutritionist,” according to her daughter.
Her mother instilled a healthy lifestyle along with importance of academics for her and her older brother Hart Tedder. A standout multisport athlete while at Jenkins High and one of the area’s top runners, he attends Georgia Tech.
When the siblings were small, they hosted birthday parties with sleepovers. The next morning, say 8 a.m., the partiers – perhaps still recovering from cake and ice cream -- had what might be considered a rude awakening.
“We would make all of our friends do like a mile race. They all definitely did not love it so much,” Francie recalled of the timed runs. “Some of them wouldn’t always finish the races. They’d just come back early for the cake, but for the most part, we got it done.”
Tedder is a high academic achiever, among the top in her class, said Ricciardi.
After a rigorous selection process, she was chosen for the Governor’s Honors Program for some of the state’s best high school sophomores and juniors and hosted in the summer by Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. Tedder would like to run on a college team, but academics are a higher priority. She’s interested in social studies and public policy.
Tedder is taking all advanced placement courses this fall at the arts high school, where she is a band major (plays tenor saxophone) but commented, “I like to say my major is running.”
Her accolades include the track and field team, where as a sophomore at the state meet, Tedder won the 3,200-meter race (11:43.65) and was second in the 1,600 (5:13.28). As a junior, she captured the 1,600 (5:14.09) and was second in the 3,200 (12:19.65). She also ran a leg of SAA’s gold medal-winning 4x800 relay team.
Tedder’s next state meet is in November in Carrollton, where last year she finished second (21:29.23). That might have bothered a younger, less-mature version of herself, but Tedder has a different perspective.
“Although I would love to win that individual title in cross country -- I’ve never won one before -- I do have a couple for track, so I don’t think I’d be too devastated if I didn’t win,” Tedder said. “(I’m) trying to think more of focusing on trying to win (the team title). If we could pull off the team win for my senior year, that would be pretty awesome.”
Photos courtesy of Savannah Arts Academy Athletics. Lead story photo Craig LeTourneau.
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