Humble Origins

I want to treat this blog as helpful testimony or emotional exorcism rather than verbal masturbation of "the glory days." In that effort, I'll tell my earliest running memory. It's a humbling one.

I became a runner in the way many other youths did (and still do today, I'm sure): to be fit for another sport. I was a soccer addict in my youth, and it was my dad's suggestion that I join the cross country team in the fall so I could be fitter and faster once soccer season rolled around. I was an unremarkable sixth-grader, short and snaggle-toothed as I was. I was even less remarkable--if that were possible--as a runner. When I entered my seventh-grade year at a new school, I thought cross country would be just a fun after-school outlet with my friends.

Somehow things were different at this new school. The sport seemed more important and competitive. Our team's coach, the legendary Baylor Wrestling icon Jim Morgan, made everything fun, but he was a competitor. The day before my first real cross country meet, I felt the pressure to perform. I was petrified that I'd fail, that I'd disappoint my coach, my team, my family, and any girls that might be watching. On meet morning, I remember feeling a cold sweat as I packed my uniform. To this day I recall maybe one other time that I've felt that nervous and apprehensive (my first day as a high school teacher).

That afternoon I did fail. I did disappoint. What happened? My nerves nearly made me sick in the locker room after school, and that gave me the idea that I should just "be" sick. I left my friends to their pre-race prep while I found a phone to call my dad. I told him I felt nauseous and wanted to go home. I thought he'd sympathize and help me feel better about being a coward. I was wrong.

My dad gave me the Disappointment Talk. Surely you know this one; the talk that kills part of your soul because you expected--even wanted --to be yelled at. My dad believed something was psychologically wrong with me, such that he called our school's counselor and made an appointment for me. Ashamed, mortified, broken, I entered her office the next morning and was forced to talk about my anxieties and what made me avoid the race.

That memory makes me feel ashamed to this day, but I think I took the best from it. I've come a long way since then. I'm no shrink, but I'd venture a guess that every competition I've entered since that day has been an effort not to disappoint my father. My parents have always been my greatest advocates and fans, and in some twisted way even my dad's concern that I was a nutjob head case was meant to make me a better man. One thing's been certain: I never again ran away from competition...unless I was in the lead.