It’s Mother’s Day Weekend, so don’t forget to call mom. I will definitely be chatting it up with mine.
A few years ago a buddy of mine informed me that my old High School was remodeled and the put in a Display Case that ran the entire length of the building. He told me that in this case were awards and photos going back to the beginning of the school in 1957. He told me it was majorly impressive.
Of course I asked if there were any pictures of me in the case. He replied that there were a few, but none of me pertaining to my favorite sport, football. At the time I found this odd and yet humorous. My all time favorite sport was football. I spent most of my time working on a career with football. My second most consuming sport was track and field. I also did some boxing, baseball and softball.
In the case at my old school are pictures of me from 1977. I have not viewed these pictures but I am told that there are four pictures. A picture of the mile relay team from 1977, a picture of the sprint relay team form 1977, a picture of me running the quarter mile in the State Championship Track meet and a picture of me being awarded Most Congenial (Yup, I missed out on most athletic. What can I say other than they give out the awards during basketball season and our team went to the State tournament that year).
Now I have a lot of “athletic moments” stored in my head. Most of them are football memories. But when I was asked which moments gave me the biggest rush, well it had to be some track memories. I think that this is because a football memory usually is a play in a game. But the game led to the play and the game lasts for hours. Yet in track this moment could be anywhere from a mere 10 seconds to a maximum of about 50 seconds.
So here is my favorite “rush” memory.
In 1977, the relay teams I was on qualified for the State Meet. In Texas, you go to “invitational’s” each week for about two months. Then you go to the District track meet. The winners move on to the city track meet. The next step is two regional track meets. Then the best of the best go to run one race in the state track meet, and there it is winner takes all. You can only participate in three events in any one track meet. So I was in the Sprint relay, the mile relay, and I ran the Quarter Mile solo. I would occasionally run the hundred yard dash or the 220 year dash instead of the Quarter Mile. But we had guys that had qualified for those events already, so I went with the Quarter Mile.
The very first event that morning was the running of the Sprint Relay. If you can imagine a High School or College football stadium then you have seen a track that runs around the field. The Sprint Relay consists of four guys, each running one leg of a race, and the entire race is only one lap around the track. The entire race takes about 40 seconds. Each leg takes about 10 seconds.
This was my realization and my rush. I had run track for six years at this point. I was the second leg of the Sprint Relay team, lining up next to the fastest young men in the great state of Texas. It was amazing to be on the track with them, but I was a very cocky guy. So I kept telling them how lucky they were to be on the track with me.
My school was way out in the country. All the guys I ran with back then were your typical “good ol’ country boys”. We weren’t rich or flashy. We were just guys that hated to lose at anything. And we had been buddies for years. We knew everything about each other. We had even made this one race a science. We knew who ran the curves best and who ran the straights best. We knew who was a step faster on that particular day and who might be a step slower.
So we had several different “marks” that we would use. You see, each guy has to run a leg; and there are guidelines on where the baton can be passed between two runners. But if you were a bit faster on a given day then we would arrange for you to get the baton at the beginning of the zone. Therefore you would run about 10 yards more that the guy handing off to you.
Also, and don’t take this as racial, we were the ONLY white guys in the race. So based on stereotypes, everyone figured the “country boy all white” team wouldn’t have a chance. And we were a poor school too. Our uniforms weren’t flashy. We had white cotton tank tops with an “M” on them. We had Maroon cotton shorts and just plain white spikes. We definitely looked “country” compared to all the BIG CITY teams that we were competing against with their flashy digs.
Seconds before the start of the race, I take a moment to look around. We are in Austin, where the Texas Longhorns play. There are about 40,000 people already watching. And I realize that I have run and run for six years just to have this chance to run my ass off for a mere 10 seconds. Just 10 freakin’ seconds to display my worth to the state after years of training. And 10 seconds does not give you any room for error. One bad step, a blink of an error with the exchange, or something as minute as a pimple on our ass could cost you a second. And in this race a second is the difference between the winner and last place.
For a moment it was overwhelming. But I had been in the spotlight many times before. So I took a breath, looked down the track and my buddy waiting for me, and lined up at my mark. I even told my competition not to worry about keeping up. (I told you I am cocky) The gun fired starting the race. Everything I had worked for was culminating right now. My adrenalin was rising as was my heart rate. But my mind was focused on only one thing . . . RUN!
Everything was perfect. I ran 108 yards in 10.87 seconds. Me and my buddies finished in FIRST place, leaning to the win by 0.03 seconds. The last place relay team was 1.89 seconds behind us. I spent 10.37 seconds becoming the fastest relay team in the state of Texas. That was a freakin’ rush of a life time.
It was me running. Yes we were a team, but for 10.87 seconds I held the chances of my buddies in my hand. No one else was out there running for those guys but me. No one was watching them for 10.87 seconds, EVERYONE was watching me.
FYI, our winning time was the third fastest time in the nation among High School teams. Yup, we were some “bad ass country boys”!
I wish somehow I could bottle up that emotional rush and sell it.
In my life I have had thousands of rushes. I love to compete, and someone I dearly care about once told me, “The best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t do it”. And she is right; I can’t back down from a challenge. But f all the rushes I ever experienced, by far that was the greatest.
I hope that you enjoyed hearing about it.
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