After the success of Jim Vermeulen's XC Journal in the many falls of Cross Country, we've asked again for him to provide some news and notes once a month. Think of these as the thoughts that cross the mind of your average coach. Up from Section 3, we present you with "Thoughts From Three."
From here on out, it was-to use farmer parlance-just harvesting all the miles our runners had already planted under the feet and then watered with their sweat. Full harvest or thin, the season-ending rituals were going to happen. The championships would come. Nothing of the season would simply be left derelict or plowed under.
Justin zoomed around the final corner of the back field and targeted the finish cone of his long repeat. He was followed by others, all absorbing advancing stages of fatigue. Around them, as they bent and gasped, summer had long surrendered, but autumn was still in bloom: deep leaf blankets beneath the trees that had shivered them off with cool nights; a late insect hatch against the afternoon sun, swirling and sparkling like floating jewels; field weeds limp, in surrender poses.
The runners walked in small circles as they sipped water and silently nodded to each other. Then they re-assembled at the start cone, stared for a moment at shoe tops and, with slight leans, raised their gazes to the trail that stretched back to the waiting woods and extreme minutes.
Heroism is relative. It calls on some, but others have no need for it. Everyone in this small circle, though, seemed determined to do what Philip Levine once suggested, to "master the necessary," which in this case was a mile-long serpent of trail through the tiring tapestries of autumn. The afternoon sun peered down on its day. As the runners sped off, their visions were narrow and tightly focused on the moments ahead. More likely than not, however, they would remember everything--all of it.
"Call it a long day if you want, and a hard one too,
but remember we got more than we gave...."
Philip Levine
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There are big failures and there are small ones too. For our runners, a big one might be failing to make the sectional XC team at season's end--even on a third try--or to not race for the team the way you were expected to in that critical meet. A small failure is to not get out the door for that morning run in July. Usually, it's the accumulation of small failures that lead to the big ones.
In a runner's world, you always reap what you sow.
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According to a poll by the National Alliance for Youth Sports, 70% of kids quit sports by age thirteen. Amid all the urgent pleas to make sports "more fun" so kids hang in longer, what is ignored is the ironic reductive construction of American athletics. At each increasing age-level in the musical chairs of our major sports systems, places are removed and fewer players can remain in the game. And while we extol the virtues of organized athletics-the physical benefits, the comradery, the development of discipline-we unconsciously cheer on that larger grand game of winnowing. Fun? What fun is there is in watching, with advancing age, one's chance of making a team disappear? Maybe that is, in fact, the plan-to steadily craft (with gear companies cashing in on hopes and dreams along the way) legions of "former athletes" who can then serve as useful sports voyeurs in the stands, those now entrusted with keeping the paradox playing. And the few no-cut sports where raw talent is not the exclusive determinate, the sports where the chairs are not regularly withdrawn? Those sports are typically looked down upon, ignored or dismissed.
"....we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness."
________
Steve Magness and Brad Stulberg warn us to ignore "hacks, trends and fads." A coaching hack is someone with just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Those hacks usually don't know what they don't know, and they are always in such a hurry to become "Coach" that they don't spend enough time shrinking their ignorance. They are often less than humble, typically have all the answers and only fail because it's someone else's fault (that someone is usually an athlete).
In the old days, trends and fads spread slowly. Then came the internet. Now, within days or weeks, everyone has access to the latest technique or gizmo that will ensure competitive success-only they usually don't, so everyone then quickly moves on to the next greatest thing, ignoring the wisdom of fundamentals. These days, too few praise the value of patience and proven methods because both strike so many of us as boring.
"Focus on nailing the basics over and over again."
Magness/Stulberg
__________
"It's August," I told them, even though it was, in fact, late October. "Forget about all the other teams out there these next weeks and simply train. Training is the goal; training well is all that matters. Be teams that train well together for the simple sake of becoming better runners and better teams. For now, it's August again."
We had talked often enough during the season about "getting into the bubble" before races, making sure parents and any other spectators knew the importance of when to step back and leave the runners to themselves and the task ahead.
Now, we had enlarged the concept. Each day, they had no goal but to master the day-and then the next and the next until it was, in fact, again time to think ahead. We wanted them to finally step to the line imagining not exactly what they had to win-if anything-but how capable they were of racing well. That is never a given when the gun goes off.
"Sports is not just about winning; it's about performing."
Robert Marks
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One of the finest moments on any scholastic sports team comes when its members decide to become responsible, responsible to-and for-each other. To become responsible opens the possibility of being useful. Emerson once wrote: "The purpose of life is not to be happy; it is to be useful." And for some young adults, a sports team is one of their first opportunities to feel that. So, for those maturing athletes, this evolution, if it occurs, is one of the great achievements of sports because there is demonstrable value in developing the interdependencies that will later support just communities and societies. The most consequential athletic triumphs are not, as we are taught, the supposed character-building, the discipline development, the exciting self-discovery of potential. Those are, of course, important. The true triumphs are certainly not just the wins and the championships but instead those individual decisions to adopt and honor mutual responsibilities, to become useful, which is the opposite of naked self-interest. It is from that accepted obligation that Joe Vigil's admonition draws its power:
"Don't let your teammates down."