Wednesday, 8/20/08

By the time Wednesday evening rolled around, Matt had contacted three more potential Cougar runners, two of which said they would be there at practice. So, he knew to expect five kids, but other than that he didn't know what to expect. He'd called a friend from college, who he knew had run track in high school, but unfortunately he had been a sprinter and didn't know what the long-distance runners had done.

"All I remember was that they were never around." he proffered quite uselessly.

He thought about getting in touch with Sean Perlozzo but decided the risk outweighed the rewards. Even a google search for "coaching cross country" or "cross country practices" didn't really yield anything fruitful, other than that some high school cross country teams have seriously impressive web pages. He eventually resolved on the ride over that there was no point faking it, he'd just 'fess up to being completely unprepared for this and hope that someone who'd been on the team last year could get the group started in the right direction.

He got to school around 6:40 and paced nervously around his car waiting for other cars to pull into the lot.

"This is crazy. I wasn't this nervous when I had to hit those two foul shots in the conference tournament finals my senior year. Settle down Matty-boy."

Finally, at 6:55, a minivan turned into the school lot and approached where Matt was standing. The driver rolled down the window, and a mom asked out, "What time should I pick him up?"

His mind raced. Hadn't though of this. Thinking back to the hundreds of basketball practices he'd attended, he said as confidently as he could ...

"9:30."

"9:30!?!" echoed back at him simultaneously from both the driver and the boy who had exited the car.

"Won't it be dark by then?" asked the suddenly startled driver mom.

"Um. I'm sorry. I meant 8:30."

"Oh, okay. All right Nick, I'll see you then." she said before pulling away.

The other four runners came in quick succession and Matt couldn't help judge them internally with the eyes of a basketball coach. Only one of them appeared to top 6 feet and that kid (Jake) looked the least athletic of them all. He gathered them in a loose circle, introduced himself, and handed out copies of the year's schedule. Before he could come clean that he knew nothing about cross-country beyond what Wikipedia had taught him, one of the boys (Kory, he thought ... or was this one Mark) asked him:

"Uh, coach ... whaddya want us to do with these while we're running?

Oh, this was spiraling down the hole quickly, Matt thought. And at that moment, instead of sticking to his original plan of full and open confession, his competitive spirit goaded him into giving it a go as a newly-minted, supposed, running expert.

"Good question Mark ..."

"Uh, I'm Kory, coach."

"Right, sorry about that." he said ... gratified that his stalling tactic had bought him another 10-15 seconds to come up with something.

"Yeah, I'm going to hold the schedules while you guys run. I just wanted you guys to get a look at who we're up against this year. It's never too early to start circling dates on the calendar."

"You're not gonna be running with us, coach?"

Now Matt wasn't sure if they were serious or were on to his charade and playing it for their own malicious enjoyment.

"Nope, I want to just observe you guys. See what we have here." Matt answered.

The volley of confused faces at least let Matt know that they hadn't sniffed him out yet.

"Hey, let's just do some stretching and then we'll get started."

"Stretching before a little warm up?" ... it was Nick this time

"Yeah, today only. Then we'll go back to normal next time. We're gonna take it easy tonight."

That was the first thing he'd said all night that was greeted with any semblance of comprehension and happily it was also greeted with relieved smiles and murmurings from the team. Matt led them through some basic stretching ... more arm and shoulder stuff than they were used to ... and then had them warm up a half mile or so by having them jog around the school. He used that time to draft out the rest of the practice which ended up being heading over to the school track and jogging 8 laps (2 miles), then racing a quarter mile, then jogging another 4 laps as a cool down. They were done by 8:15, so he had some time to get their names, what grade they were in, and how many years they'd run cross-country. When they all had been picked up shortly after that, Matt exhaled and laughed to himself that he'd pulled it off ... at least for one practice. He looked down at his team roster, with an embryonic and unexpected sense of pride, and scribbled a few additional notes.

2008 CVHS Cougars XC Roster:

Jacob (Jake) Rogers: Junior, 3rd year of XC: most endurance (?), no sprint speed
Kory Hall: Senior, 3rd year of XC: battler ... won the sprint w/ a ending kick
Nick Vincent: Junior, 2nd year: started walking some ... looks out of shape
Marcus (Mark) Whitton: Senior, 4th year: SLOW but steady, I guess.
Darrell (D.J.) Turner: Sophomore, 1st year: smoothest runner, quiet