Monday, 8/25/08 (b)

At the 2:35 meeting for prospective cross-country runners, two more harriers joined the squad. The "usuals": Kory, Mark, Jake, Nick, and D.J. were all there as well.

There was Joe Shivers, apparently a friend of Jake's who Jake had talked into giving cross-country a second chance after an unpleasant experience with the sport last year. Apparently, Joe had run afoul of Coach Perlozzo early on for "wholly inadequate" effort and had been a subject of unchecked scorn from the coach the rest of the year.

The other new runner was a slight Hispanic boy who introduced himself in a mumble as Jorge Castro. He sat by himself toward the far side of the room and didn't say much. About all that Matt got out of him in their "let's go around and introduce ourselves" session was that he was new to Clover Valley and that he had been running some this summer.

He handed his squad the medical waivers that J.T. had given him and told them they'd be practicing every day after school from 2:45 to 4:15, that their first meet was only 9 days away, and that he'd see them tomorrow. Most of the squad loitered some on the way out of Coach Adamson's classroom, with the exception of Jorge who was gone before Matt put his cross country folder into his briefcase.