Wednesday, 9/03/08 (b)

The last of the Rose Hill junior varsity runners finished the 5K course around 4:10 p.m. and the two varsity squads started to assemble behind the white, spray-painted line that marked the start and the finish. There were 28 runners in all; Matt's team was outnumbered 3 to 1. Coach Adamson called his team to circle up around him.

"All right, guys. Let's see what we got. Hands in. Cougars on three." Matt encouraged.

"One, two, three, COUGARS ..." they shouted in a discordant jumble.

"Aw. We gotta work on that." Matt mumbled as they returned to the line.

Less than a minute later, the Raiders coach sounded the bullhorn and the race was begun. The course took them into a strand of woods and out of view shortly after the start, before winding back into the open on the other side of the large field that abutted Rose Hill High School. The first runners to emerge from the trees were a pack of four silver and black Raider runners followed by a lone runner wearing the CVHS green and gold. It was Jorge and he looked happier than Matt had ever seen him as he drafted behind the main pack. That group of five hit the one mile mark at 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Behind that cluster of runners, a number of Rose Hill harriers past the mile mark in groups of ones and twos. After about a dozen Raider runners went past, Jake came galloping up with his long, awkward looking strides. He was followed closely by D.J. Matt thought at the last second to write down their times: 6:21 and 6:26.

The Rose Hill coach had by this time crossed back over the field to encourage his lead runners before they went back into the wooded section of the course for their second and final lap. Matt waited it out to encourage Kory (6:52), Joe (7:01), Nick (7:02), and Mark (7:08). Glancing over the field he saw that the lead pack had been trimmed to four and that Jorge was hanging in there, mere strides behind the leaders.

Matt felt a rising excitement he didn't expect as he and the rest of the crowd waited to see what the status of the race would be when the lead runners emerged from the forest.

"Hey, your guy's leading!" the Raiders coach remarked to him excitedly. Up to this point, Matthew had viewed his Rose Hill counterpart with considerable bemusement as this middle-aged man had spent most of the last 45 minutes running back and forth across the field to wildly exhort various members of his team. But now, Matthew was starting to catch the spirit. He ran up a 100 yards or so to catch Jorge sooner.

"That's it, Jorge! That's it! Looking good! Keep it up!" he shouted as Jorge passed, closing with a bellowing "RUN!" as the chasing pack of RHHS runners went by only seconds after.

Matt was torn between waiting for his whole squad, like he did for the first lap, and wanting to get over to the finish line. The Rose Hill coach and the J.V. runners watching the race had already started hustling over there, but Matt waited a bit before deciding he had to see the finish. He sprinted over to the finish line in time to see Jorge pulling away for a victory that the timer clocked in a time of 17:28. The second place finisher crossed the line in 17:37 which triggered a seemingly endless parade of Raider runners.

Matt caught up to Jorge breathlessly bent over but beaming and gave him a high five.

"Where'd that come from, my friend? Wow! You were flying."

They went back to the finish line to cheer on the rest of the squad. Finally, in 13th place came D.J. in a time of 21:12. Jake finished 19th in 22:03, followed fast by a hard-charging Kory in 22:06. Joe, Mark, and Nick were the last to cross the line and all three looked as if they would likely pass out before he could get them back on the bus for the ride home.

Matt congratulated the Raider coach who said he'd call in the score.

"20-35, right?"

"Yep." Matt replied, though he didn't have the faintest idea what that score meant. After having the three slowest runners, losing by only 15 really didn't sound that bad. "Jorge must have earned our 20 points."

The ride back was pretty much a mirror image of the incoming trip. Everyone had recovered from the race. The seniors were in the back; the close-knit junior trio was yelling and laughing at one another; D.J. had his earplugs back in ... the only thing that had changed was that Jorge talked pretty much nonstop to Matt the whole way home to Clover Valley.

First, he recounted the race and how he broke away from the pack around the two-mile mark and how good it felt to finish first. Eventually, he started talking about school and how he'd been to seven schools in his last 10 years but that he really liked Clover Valley and that he'd never been able to be on a team before because he was always working but his mom said this year he could and he'd been running all summer but he didn't think he'd ever win a race and his mom thought he needed to make friends this year but he hadn't really to this point and his favorite class was English but his first favorite part of school was cross-country and he wished that the team could race every day but that he was kinda sore already from the race and that he wished his mom had been at the race but he couldn't wait to tell her about it ...

Matt couldn't really get a word in past a certain point, but he didn't mind. He listened with a widening smile to his young runner let loose with a torrent of thoughts he'd obviously been holding in for a long time.

Wednesday, 9/03/08 (a)

Matt had been looking forward to the Cougars first cross-country meet like he had looked forward to the rare blind dates he'd been set up on in college ... didn't figure to end happily but it would at least be interesting to see what would happen. And as they drove over, he started to catch some of that competitive fever he associated w/ longish rides in a spacious school bus. He just wished it was something he understood better ... he could fire up a squad, but he really didn't think that would help any of the runners on his team who sure appeared to be a dispassionate group.

In the bus over, the squad split up mostly by classes. The seniors (Kory and Mark) sat in the back. The juniors (Jake, Joe, and Nick) clustered in the middle and were the most boisterous on the bus. D.J. sat by himself listening to his iPod in the seat behind Matt. He appeared to be the only one who was in a focused competition mindset. Jorge sat opposite D.J. and stared out the window the whole way. Matt occasionally tried to engage him in a conversation, but it never quite caught fire.

They got to Rose Hill at about ten minutes before four. They were greeted by the Raiders athletic director (Steve Pasch) who took Matt for a quick walk-through of the course while the Cougar runners jogged a warmup. Watching the Rose Hill J.V. runners blaze past him on the two-loop course, it was confirmed for Matt that Clover Valley was in over their head here.

"Ugh. This is going to be the running equivalent of UNC vs. UNC-Pembroke."

Tuesday, 9/02/08

After a long Labor Day weekend spent exploring a nearby State park and after a long-seeming first day back at school, Matt was on his way over to the locker room to join his squad of runners for the warmup over to "T" Park (as the locals called it) when he was flagged down by one of the front office ladies.

"Coach Adamson, you have a call in the office."

In these days of caller-id enabled cell phones, Matt found it disturbing to pick up a phone without any idea of who was calling him or what they wanted to talk about.

"Uh, hello. This is Matt Adamson."

"Oh. Hey Matt. I was trying to reach J.T. but I guess they couldn't find him. This is Steve Pasch, the A.D. over at Rose Hill. You guys are still coming over to race tomorrow, right? I was just calling to see if we were gonna have a JV race. You guys interested?"

"Um. No I don't think so. We only have 7 runners. Just a varsity squad."

"Ah. Sorry to hear that. Down year, huh? Seems like you guys used to have more, no?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure. This is my first year."

"Well would you guys mind if we have a JV race at 3:45, then we'll start the varsity race around 4:15? I figure it'll take you guys 'til about 3:45 to get here, so you'll need time for a warmup anyway. Does that work?"

"Sure. 4:15. That works." Matt replied making a mental note that the runners were supposed to warmup before the race. Seems like that would wear them out, he wondered to himself. "All right. Thanks. We'll see you tomorrow."

As he was hanging up, J.T. lollingly strolled into the office. Matt debriefed him on the conversation and J.T. told him where to find the keys to the school van and the associated signout sheet.

"You coming with us tomorrow to Rose Hill?" Matt inquired catching J.T. somewhat off guard.

"To a dual meet? It's 45 minutes away." Then, fearing he'd been a little too gruff, J.T. added, "Thanks though, not sure anyone's ever asked me to go a regular dual meet before."

Friday, 8/29/08 (b)

Matt saw J.T. only a few hours later up in the press box at the opening game of the Cougar football season. Coach Thorpe, the head CVHS football coach and one of the school's history teachers, had asked Matt if he wouldn't mind being backup videotape operator ... just in case the student assistant charged with the task didn't show. The video assistant did show, as a matter of fact he was there before Matt was, and had the camera set up and working well before kickoff.

The press box was old and cramped like many of the facilities at Clover Valley and given Matt really didn't need to be up there he exited the booth (after a friendly wave to J.T. at the opposite end) and sat down in the stands near a few of the teachers he recognized. Over the first week, he'd met probably half the teachers at the school and it was becoming obvious he was the youngest on the staff by at least five years. That was made further evident when he noticed he was the only one in the loose cluster of teachers who was there without a family. But everyone had been very nice so far, asking him in the hallways how his classes were going and providing encouragement. He'd even had a nice conversation before school yesterday with Sean Perlozzo in which he was treated to a 10 minute seminar on the newspaper business. Toward the end Perlozzo asked him how the cross-country team was going. Matt replied that it was so far, so good. Perlozzo asked him how much speed work they had done thus far and before Matt could answer the former coach assured him however much he was doing it was not enough.

Watching the students crowd around the field's fenced perimeter in swirling tight groups made Matt feel a little old which was a new sensation. The same faces didn't seem that young in the classroom or the school hallways, but out here someone felt out of place and Matt suspected it was him. In his brief tenure in the small town of Clover Valley he'd been keenly cognizant of all the differences between here and his home in suburban Coharie Creek. But for the first time, recognized something here that was exactly the same.
"The same swarms of moths fly around the stadium lights ... you have to strain to hear the field announcer ... 90 percent of the students are paying no attention to the game ... the other 10 percent are over there in the pep section and cheering like Cameron Crazies the entire game ... the band are exiting the bleachers for their halftime show at an absurdly early time (w/ 2:42 left in the first quarter) ... they'll stand on the track for most of the second quarter ... when you can hear the field announcer he's always correcting himself ... 'excuse me that was Carlson on that last tackle' ... the barbecue sandwiches still taste great and you can get a solid dinner for five bucks ... the same elementary school kids have their own Nerf game going in the field just past the end zone ... and the game always seems to be decided by halftime. (CVHS was trailing Willowsburg 20-6.)"

Coming back from the concession stand, Matt saw his two senior runners, Kory and Mark, in one of the dense packs of congregating students. They were too busy trying to impress their female friends to give him much more than a wary wave of acknowledgement, but he did talk briefly with Jake and Nick who were in a large group of friends. After he headed back to his seats and was some distance away, he could pick out Jake's voice saying, "Yeah, Coach Adamson's all right", which made him feel not quite as old as he had before halftime.

Friday, 8/29/08 (a)

As the Clover Valley runners changed in the cramped locker room for the last practice of the week, Coach Adamson waited outside and stretched his calves in preparation for the short warm up run over to Thompson Park. After a week of running, he was starting to feel pretty good about his conditioning and some of the muscle soreness was starting to abate. Lost in his thoughts after his first full week of teaching and with his back to the school's courtyard he was surprised by the sudden arrival of J.T., the school's athletic director.

"Matthew, I have your uniforms. Seven, right? What sizes do you need?"

"Oh. Hey J.T. Yep. Seven. Not sure on sizes. Let's wait until the guys finish changing and we can let them choose."

J.T. grumbled a little at the delay.

"I only have one XL, so only one boy can choose that."

"Fair enough." Matthew replied, not anxious for any sort of conflict as he'd been meaning to talk to J.T. about a more important issue than uniforms for the cross-country team.

"Say J.T. When do you want to talk about the varsity basketball schedule? I'd like to get some early season games against tougher competition to challenge our squad. Might be good to play in a holiday tournament down in the Tri-Cities. Get a few games against top competition and see what we have ..."

J.T. cut him off in mid-sentence, "No. We don't go that far. I'll get you the schedule by the end of September. It'll look a lot like last year. Look I gotta go. Take the sizes you need out of this box and put it front of my office door when you're done." 10 seconds later and J.T. was already out of sight around a corner.

Matt exhaled with a sigh-groan mixture ... "I got a find a way to deal with that guy."

Tuesday, 8/26/08

The Clover Valley cross-country team headed out as a group from school to Thompson Park just before 3 p.m. on another beautiful late summer North Carolina day. Matt's legs had recovered enough to take in the 1 mile warmup, though he'd already conceded to the idea that some days he'd just drive over to the park instead of running there.

Matt had determined from Jake that the team had a 4 mile path through the neighborhoods around Thompson Park that was a fairly common practice routine in years past. After stretching, he sent them off on the run with a minimal amount of encourgement and then leaned up against a park shelter to stretch his own calves. After loosening up, he sat down on a bench and mentally walked through some of the motivational techniques he planned to try with his first basketball team this winter in their early practices.

Somewhere around a half an hour after they set out, he saw the bobbing form of Jake and the little new kid, Jorge, enter back into the park and finish up in the grassy area where they stretched.

Jake exhaled forcefully and frequently after a trip to the nearby water fountain.

"Whoo ... I tried to shake him .... but .... couldn't do it. We .... may have an actual runner on this team."

Matt replied, "Hey. Well done, guys. Looking good."

"I was trying to keep a 7 minute pace ... not sure what ... you were looking for." Jake carried on still somewhat breathlessly.

Seven minutes a mile? What's normal for you guys?"

"That's a pretty good tempo run for me this early in the year. Didn't seem to affect this guy much, though." Jake gestured at Jorge. "Seemed like he could have gone faster if he wanted."

Jorge spoke for the first time all practice. "I didn't know the way back."

Jake laughed. "Hey. Glad I could help. Shoot. I wouldn't have gone so hard if I'd known you weren't going to pass me."

By this time, D.J. and Kory had returned. Another ten minutes passed ... he'd sent the other four back to school for their warmdown ... and he was starting to get worried about the whereabouts of the still-absent Cougars when he saw the last three slowly filter back into the park. Matt quickly did the math and asked the trio:

"What pace were you guys keeping there? 11 minutes?"

"We had to walk some coach." Joe replied with some hesitation.

Matt paused and gave his first ever cross-country coaching piece of instruction with a sly smile.

"Well let's pick it up a bit next time. I like to eat dinner before 8 pm most nights."

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.