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.

Monday, 8/25/08 (a)

Matt's first day of classes at Clover Valley was a blur.

His first period Algebra class had 25 freshman who were as new to this high school experience as he was. He covered the format of the class and other logistical items like how much homework they should expect. It went well. And while this didn't necessarily surprise him, he had somewhat started to expect surprises after his first week on the job. It was a perceptible relief to start his day, week, semester, year, and career off with a solid first class.

Second period Honors Algebra II was homeroom. There was a 6' 6" kid in that class of whom he made a mental note to check on his basketball status. James Keegan was the guy's name and he was the first student who's name Matt learned. "Hey, he looks like a rebounder ...", he thought somewhat guiltily knowing that Algebra was supposed to be his sole focus here. Of the numerous opening-day announcements during homeroom there was the one that Matt had written encouraging would-be cross country runners to come to an meeting immediately after-school for more details.

He had a planning period for number three and Matt thought it was a nice touch that Principal Tierney came by to see how his first day on the job was going.

He was on lunch duty for 4th period which seemed easy enough as that was the seniors time to eat.

For fifth period, he was excited to see D.J. was part of the Honors Algebra II class although the excitement didn't really appear to be reciprocal, at least outwardly during their exchange of "hey"s. Those sophomores were a little more wound up then second period, but just as they had warmed up to their day, so had Matt and he was easily up to the task.

Sixth period was another planning session, although it'd be Economics in the spring.

The day ended with another Algebra I class with another 25 freshman, this one with an abnormal 17 girl / 8 boy split. He had more energy than they did at this point and the class day ended smoothly.

Sunday, 8/24/08

Matt spent the last day before school started by unpacking the last of his boxes, finding a new church to attend in Clover Valley, reviewing his lesson plans for the first week of Algebra classes, calling home to check on Emily and Zeus, and soaking his seriously sore legs in a hot bath.

He'd seen D.J in church with his family but was unable to make eye contact with him before he left. Matt wasn't sure if he liked the idea of numerous student-teacher interactions outside of school, but it was pretty much unavoidable in a small town like Clover Valley.

"Not like I'm going to drive all the way to Troy to do my grocery shopping", he concluded.

After not being able to fall asleep right away when he lay down at 10pm, he dropped out of bed to get his copy of Dean Smith's "The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in Coaching". After about 45 minutes of contentedly reviewing the familiar territory in the well-worn pages, he put it down, awkwardly clicked his bedside lamp off, and quickly nodded off.

Friday, 8/22/08

The second practice, and the last practice before school started, also went fine. Jake, Kory, Mark, and D.J. showed up with Jake reporting that Nick was too sore after Wednesday's practice to make it. Matt had learned from the post-practice conversation on Wednesday that the normal procedure was for the team to dress in the locker rooms after school, then jog over to Thompson Park where they would stretch some before starting their eventual workout and eventually running or walking the one mile back to school as a cool down.

So on Friday morning, they jogged over to Thompson Park as a team. Coach Adamson impressed them with his easy gait over to the park. He and Jake were the only two who were in shape enough to have any conversation on the way over and they set the pace a few steps ahead of D.J and maybe 20 yards ahead of the two senior friends Kory and Mark who were already laboring.

"So Jake, you ever play basketball?"

"Not really coach. I'm tall enough, I guess, but I just never got into it."

"You never played at all? Not even as a kid?"

"Played a few seasons when I was like 9 or 10. I didn't really like all the shouting. Pass it! Shoot it! Get the ball! It wasn't like I was heading to the NBA anyway. I think I made one basket my whole career."

"Is that why you like cross-country? 'Cause it's quieter?"

"Who said I like it?", Jake said with a laugh, before proceeding somewhat hesitantly, "Anyway, Coach Perlozzo yelled at us pretty good last year."

"I can imagine. Don't worry that's not my style. Players play better when they're relaxed and they can focus on what they need to do to succeed."

"Well, I've never really found running relaxing, but I'm willing to give that a shot." Jake said with a grin as they entered into the park.

Matt led them through their stretching before sending them off for an easy lap around the 2 mile park path. All four runners made it around the park, and eventually back to school, without incident. Matt left the practice with tired legs and a good feeling ... happy that at least he knew a handful of Clover Valley students before school started on Monday.