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| April 1982 vs June 2016 Tom Hill, John Hashman, Rob Taylor, Steve Taylor 1982 WV State A-AA 4x800M Relay Champions and current meet record holders 34 years later. |
On June 11, 2016 I traveled home to St.
Marys/Parkersburg, WV for the Mid-Ohio Valley Sports Hall of Fame banquet which
included the induction of former Williamstown HS and University of Richmond standout, Ryan Jobes and my lifelong friend and St. Marys HS/Cedarville College
standout, Tom Hill. For several months I looked forward to seeing so many
friends, family and coaches from yesteryear. What a weekend it was...and great memories where revisited time
and time again.
Along with being an exceptional person, amazing
friend and caring man; Tom Hill is one of the most decorated runners in St.
Marys High School history and is one of the best ever to run our West Virginia
hills. His 9:22.74 performance in the 3200M at the 1982 WV AA-A State
Championships ranks #5 All-Time in the 1980's behind 3 other SMHS runners and
his 1600M performance ranks #4 All-Time in the 1980's at the WV A-AA State
Meet...He placed 3rd and 7th in the WV State Cross Country Championships in
1981 & 1980 respectively and was the first leg on the SMHS Record
Setting 4X800M Relay in 1982 (see photo above). That state meet record still
stands (as of June 2016) now some 34 years later.
After graduating from SMHS he went on to
continue his career at Cedarville College (OH), where he was a NAIA All-American
in the 3K and a four time NCCAA Outdoor Track Champion, winning the 5,000M in
1984 & 1987, the 10,000M in 1984 and 1500M in 1986. He was also named Cedarville’s
1986 Male Athlete of the Year and a few years later was inducted into
Cedarville's Sports Hall of Fame.
Following his athletic career at Cedarville, he
went on to Baylor University where he helped the women's 4X800M Relay team earn
its first NCAA All-America honors in school history. He dedicated himself to
Baylor University where he served their department and central Texas loyally
for 28 years.
He's a great, Christian man with an awesome
family and a perfect choice for the Mid-Ohio Valley Sports Hall of Fame...
GROWING OLDER
As I reflect on the weekend I'm reminded of
several stories from our team and Tom... Growing older is a ride and for those
experiencing it you surely relate. Sometimes stories grow with time, it is my
hope that our stories do not, and that they stand on their own merits. Some may
seem a stretch, but both my cousin Rob and I seem to have a knack for
remembering details to events now some 30-40 years later. He can tell a story
as good as anyone as you will see below.
None of us want anything to be inflated as time
passes...we just tell it the way it happened. This is likely seeded in our
early teenage years of off-bearing on the sawmill with our dad's (Delbert and
Art), Uncle Harold and brothers and cousins as we listened to our dad's and
uncle's tell stories with great detail. Working on the sawmill was hard, hard
work but it helped shape us like nothing else (Stacking 350+ pound
7"X9" railroad ties as a teenager will harden you like nothing
else.). Their stories were countless, funny and were often an education in and of
themselves...many of which included enlightenment on the bird's and the bees.
Regardless, as rambunctious teenagers, at the end of each day of saw milling we were ready for a release
by just about any method.
It really was a great time to grow up in our
town and to this day there is no place I would have traded to be. A community
of great people and a place where hard work was rewarded. Our sport of
choice demanded hard work, self-discipline, internal motivation and raw
competitiveness. Running was a perfect match for our crew.
Coach Jerry Rea was a huge influence on our
success and was the architect in forming a high school program now founded with
rich history based on his leadership to many state team titles. He had so
many quotes that I have spent much of my adult life and coaching career drawing
from. Statements like "that's nickel and dime boys, nickel and dime"
sent a loud message to us. We knew when he made that statement we were
doing something unacceptable and we quickly moved to correct what we were doing.
We could never accept anything at a "nickel and dime" level. To
consider it was insulting to most of those who came before us. Many of the SMHS
athletes before us, including our brothers, did not settle for anything except
their best from themselves. Coach Rea held discipline on our team and he
demanded the same level of commitment from everyone one on the team...everyone.
Our 4x800M Relay was no different...I felt no different. To this day it
influences and defines my own coaching style.
We were fortunate to have a good team in 1982
and would sit for 45 minutes at the beginning of practice at least one day per
week listening to Coach Rea talk about the upcoming meet and how we could get
team points on the board. He would ask our opinion to engage us and get
us invested in what we needed to accomplish...to understand what we needed to
do for the team. He was the master at figuring out ways to maximize our
point total in the championship meets (the Little Kanawha Conference, Region
and State Championship meets) by trying athletes in events they never dreamed
of competing in. He would often say, "even if we lose the
battle boys, we can win the war"...but we always wanted to win the battle
AND the war...and so did he! It was a time of competitiveness and we competed
at everything we did. It made no difference what it was, we wanted to win and
Coach Rea knew it and used it to motivate us.
By the time our 4X800M Relay got to the spring
of 1982 our high school was known throughout the state since our SMHS
forefathers had laid the path for us with two state track & field team
titles and two runner-up team finishes in a four year stent...Fresh in our
minds were the successes of our brothers and cousins, plus Paul Reed, Scott Jemison,
Gene Smith, Jeff Bailey, Max Campbell, Ron Doak, brothers’ David & Earl
Stephens, Charlie Strait, Elmer Burns, Tom Cox, Mike Nazelrod, Brian Williams,
Wayne Mulenix and the Oldfield's to name a few. These were young men who taught
us that we could win in our small town. As youngsters we watched from the
stands and drank in their individual and team victories...we learned... waited
for our turn...our time to step up to the plate. It was like poking a caged
animal with a stick...we wanted a piece of the pie...we wanted a seat at the
table....we wanted to do what they did...only better. Without them laying the
foundation we surely could not and would not have achieved what we did. That's
a simple fact!
As I entered HS in 1979 our community was still
struggling, coming off the April 27, 1978 Willow Island Disaster, just
a few miles south of St. Marys, which claimed the lives of 51 of our very own
and many of our relatives and family friends in what stands as the largest
construction accident in U.S. history. That one event truly changed our
community forever. It's a story I've struggled to write about for several years
and still can't find the words.
These things shaped who we were and to this day,
who we ARE. We were fighters and the track provided an outlet for us to run out
our anger, our passion and competitiveness. Running was our escape...it was our
release...it was the place that we were a lone with our thoughts discovering
who we were...it became our mission! It was our path to the uncertain
future. Coach Rea always said, "You are only as good as your last
race" and we approached every race like it was our last...after all, we
knew all too well that it could be.
On the SMHS steps outside the gymnasium in the
early summer of 1979 Coach Rea asked cousin Rob, John Hashman and a group of us
if we were going to come out for the cross country team that fall. It was
a new sport to our high school and my cousin asked, “What’s cross country?” I
personally had no idea. Actually none of us had any idea what cross country
was. Coach Rea replied, “Well, you run through fields and creeks and jump logs
and that sort of thing.” As we stood there on the high school steps we just looked
at each other. Then we nodded that “yes” we would run and concluded that this
‘cross country’ thing sounded like what we did practically every day anyway.
Coach Rea is a man of few words and as he left us standing there in front of
the school we began to talk with excitement about this new sport to our
school.
Enter Tom Hill
Stickman and Hillba were all I knew him as for a few days. He tipped the scale just north of 100 pounds soaking wet and if he stood sideways behind a telephone pole he could literally disappear. He was one thin dude who would become one of our closest friends and someone I would trust with anything...and still do to this day. True friends are hard to come by and in my opinion you have only a few in your lifetime. Growing up and to this day Tom Hill is one of those friends. He's genuine, honest and loyal--you can't ask for anything more in a friend.
During our four years at high school, SMHS
jumped into the sport of cross country with great success for a public school
of our small size (~380 total students grades 9-12 give or take a couple and
depending on pregnancies). The first year (1979) we even had a cross country
program our team placed second in the state championships…and that was in the AAA division
and without Tom Hill (there was only one division at the time under the
WVSSAC.)!
Why were we without Tom you may ask? Well, in August of that year he and his family went to the Holy Land on a Christian Pilgrimage. As I mentioned before, Coach Rea held everyone to the same standard and he expected everyone who wanted to be part of the team to be at every practice...no exceptions. My cousin Rob knew Tom could run and that he would help our team. He even mentioned to Coach that Tom was good. Tom and his family returned a week into cross country practice...He came to practice to join the team. Coach said he would need to wait until spring track season to run since he missed the first week of practice. Looking back now the state AAA XC title likely slipped through our grasp at that moment.
As we all moved through the
years our cross country season officially started in early August, however a
group of us would meet in our hometown on Rt 2, the road next to our high
school. Every afternoon at 5:00PM during the summer months we would
gather to train and prepare for the fall season. It was not mandated by Coach
Rea…There was no fixed training schedule…No one forced us to do it. No one
called us to make sure we were there to run at 5:00PM. It was just expected by
each of us and what we wanted to do. Just like we ate, worked, hydrated...we
also ran...e-v-e-r-y day.
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| St. Marys HS, West Virginia |
We trained hard and treated every day as an
opportunity to prove something and to improve ourselves. At the time we didn’t
know or understand what it was we were trying to prove and we certainly did not
understand training or the physiology behind it, but rest assured every run
ended in a race back to the high school. One day it would be the last mile of
the run and the next it was the last 800M. Every day someone would push the
issue (i.e. - the pace)…every day someone felt good…everyday someone in the
group felt they could prove they had the stronger will. Everyday someone was
right and someone was wrong. It was simple, uncomplicated and pure to its
heart. It defined us and Tom Hill was an integral part of the definition.
FIGURE 8's IN THE COUNTY PARK
FIGURE 8's IN THE COUNTY PARK
One of our trade mark's within the county was the path we wore through the Pleasants County Park each fall. You see our county park was about a mile walk from our high school and we walked it everyday with coach before and after practice. As we walked over to start practice nearly every day we would pass former SMHS 400M Record Holder, Bill "Billy" Williamson, who was our towns U.S. Mail carrier...And every day my cousin Rob would say to him, "What kinda milk man are you." This would always make Bill smile and the rest of us laugh. As the years rolled by it became funnier and funnier to Bill but mostly us. The more times it was said, the funnier it got...which might be a guy thing. Bill came back to running becoming a successful local road racer winning his age group in many of the local competitions.
We arrived at the park each day ready to work. It sits at the eastern edge of town, alongside of route 16, which is one of the two busiest roads within our county. The park sits on the side of the roughly mile long-Pike Hill (in later years my brothers, Mike and Cliff and I would actually race loaded Lambert and Westbrook dump trucks up this hill.). It's a hill many outside our state would describe as a mountain, with the county park's swimming pool and ball fields on the flatter section at the bottom.
The upper section of the park where we ran, sits on the side of a large hill, includes a dirt road around the perimeter and an intersecting road through the middle along with a power line with large wooden poles, we called the "Right-A-Way". The park manager at the time was Jim McFarland, who would later serve as the county sheriff for many years, and he lived in a house within the park along route 16. There was a steep hill next to his home which we aptly named, "McFarland's Hill" and it is still called that today. It was so steep we would ~almost~ rather run up it than we would run down it.
The Park, as we call it to this day, was coach Rea's favorite place for cross country practice. Occasionally, we would run on the track and The Island. The Island referred to Middle Island which was owned by the Ingram Family and sits at the confluence of Middle Island Creek and the Ohio River. The Ingram's were prominent within our county and were a founding family within the area. They would later agree for Middle Island to become the Middle Island Wildlife Refuge and today is my favorite location to run when I return home. During our high school years it was planted from one end of its 2.2 mile length to the other in corn and potatoes...However, it was The Park where our blisters became callouses and we were forged into iron in the fires of the WV hills.
By midseason the go to workout for coach was "5 times the Figure 8 within the park on handicap". We would start in reverse order from the previous time we ran the workout, with the fastest person starting last at a given time after the slowest runner from the previous practice. Theoretically, everyone would finish at the exact same time IF we ran exactly the same time as before. Of course that never happened and we would often find our very good teammate, Lee Haddox, laying low on a day in order to gain an advantage/head start the next time we ran that workout.
The Figure 8 laps in the park were 1.1 miles in length and tough...They made us strong, versatile and helped us shine at the championships which tended to be on hilly courses. The Figure 8 we refer to would change directions on varying days and included McFarlands Hill, the Right-A-Way and Bald Knob within the park. Some days we went up McFarland's Hill and other days we would go down...but every day we did Figure 8's.
Bald Knob is the highest point in our town and provides a good vantage point from within the park. Since it looked similar, I always thought it was an Indian burial place like the one the Native American Adena People (Mound Builders) built between ~1000 B.C. and 700 A.D. in nearby Harmony Acres. For us, it had another name given by our Dad's/Uncles...affectionately named "Skinner Back" Knob. We always got a chuckle out of this and the stories surrounding that location which dated back several decades. We still laugh when someone refers to it by that name which is the only name we use, unless ladies are present...then it's Bald Knob.
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| View from just below Bald Knob overlooking our hometown of St. Marys, WV |
We crossed the Right-A-Way (the center of the Figure 8) twice each lap and could gauge how much distance we were gaining on our teammates with each pass. We particularly enjoyed passing the few girls on the team and often talked about how much better the view was with them on the loop...It served as motivation on more than one occasion.
About 2/3's of the way across the Right-A-Way was a large ditch that required a serious leap in order to cross it. We were so small, Coach Rea became concerned he might lose one of us in the ditch which was about 6 feet wide and 4 feet deep. So, he found an old Pleasants County Park sign and placed it over the ditch. We thought it would be moved by the park's maintenance folks, but it stayed in place for a couple years before it was replaced. It was a simple decision by coach, but I'm sure he saved several injuries by placing it.
As we made lap...after lap...after lap of the park and the season progressed we would slowly start to wear a path through the grass section of the course through the power line Right-A-Way. In August and September the smell of fresh cut grass filled the air announcing it was cross country season. As we got into October and the leaves began to change you would catch a crisp smell of the arrival of fall as our worn path became even more pronounced as it was worn to dirt. It was a badge of success for us...It was a symbol of our hard work and a symbol of sweat and toil. We had worn the grass out and turned what had started as a grass trail into dirt.
More than once we headed to the Farm Fresh, our local convenience store, to grab a post workout beverage and then jump into the car and drive up the Pike Hill on Route 16 just to look at the worn path as we drove by. It was a symbol that we took pride in and to this day it is a symbol of what it takes to be champions.
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| Sun setting on the Ohio River on June 12, 2016 at the Willow Island Dam. The crimson sunsets are still as they were in my childhood days. St. Marys sits on the banks of the Ohio River within the rolling hills of West “By God” Virginia. It is beautiful country and I recall the sun setting on the Ohio side of the river and the views we would get from running the “Old Pike” which is a mile long hill that winds its way from downtown St. Marys uphill to Rt. 16 before we would hang a right and head down “Shadow Hill” back into town. Those views of the Ohio River and those brilliant sunsets are etched in our memories. |
As the spring of 1982 arrived, Tom, Rob and John
were headed into their senior year track season and I into my junior. On
some levels I was sad thinking about my best friends graduating. No time for
that, so we all set our sights on the 4x800M Relay and the state meet record
that SMHS set 2 years earlier when Tom and I teamed up with my cousin, Larry
Taylor and Lee Haddox to claim the WV AA state title in meet record time
(8:09.44).
That record was a point of contention and
boarder line argument on several occasions in our household and on the sawmill.
You see in 1976 the state of WV still competed in distances using English
measurements and two of my brothers (Cliff & Matt) teamed up with two
brothers and our first cousins (Dale & Kevin) to win the 4x880 Yard
Relay in 8:12.70 (Even as an 11 year old kid, I thought it was pretty sweet two
sets of Taylor brothers set a state meet record in the 4X880 Yard Relay. It's still on
the record books since the English distances were retired shortly after.). If
you convert their 8:12.70 in the 4X880 Yard Relay to a 4X800M Relay time its
8:09.90! So, which was better...the 1976 relay team (8:09.90) or the 1980
relay team (8:09.44). This needed to be settled or put to rest and the
only way was to run a time faster than both!
Our season would be based on this principle
point.
RACES
Well before the state championships we found
ourselves preparing. Tom, Don Harding, Mike Cunningham and John Hoff were on the
basketball team, but a small group of us still found time to make it to Morgantown to the Shell
Building for the Sunday afternoon all comer meets hosted by the West Virginia
Track Club.
On one of those trips we stopped at a McDonald's
to grab a biscuit. Tom was known far and wide to eat anything! The man was
named Stickman for a reason, but it was not due to has lack of eating. He ate A
LOT...and practically anything he was offered. As we sat down at a table
Tom headed off to the restroom.
About the same time, a small group of strangers at a table next to us got up and left the restaurant. They left their trays on the table which included a couple of half-eaten hash browns. Without saying anything, my brother Cliff reached over and grabbed the half eaten hash browns and sat them on his tray. We said nothing and just looked at him with a look of, "what the heck?"
About the same time, a small group of strangers at a table next to us got up and left the restaurant. They left their trays on the table which included a couple of half-eaten hash browns. Without saying anything, my brother Cliff reached over and grabbed the half eaten hash browns and sat them on his tray. We said nothing and just looked at him with a look of, "what the heck?"
By this point those hash browns were half digested as Tom realized something must be up. That's when he said with a chuckle, "what's up?" Cliff responded with the Benny Hill Salute as we busted out laughing at what we had just witnessed. It all happened so fast we simply had no time to respond. When Stickman found out what Cliff had done he laughed louder, but from that point forward when someone offered him food...he asked a couple questions before devouring it.
We had some truly great years with lots of Benny Hill
salutes...including a classic in the summer of 1981. We went to a road race in Moundsville as part of
a large Marshall County Fair which included a 5K and a 10K. Our crew chose
their races with Tom and Don Harding opting for the 5K and Cliff and I choosing
the 10K. John Hoff was there, but he did not run either race.
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| The Benny Hill Salute was a signature for us since 1979. |
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Benny Hill Salute at the Mid Ohio Valley
Sports Hall of Fame Induction
(Front: L-R) Coach Lambiotte, Coach Rea,
Steve Taylor, Tom Hill,
Cliff Taylor
(Back: L-R) Mike Cunningham, Mike Taylor,
John Hashman, Jim Taylor,
Rob Taylor, Matt Bailey, Don Harding
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As Cliff and I warmed-up, a car passed us with a couple of
drunk guys who threw a beer bottle at us, just narrowly missing us. They went
speeding off and as we chased them we were quickly ready to fight. We jogged a little further and flagged down a
Sheriff's car passing by to report the incident. The officer was actually Rex
Smalley, the Marshall County Sheriff himself. We provided the license
plate number to him and he informed us that he knew the car and who they were, adding that they
were "no good" in his words. He asked our names and said he knew us
from the papers and wished us luck. To say the least, the whole incident was a
little distracting as we went about our warm-up.
We quickly turned our attention back to why we were
there---running a Footrace. Tom was a competitor and you better bring your best
when you faced him in competition. On this night he easily won the 5K
race setting a course record in the process. I won the 10K with my
brother, Cliff not far behind. As we approached the finish line I could hear
voices from above. As Cliff said last week, "I thought God was
speaking to me from above during the race." As the finish line got closer
the voices got louder and as I crossed the line I heard God shouting out "come
on Shine!" Shine was Tom's nickname for Cliff. "Why would God
yell for Shine", I thought?
As I looked around my attention and vision started looking upward. At this county fair they had a hot air balloon that you could pay $5 for a ride and it was located directly adjacent to the race course finish line. Heck, $5 to us might as well been $500 back then. The number of people standing in line was at least 150 people in length waiting for a hot air balloon ride. Tom and Don wanted a ride in that balloon but they didn't want to spend $5 and they didn't want to wait two hours. Tom was not bashful and would ask anyone anything...They walked to the front of the line and told the owner of the hot air balloon that Tom had just won the race and just like that, they got their free ride. It was hilarious. As Cliff and I looked up at them from the finish line we got a Benny Hill Salute from both Stickman and Don.
As I looked around my attention and vision started looking upward. At this county fair they had a hot air balloon that you could pay $5 for a ride and it was located directly adjacent to the race course finish line. Heck, $5 to us might as well been $500 back then. The number of people standing in line was at least 150 people in length waiting for a hot air balloon ride. Tom and Don wanted a ride in that balloon but they didn't want to spend $5 and they didn't want to wait two hours. Tom was not bashful and would ask anyone anything...They walked to the front of the line and told the owner of the hot air balloon that Tom had just won the race and just like that, they got their free ride. It was hilarious. As Cliff and I looked up at them from the finish line we got a Benny Hill Salute from both Stickman and Don.
Later that evening after being ready to Fight and then running a Footrace, we turned our attention to the chase as Tom, John Hoff and I cruised the Marshall County Fair. We met a
couple really nice, indecorous girls at the fair...their names
were "Jenny" and "Karman with a K". It seems they had
seen us at the races. I laugh to this day remembering Tom giving me a Benny Hill salute as we were getting to know Jenny a little better...I returned the salute as the Benny Hill theme song raced through my head.
Sometime later as our conversation jumped from place to place, Jenny started talking about her dad and how he was the county Sheriff. I said, "Jenny, what's your last name?" She smiled and said, "Smalley". Thinking back to a few hours earlier and speaking with the Sheriff, I said, "Is your dad Rex Smalley?" "Yes he is", she replied. About then is when Stickman and I looked at each other and decided it was time to head south to St. Marys. We found Hoff and got out of dodge in short order! We've laughed about the odds of that and how it was a story few would believe.
Sometime later as our conversation jumped from place to place, Jenny started talking about her dad and how he was the county Sheriff. I said, "Jenny, what's your last name?" She smiled and said, "Smalley". Thinking back to a few hours earlier and speaking with the Sheriff, I said, "Is your dad Rex Smalley?" "Yes he is", she replied. About then is when Stickman and I looked at each other and decided it was time to head south to St. Marys. We found Hoff and got out of dodge in short order! We've laughed about the odds of that and how it was a story few would believe.
SUGAR HILL GANG-Rappers Delight
Even Coach Rea loved it and would come to the back of the bus and ask us to turn it up. Imagine the portable 8 tract player being replaced with the cutting edge, cassett tape player, a song 14:45 in length and several of us with the lyrics memorized, trading off verses. Fun times.
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| Our choice for listening the the Sugar Hill Gang from 1979-1982 |
BELLAIRE RELAYS
In April, 1982 Coach Rea split our team for the first
and only time in my career. Stickman and I were running well...and so were our relay members. The Bellaire
Relays in Bellaire, Ohio were one of the most prestigious meets in the nation
at the time. All the heavy hitters from Ohio and western PA attended. The
entry standards we stiff and on paper Tom and I were the only two to meet the
standards. Coach Rea is a man of integrity and he would not adjust a person's
time to get them in a meet or a faster section. You were entered in what
you had run. As it would be, he entered Tom in the 1600M and me in the
3200M while our teammates went to another competitive meet over at Heath, OH.
Tom was in the slowest of 3 heats of the 1600M
and I remember thinking, 'wow, this is serious competition". Stickman
wasn't fazed...The competitor that he was, he went out there and took the lead
from the gun and lit up the track. He trounced the athletes in his
section and broke 4:20 by a good bit. I remember watching him lay the leather
to it and on the spot I went through a transformation. As the second and third
heats ran they could not match Tom's mark. He won the 1600M at the Bellaire
Relays out of the slowest section on paper and grabbed 10 points for SMHS! He
did not care who it was, he competed to win and did.
That was one of the last races where I concerned
myself with seed times. Watching Tom win the 1600M was inspiring,
exciting and motivating! I went on to win the 3200M in 9:04 to help SMHS
to 20 total team points. So, at the end of the day, Tom and I scored a
total of 20 points which placed 2nd in the team standings. That was the
first and last time Coach split our team. We know he looked at the results and
realized 4th place or better in the 4X800M Relay would have been enough for
SMHS to claim the prestigious team title at the Bellaire Relays. I believe it
was a turning point for both Tom and I giving us a lot of confidence...especially as we headed into the WV State Championships in Charleston.
THE STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
As we passed through the LKC and Regional
Championships we were able to advance practically everyone that we thought
could make it through plus a few that we didn't think would. The question was
who would be on the 4X800M Relay...so, on Tuesday, May 25th Coach said, "We'll have a run off to start practice for anyone
wanting a shot at the 4x800M for this weekend". Coach kept it pure and our sport simple...head-to-head competition
and "you eat what you kill". The first four men across the line would
comprise the team for the state meet. In the end it was Tom Hill, John Hashman,
Rob Taylor and me.
Three short days later it was show time...Here's
a recent account of the race from my cousin Rob, our third leg and to this day
one of my best friends:
"Just a story to
share!
It was May 28th 1982
at my first and only State Meet as a competitor! And a lifelong memory was
made. About an hour before race time John (Hashman) and I were hanging out
under the stands when some boys from Buffalo Wayne got to talking about how fast
they were going to run in the 4x800 (We had lost Steve and Tommy somewhere). We
listened to them for quite a while when they finally see that we are eaves
dropping. One of them asks us what event(s) we were in? Ah the 4x8, was my
reply!!!! The look on their faces was priceless. Then they asked what kinda
time did we think we could run? Ol' Hash took it upon himself to tell them that
we were gonna go 8 flat. Priceless again for the look and the brashness of
Hash. We even told them exact splits that we would run, I think we were a bit
cocky now looking back but they started it.
Race time; Tommy is in
a big heap of people for the first 600 meters. He starting making a move like
he was shot from a cannon. He handed off to John clear of the field by about 30
meters and the race was over. His fastest split ever. Time: 1:57
John ran his fastest
split ever and added to the lead. Sorry Hash but I was in a fog waiting on you.
I kept thinking come on come on! Time: 4:01
I get the stick and
all I remember is don't drop the thing and get it to Steve. I also ran my
fastest split ever and mighta added to the lead. Time: 6:04
Now it is time for
Steve to show his stuff and that he did! WOW! It looked like he was in a dead
sprint. He comes by on his first lap and we are feeling it. We are jumping up
and down and screaming in his ear when he blows by us, then that dang official
told us to calm down and get back or he was going to disqualify us. Thanks
Tommy for having the sense to take heed and get us on safe ground. With a 100
meters to go Steve is clock watching as were we, so I never got to see all of
his leg, but the looks on our faces when that clock stopped at 8:00.1 was once
again priceless!! He had just ran his fastest split too. Thanks Steve and Tom
for letting us talk the talk and then telling you that we needed some bailing
out!
What a memory! BTW those boys never came around afterwards."
We were fortunate to have a lot of great
sports/running memories from high school, but this one is my favorite. Four
close friends came together and after years of training, miles and miles of
running, countless laps and figure "8's" in the county park, lots of adventures and some crazy stories later we came together on
the field of competition. The fact that we all ran our personal best relay
splits in that race makes it that much better and no surprise given the preceding years. We simply did not and would not let each other down.
