House Money
Brothers and Sisters,
With the impending lockdowns and subsequent shutdown of our competition season I saw it only fit to address you all one last time. A lot of the narratives around this tumultuous period in our lives are ones of regret and disappointment. I know it’s easy to go dark when this much uncertainty hangs palpably in the air, but I hope that my signature optimism can interject before everything we have worked so hard to accomplish is cast aside as useless. When we came together for our first team meeting, I told you all the most important thing in this sport is each other. And even in these trying times, that does not change.
I know that we all run to see how good at this we can be, but there’s more than that. I’ve never been a top pack runner; winning the race is rarely on the table for me (and that’s its own essay right there). But I don’t show up to practice every day purely to see how far I can push my body. I do it for you all. I run for the relationships the sport cultivates. Medals rust, records fall, and glory fades, but the relationships we build while pursuing those physical feats are everlasting.
I’ve had the utmost pleasure being one of your senior leaders. I know in our sport sometimes it feels like there are more bad days than good. Every season we have off days at practice, we blow up in races and in workouts, we miss qualifiers, and get injured. Despite these omnipresent risks, we hammer away removing molecule after molecule from the bottoms of our running shoes, because without this struggle, victories are metallic and dull, tasteless in our mouths. I think back to our final run at camp. Brimming with excitement for the year to come. None of us could contain our youthful exuberance for our upcoming, self proclaimed, “Cinderella story” of a year. But as the miles accumulated, bodies broke down, many of those goals faded to nothingness.
I spent a good portion of this year injured and on the comeback train. I failed to achieve my personal definition of athletic greatness. I didn’t make regionals for cross, run 14:30, or break 4:20. I wish I could tell you that those failures left me devastated, but at the end of the day there’s no timetable on running fast. There is, on the other hand, a doomsday clock on your time in the NCAA. The second you join your team, bright eyed and bushy tailed, the clock starts and ticks down without mercy. This all is not new. You’ve all heard me pontificate about life, liberty, and the pursuits of physical fitness before, but in this trying time I wanted to put it to paper once more. Thank you all for pushing me to grow as a runner and as a person. I treasure your friendships, and when I look back on my time as a collegiate athlete I won’t remember the good races and I certainly won’t remember the bad ones. I’ll remember Schaefer’s astonishing resemblance to Senator Elizbeth Warren, I’ll remember Steve’s insistence in training in open bottom sweatpants. I’ll remember Luke’s self proclaimed “sneaky speed” when crossing all intersections and Pierre’s blinding smile. I’ll remember redlining long runs with Cam and late nights pillow talk with Eric and Bryan. I’ll remember the crunch of Battle Road beneath our trainers; I’ll remember our synchronized breath during hard mornings at JP and choking on Reggie’s dusty air. Looking back, I’ve always been insatiably jealous of that smile that creeps onto the face of a collegiate athlete when they relive the memories of their time bonded by brotherhood. And before my very eyes its become my turn. For the rest of my life the moments we’ve shared: all the turf loops, all the single strides, all the tight hugs, and all voracious fits of laughter will be with me, and I’ll never run alone again.
I was never supposed to have those memories. When I got cut from the Miami (Ohio) team my freshman year I made peace with the fact that my time as a collegiate athlete might be behind me. After trying out for the Northeastern team and failing, and then hitting the time standard on my own and again being turned away. I was forced to accept it all again. I was given another shot by coach Lonergan, who saw promise in me as both a person and an athlete. I’m not sure he knew exactly what he was getting himself into, but for his belief, I will be eternally grateful. Every single one of those memories I have is a net gain. I was given two years of comradery and competition few are blessed with. While of course I wish I could cherish all of your presences for the next two months, I realize that I am so grateful to hold onto the memories I do have.
As we say our final goodbyes and run our final miles, I just wanted to say thank you:
- For teaching me to draw strength from your strength
- For reshaping the expectations I have for myself
- For showing me the path through injury and hardship
- For buying into the vision of the team I wanted to be on
- For the nights celebrating the big days, and for those nights we licked our wounds
- For the constant stream of inspiration and support in my artistic endeavors
- And finally, for filling the last two years of my life with gut wrenching laughter, inconceivable inconvenience, and companionship on the road to get good at running
I hope you all take the next couple weeks to think not about the missed opportunities, but rather the ones you didn’t even realize were there. To use running however you need it, as something to keep you sane, or push you forward. At camp I told you all this team has the potential to be great, and I still firmly stand behind those words. Keep fighting, keep chasing transcendence, and most importantly keep loving each other.
For us. For family.
-b.w.
