Back at State

So if you noticed a couple of days without essays – here’s where I was.  It’s today’s Sunday Story.

Forty Years

For forty years I was a high school track coach.  Every year we would set goals as a team, like winning the league championship or our home invitationals.  We also set individual goals: improve on last year, score more team points, and for the few most gifted, talented and dedicated, compete at the State Championships. 

In Ohio it’s a difficult road to the State meet.  No matter how good you were during the season, it all comes down to head-to-head competition.  Only the top four in an event in the entry-level District meets get to compete at the Regional level, and again the top four at the four Regional meets earn a State berth.   Out of the thousands of boys who competed for the Watkins Track team from 1978 to 2017, only 77 gained the opportunity to be in the final sixteen competitors statewide, and “go to State”. 

Black and White

I’m not coaching anymore, but I found a way to “keep my hand in”. For decades I kept a “license” as an official, the “arbiter” of the sometimes obscure rules of track and field.  I originally got my license to make sure I knew all the rules of the sport I was coaching, but I didn’t do a lot of work as a practicing official.  Once I retired from coaching, I realized that I missed being on the track.  And I knew that there was a shortage of folks willing to put on the white shirt and black pants of officiating.  Black and white, shades without color, showing no favoritism to any side,  that’s what officiating is all about.  So I joined the “dark side” (as my coaching friends would say) and became a working official.

This year I officiated in twenty-nine track meets.  And for the past three days, I had the honor of being an official at the State Championship meet, returning to the Jesse Owens Track at “The” Ohio State University.  

Memories

There’s a lot of memories for me at the State Meet, bad and good.  I can remember the failures:  relay teams disqualified, the athlete who literally froze in the starting blocks when the gun went off, the jumpers who didn’t clear the opening bar.  And there were the struggles:  the athletes who reached the “podium”, the top eight in the entire state, but failed to achieve their own goals.  The ones who equaled the best, but lost on a technical tiebreaker, or whose legs failed them with only yards to go.  The strikingly sad faces on the podium, one step from the top.

And there were the successes:  the kids who did more than their best in the toughest competition, some who found their way to an unexpected state medal.  The relay teams overjoyed at just getting to the finals, the high jumper who was second in the highest competition in state history. And ultimately, towards the end of my career, the runner who dominated his race to stand atop the podium with a new state record (still stands today).  

Bill’s Crew

So when I stepped on the pole vault runway at the Jesse Owens track, there were a lot of memories to overcome.  I was the “rookie” in a highly experienced crew, led by a great official, Bill Swank, with years of state experience.  He set the tone:  we were there to help the athletes and the coaches have a great “State”, to do everything we could do to let them do their best, and to be the “calm” in the storm of competition at the highest level.  It’s not always been that way in the pole vault; for years my biggest worry at the state meet was how difficult the officials would make it.  But we wouldn’t be “those guys”, we would be the kinder, gentler officials.

As part of Bill’s seven-official crew I had a fantastic time.  We covered six highly competitive competitions on two different pole vault pits in two days.  We certified a national record clearance, and saw all of the struggles and triumphs of kids at the pinnacle of their high school careers.  And here’s the “inside story”:  we were silently cheering for every kid, on every vault.  We wanted them to succeed, all of them, and we were sad for the tears of failures, and joyed at the tears of success.

On the Team

Bill made sure we officials were “educated” as well.  All seven of us had handled many competitions single-handedly throughout the season.  But here we were part of an officiating “team”, each with a role.  Like any team we needed to play our part, not try to “takeover”.  And Bill himself stepped back and let us do our jobs, from the physical tasks of managing the pole mat, bars and standards, to the paperwork that is the absolute center of track and field officiating.  The paper “of record” determines the outcome – it has to be right. 

That’s a whole different level of track officiating for me.  I learned a lot, and we spent two full days in the absolute center of the Ohio pole vault world.  All of my old coaching friends were there as well, and some of the old vaulters that I coached along the way.  And a vaulter from Watkins, my old team, placed second in the state.  I coached her Dad.  She vaulted four inches higher than her best, performed better than she ever had, in the most important competition.  

And I got to call the vault.

The Sunday Story Series

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21
• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22