Team Trips

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas and got to hug those they love. Today, it’s time for another “Sunday Story”. There’s no politics here, just reminiscences about forty years of team trips!!!

Track Trips

The other day, I wrote an essay about trips I took as a kid. That got me thinking about travelling.  As a coach, I took teams all over the country to track and cross country meets.  In the summer it was the “big reward” for training all summer, going to the Nationals, no matter where in the Nation they were.  It not only gave the athletes a “big competition” experience, but it became part of the “legend” of our team.  After cross country, it was a reward for all the work in the season.  And during the official high school season, I tried to “road trip” our teams at least once each year.  Not only was it to find new and usually tougher competition, but it was a great team building experience and recruiting tool for the next year.  Most importantly, we had fun.

Platte River Drifting

Whether it was singing The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” as we rolled down Interstate 5 from Seattle towards Eugene, Oregon; swimming in the American River behind our hotel in Sacramento; or “post-holing” through two feet of snow in Rhode Island; those road trips were always exciting.  But sometimes we had to make our own excitement.  After a National Meet in Omaha, Nebraska, we went to see the “largest catfish in Nebraska” a big white one in a tank, more than 100 pounds. Another year there, we tubed down the Platte River (maybe scrapped down the river more than floated).  That same day we tried the flight simulator at the Strategic Air Command museum.  The kids loved it, but I somehow put my simulator into a “near fatal” spin.  I was dizzy for three days.

  But we always managed to have fun.  We stayed at a lake house in North Carolina for a week, swimming and diving off the dock.  We became part of the dance routine on Times Square in New York City.  And sometimes we just made it up. One group just dodged the “electric Indians”:  the electric arrows on the construction signs as we drove hundreds of miles across the country. It became a thing!

Lobster

Food was always important on our trips.  When a crew went to Rhode Island to pole vault, I made it “mandatory” that we stop for a lobster dinner along the way.  The deal was everyone had to order lobster – but they didn’t have to eat it.  One of the vaulters wasn’t a “seafood” guy, so I ate two lobsters, and we ordered an extra cheese burger.  Lobsters came back into play when we went to the Nationals in Boston more than two decades later.  We ate at the oldest “continuously operated” restaurant in the United States, the Union Oyster House.   It was lobster dinner again – and this time everyone ate their own.

Barbecue

One August we headed to Baton Rouge for the National Track meet.  By the way, what sense does it make to have a National meet in Louisiana in August?  It was so hot they had to shift some of the races into the middle of the night.  Almost as bad as having it in Miami, or Los Angeles.  But I guess location didn’t really matter:  the year we were in Seattle, the Northwest was hit with the worst heat wave of the century.  I only passed out once at a National Meet, when I decided it was a good idea to go for a long run in Omaha’s August 95 degree sun.  A couple of water bottles solved that problem.

Anyway, we were headed south, and made an overnight stop in Memphis, the absolute capital of barbecue.  I asked our hotel clerk where the “best” place was, and he directed us to a shaky looking old building in a rough part of town.  We almost didn’t get out of the van, but the smoky flavor coming out of the building dragged us in.  Then the cook came out, and after I explained our lack of barbecue expertise, took over the dinner menu.  We must have had hundreds of dollars of food, all sorts of dry rubs and sauces, on pork ribs and beef briskets and whatever else could be barbecued.  The check was only around $75 for the five of us.  I hope that place is still around, I’d love to go back.

Walking

Part of any road trip was sightseeing.  On that same Baton Rouge trip, I took the guys down to New Orleans.  We were walking down Bourbon Street in the afternoon, listening to the music wafting out of the bars and clubs.  It was a warm December day, and the doors were all thrown open.  One of athletes decided to take a quick peek inside, just to see if the dancers really were topless.  From inside the bar came the call of the bouncer: “When it’s family night, we’ll let you know!!”

Road trips were all about walking.  At the DC Nationals, we probably left our entire competition on the National Mall, as we did all the mileage of the legendary “Dahlman DC Tour”.  And in New York, it was hard not to wear everyone out, walking from our Times Square Hotel up through Central Park to the “Imagine” John Lennon marker.  

We’ve wandered through the “Heartland of America Park” in Omaha, and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee.  And at Yosemite, we climbed out of the valley up to Mirror Lake, and almost lost Coach Eastham.  He suffered from a long term back injury, but he was too excited to be at the Park to miss any of the experience.  He struggled up the climb but the look of accomplishment on his face when we reached the top was worth it.

Water Sports

For the summer meets, we always found somewhere to swim.  We drove to Ocean City, Maryland from the Baltimore Nationals, and hit the big Atlantic waves.  And we stopped on the Oregon Coast to try the Northern Pacific waves, though it was pretty cold for everyone (except Eric).  When the air conditioning in the van broke, we spent a couple of hours at a municipal pool in Peoria, Illinois.  We swam at Newport Beach south of LA, Daytona in Florida, and in Lake Tahoe in Nevada.  And, as mentioned, in the American River  right out the back of our hotel in Sacramento.  If there was a way to swim, we found it.

We even managed to “pole vault” in the hotel pools.  Well, we really didn’t vault into the pool, but we used the poles to do actual “pole vault technique” drills in the deep end.  We always got the management’s attention just pulling the pole out, and then fascinated every little kid in the place.

But Perhaps the most “exotic” ocean experience was on South Beach in Miami.  We were playing in the waves when a six foot manta-ray came cruising along the shoreline.  Everyone  raced  out of the water.  And since we were out,  the guys decided it was time “for a walk” up the beach.  They were looking for the world famous “topless” part of South Beach.  They must have found it, because they soon came running back – “Coach, it’s ‘old’ topless people!!!”  

Firsts

First time in a hotel, first time in the ocean, first time on a plane, first time to see mountains:  kids got so many firsts on those road trips.   We went to meets in thirty different states, we ran at sea level (Baton Rouge) and 6,000 feet (Provo), in snow (Rhode Island), rain (Miami), blistering heat (Los Angeles), freezing winds (Portland) and, occasionally, in perfect weather (it had to happen sometime).  

Track and Cross Country legends were written.  And while those are now “old-timer” stories, told around camp fires, dinner tables, and over a beer at some bar:  there are generations of athletes and coaches that got more than just a time, place and a medal from their track or cross country career.  

It was awesome.

• 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