{"id":5275,"date":"2022-01-30T08:29:51","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T13:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5275"},"modified":"2022-01-30T08:49:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T13:49:36","slug":"old-trophies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/01\/30\/old-trophies\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Trophies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Track Clinic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I worked in the high school last Friday, and substituted for a friend.  He\u2019s the coach who took over when I left the track program five years ago, after forty years.  John went to the state Track Coaches Clinic. I\u2019m sure he went to hear what the speakers suggest are the \u201cbest\u201d practices in track and field.  But it\u2019s also \u201cold home week\u201d, time to catch up with all the coaches you\u2019ve met along the way.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s always something to learn, though. John’s had decades of experience and success. He probably has the same goal I had towards the end of my forty years.  I sat through the speeches, and hoped that I\u2019d walk out with just one thing that I could use, or change, or add to make my team better.  Some years it happened, some it didn\u2019t.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old Friends<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t attend the Clinic as a coach anymore.  I do teach the two-hour Pole Vault Safety Certification class. That’s been shuffled to first thing, 8 AM on Saturday morning.  It\u2019s usually well attended, a combination of anxious rookie coaches and bleary eyed veterans who need the three-year renewal and joined in the \u201csocial\u201d events late into Friday night.  My goal is to teach them to coach vaulting safely \u2013 and to keep everyone awake.  I\u2019m not always successful, at least in the staying awake department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many old friends there as well, guys I’ve coached with for decades. And almost always, a surprise. This year: one of my favorite vaulters from the 1990’s. It’s been decades since we’ve seen each other. Now his kids are in high school, and he’s taken on a head coaching role. He wasn’t the best vaulter I ever coached, but he was always the best future coach I ever coached. And now, twenty-seven years later — it’s come true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jerseys<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Walking into John\u2019s classroom brings back a flood of track memories for me.  Not because it\u2019s an \u201cold\u201d room \u2013 it\u2019s the first year for the new high school, so everything is brand-spanking new.  No the memories are hidden in the corners, or high on the shelves, or sitting in the back rows of the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like any good track coach in season, John has track jerseys stacked in the corner.  It\u2019s indoor season, and even though John is deep in with his swim team, he still has the uniforms out for the indoor track team.  Those are the \u201cSpider Jerseys\u201d, the \u201csignature\u201d Watkins track jerseys for the past decade.  They came about from a conversation at a football game between the sprint coach and myself, about some little kid\u2019s shirt.  I think we scared the kid \u2013 but the shirt was a black and gold \u201cSpiderman\u201d shirt, and we both thought it would make an amazing track jersey.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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End of an Era<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The \u201dSpider Jerseys\u201d were distinctive:  we could pick our kids out across the field or on the backstretch of the track.  And they were special \u2013 no one had anything like them.  It made our kids stand out.  They might have been \u201ca little\u201d cocky, but in those years, with multiple Conference and District Championships, so were we.  The Spider Shirts replaced the black and gold \u201cSpeed Suits\u201d that much of our team wore before, and there was nothing more exciting than watching the kids light up when they got to first wear the new apparel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a decade, and time for the next generation of kids to get excited about something new and different.  John is replacing the jerseys this year with a new (and more modern) design.  As a coach, you need to make each team special, and each era its own.  So it\u2019s high time for new jerseys.  But I\u2019ll still mourn the end of the era of the \u201cSpider Jerseys\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansfield<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Up high on the shelf is the championship trophy from the Mansfield Relays track meet from 2016.  That was the best team we ever coached, strong in almost every event.   On that Saturday at Mansfield we fought a team from Grand Rapids, Michigan to the wire, the points lead altering from event to event.  Finally we  won in the last event, the 4×400 relay, running one of the fastest times in the State, to secure the championship.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winning Mansfield was a huge deal for the kids, but an even bigger deal to the team coaches. We grew up in the era when Mansfield was the legendary Ohio meet, with hundreds of teams and thousands of participants over two days.  Placing at Mansfield was a huge deal, and winning an individual event sometimes even bigger than winning the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That era was over, and Mansfield was down to one day with \u201cjust\u201d forty teams.  But it was still a big deal to come out of the meet, not only with that trophy, but with the medalists in fourteen out of seventeen events.  It was the early high point of that amazing year, one with incredible peaks and valleys.  I remember most of that meet like it was last week, standing on the backstretch trying to coach both the girls pole vault and the 300 Hurdles.  I even can recall the bus ride home down I-71, the immense pride in those kids, and just a few minutes to enjoy the moment.  Then the \u201cclock\u201d of coaching kicked in, and I began to plan for the next meet down the road, Lancaster\u2019s Fulton Relays.  We won that one too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Back Row<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is the fifth season since I retired.  There\u2019s only a few kids in the school that even know who I am.  But looking at the back row of one of John\u2019s classes the names are still there:  echoes of older brothers who competed for the \u201cBlack and Gold\u201d, who went from young freshmen fighting to just get a varsity letter, to kids standing on the podium at the State Track Meet.  I must be getting \u201cold\u201d \u2013 those memories come flooding back, with all the struggles and the ultimate successes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memories aside, there is a job still to be done in this classroom. John actually set up a lesson that I could help the kids with.  That\u2019s unusual for me subbing a science and math class.  But we did some \u201cmeasuring\u201d, and I got to practice my other former profession, being a teacher, just for a bit.  I\u2019m definitely an \u201call in\u201d guy when it comes to teaching.  Like coaching, it\u2019s hard to be \u201cin\u201d just a little bit, but it\u2019s still good to be a small part of the learning process once again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h4>\n\n\n\n