Slides and Cross Country

I received a call from a panicked coach around 5:45am on Saturday last fall. Our cross country team was ready to compete at a meet 2 hours away. The reason for the call… no bus. The bus barn made a scheduling mistake canceling the bus for the wrong day. The decision was an easy one. I threw on some athletic wear and slides and drove to school. With the permission of the parents, we loaded up the team in 3 vehicles and began the drive. The best part of this trip was making middle schoolers listen to what I listened to when I was in middle school (significantly edited). They were less than impressed. But we had many good laughs. Arriving at a very wet and soggy meet in the middle of no where, the kids quickly noticed they were the only non-white kids in the entire meet with the exception of one. I don’t know how much it mattered to them or if it got in their heads, but they sure ran like it didn’t. (Great side-note win: the small school/towns cheered our kids on the whole time.) The memory I’ll never forget: As each runner neared the final turn, I jogged over to meet them. Slides and all. In my slides, I ran the final leg side by side, stride for stride, kid by kid. We finished together.

How much do our kids need us to run side by side, stride for stride? Not in a meet or a game, but in life? I’m finding that “so much” doesn’t adequately answer that question. It takes my time, money, stress, love, dedication, heart, body, mind, and really… my whole self. One could argue that it’s going to leave me broken, bruised and exhausted. That’s a valid point. But these kids are figuratively even more so bloodied after all they battle just to be at a meet, game or match. They give their all to us. The deserve us to give even more in return.

I know the coaches appreciated me helping that day. I don’t know what kind of relationship that helped form between coaches and AD or what kind of trust was built. But I know that I helped coaches continue to build relationships with their kids. And that helps these kids to know… someone is running this race of life with them if or when they need it.