“Men Finish What They Start”

“Men finish what they start.” I repeated this over and over as I passed out uniforms and track warm-ups to my groaning athletes on Friday after school. In our dingy, dirty and grafittied locker room, the kids grumbled; “Coach Gibbon, we thought the season was over last week.”

“No, you knew we had regionals this week; don’t fool yourself,” I snapped back. “I’ve been telling you all year that the season ends at regionals – maybe even states.”

The City Championships happened Saturday, May 9, and we didn’t do very well. Our 4×800 team got stomped after showing some promise the week before. My best 800 meter runner stepped off the track and quit after going out in 57 seconds for his first 400. The shining performance was an 8^th place finish in the 100 meters for my best runner, a senior named Patrick. To put it lightly, we got whipped.

I knew it would be a bear to get the kids back to practice last week, especially with the disappointment of the City meet. I knew it would be even more difficult fielding a team to compete on a consecutive Saturday, and this time out in the county against the bigger, richer and more experienced track programs at the regional meet.

Early in the week, four of my athletes flat told me they wouldn’t come another weekend. “The way I see it, it’s not quitting,” said one of my sprinters, who convinces himself that mediocrity, or slightly worse, is fine on a daily basis. Certainly, he had no shot of making the top four at the regional to qualify for the state meet, but I told him to watch that these small attitudes don’t become major character flaws in the future when life gets really difficult. Another kid bailed, saying he had to prepare all day Saturday for the prom.

Most things in this city slide by in mediocrity or worse, and athletics are no exception. Many coaches fudge their rosters to make it seem like they have a full team all so they can get the three small stipends that come with the gig. If anyone questions the numbers of one’s team, the easy excuse – one that would be impossible to dispute – is that the kids skipped school and missed the game or meet. This is such a common problem in the city, no one bats an eye if a team shows up on a bus with just three or four kids.

All year long, my runners in cross country and track go to shabby city meets. In cross country, the courses aren’t mapped out or official in distance. During track season, we run on beaten up old tracks with maybe one or two good lanes to run in. There is no pole vault in the city because the equipment is too expensive and the majority of high schools don’t even have proper high or long jump pits to practice or compete in. We coaches do our best – we run the meets, set up the hurdles, measure the shot and disc throws, try to keep the kids engaged, motivated and interested even though we have no awards or medals for them. In my time here, my team has never been able to afford going to an invitational, where the prospect of awards is there.

So getting out to the county, where track and field is treated very professionally and respectably is quite a shock to my city athletes. After much prayer and summoning of my John Wooden spirit, I was able to rouse seven kids (out of a school of 800) out of bed last Saturday morning to go out to the county and, as my 1600 meter runner said, “compete against a bunch of white boys” when they could have been sleeping or relaxing.

The “white boys” were there in full force too; granted, they weren’t all white kids, but the wealth gap between the city and county was very obvious to me and my athletes; they had nice uniforms – all matching compared with our mix and match, – tents to sit under, plentiful refreshments provided by parents or boosters, brand new Nike or New Balance spikes, athletic trainers, and dozens of parents and supporters in the stands to cheer them on to victory.

My squad – the only city team in this regional that actually bothered to show up – had no tent, shared four pairs of my old high school and college track spikes and, as always, went without any support from parents or fans.

But when they stepped out on the track, my kids competed their guts out. Every single kid ran a personal best, and they knew it. My miler, who calls himself “the ice man” because he likes to wear slick watches and fake silver jewelry, ran a 5:06 for the mile, outkicking a few kids in Nike track uniforms. While the other coaches around me talked about the excellent “base training” their top kids had put in over the course of the year, I cheered on Gerald, telling him to “do it for the ice.” He avoided taking last place by three spots and he was so pumped. My two miler went out in 65 seconds because he was so excited to lead a field of great runners, but finished last in 11:45 – still, it was a 20 second personal best. My captain, the kid I wrote about earlier in the year who has been locked up twice on drug charges, ran 52 seconds for the 400 – a personal best by four seconds. He finished 7^th in the regional – a really good showing. When he got back to the stands, he yelled out to the rest of our team that he “ran like I was running from the police. I was scared!”

The assembled parents below us, there to support their sons and daughters, spent the afternoon looking back with annoyance/disgust at my city kids up in the bleachers making all the ruckus – laughing and yucking it up. My kids were there to have fun. I was proud of them. They had stuck out an entire track season, from the brutal, cold and windy days of March to the sunny and pleasant days of May. Like men, they had finished what they started.

I won lots of awards in high school and captained a nationally ranked division one college team. I got to run at state and even national championships, but I realized after seeing the struggles of my kids, that what I did wasn’t so serious. I had parental and material support and people there to help me each step of the way. I had proper nutrition each day and trainers if I had a muscle tweak or some soreness. My city team taught me to appreciate other things: friendship, overcoming basic obstacles like a lack of nutrition and proper attire, and always doing the best you have with what you’ve got.