How I became a writer part XXIII
Title: How I became a writer
Part XXIII
When I think of deception in sports, I think of backyard
football. There is the fake handoff, the
Statue of Liberty play, throwing the ball to a receiver behind the line of
scrimmage and then the receiver throws the ball to the Quarter back as he or
she runs past the linemen who just stopped counting “steam boats,” a pump fake
pass, the reverse, and so on. In tennis
I have a friend Brendo Johnson who can suddenly slice the ball, so that when it
bounces on your side, it has a backspin on it.
When I play Doug Myers, he does the same thing with a ping pong ball and
you have to be on your toes when he does:)
Pitchers sometimes throw screwballs and knuckleballs, to try and trick
you into swinging wrong at the ball.
Pitchers will also wind up as if they are going to throw the ball and
then suddenly throw the ball to a baseman to try and catch a player moving away
from the base off guard. When you think
of track and field, how can there be any deception? Isn’t everything super straight forward? You might be surprised:)
It was a windy night at Arkport. I had an excellent distance runner, Courtney
Cornell, who in XC had almost gone to states missing it only by two places and
had come in thirteenth at McQuaid, a huge invitational, but in track she
only did the 800 and the 1500. She had
been very successful at those, winning sectionals in the 1500 in ninth grade
and coming two seconds off the school record her junior year. She would place nicely in the 800, even at invitationals
with bigger schools. BUT I wanted to
know how good she was at the 3000 (a distance a little shorter than two
miles). Usually Courtney ran two or
three events and triple jumped in a weekday meet but tonight, I had saved her
for just the 3000. We were going to lose
to Arkport anyway, they just had too many guns, and I wanted to see what Court
(my nickname for her) could do against their star 3000 girl. The two hundred dash was just wrapping up
and soon Court would be running, when Katie Wyant came up to me. Katie was a phenomenal runner (going to
States her senior year in the 400) and she would run many events in every
meet but that night she said, “Coach, My leg feels funny. I don’t think I should run the 1600 relay
because I think I’m going to pull it.”
We couldn’t have that and I immediately sent her home! Our relay team was very good that year (they
almost made it to states that year too) as was Arkport's, so I still
wanted to run it.
Who had I put in as the alternate? Suddenly it hit me! For some reason I had only listed Courtney as
the alternate! I was at the start line
and the 3000 stars on the opposite corner. I always
dress up for track meets, so in dress shoes, I sprinted across the infield
screaming Courtney’s name. The official
was just coming over to line the girls up.
Usually in a weeknight meet the girls and boys will be run the this race at the same
time from opposite sides (boys run the 3200 in New York State
The last race was about to be run and the crowd was prepped
for it. What I didn’t realize is that a
trick was about to be played. Usually
you save your fastest runner for last but “Langer” (my nickname for the
excellent coach of the Arkport girls) had made a switch. He put his anchor second. I don’t think his anchor that night was Megan
G (Courtney’s rival in the 800 and the 1500) because I would have recognized
her instantly. I think Langer was counting
on that and he put his slowest girl last.
That might not SOUND like a big deal but it is definitely NOT the way
this is normally run. Poor Jen Cady
battled hard against her girl in the second leg not realizing she was up
against the anchor! She ran with
everything she had but unfortunately Jen got dropped hard. Not realizing what was going on, I thought it
was over. Jessica Thomas gave it
everything she had (third leg) and closed the gap some...but it was still too
far. We weren’t going to win. I had saved Courtney for nothing! In frustration I hissed to Court, “I don’t
care if we are going to lose, you have to run for training today! Kitchen sink, Court, kitchen sink! Use it as a training drill and get as close
to her as you can by the end!” In some
ways this was a very unusual situation.
Kaitlin, Jen, and Jessica ran multiple events (Kaitlin and Jen were both
lethal in the 100 hurdles), so they were far from fresh, and Arkport girls ran
multiple events too. For a distance
runner like Courtney, jogging two miles was a warm up, a joke. I think this odd
situation played into what happened next.
The Arkport girl took off like a rocket when she got the baton.
What I didn’t know is that before she got the pass my fellow JT coach
Mike Davis noticed she was scared out of her mind, twisting the baton in her
hands, and eyeing the famous Courtney Cornell.
That’s not how an Anchor that is going to receive the baton with a big head start acts! Running like a pack
of wolves was after her, the Arkport girl was close to the break-line and the
1500 meter start before Court even got the baton! Wow!
In a relay that is game over. You
are never going to make up that much distance.
But I screamed, “Kitchen sink!” at her one more time and Courtney was a
good girl, so she engaged. Courtney’s
mom held the school record in the 200 for years and maybe a little of that
short distance ability was with her because Courtney took off at mach 5. This is extremely dangerous in a 400 because
you can burn out but we were going to lose anyway right, so what did it
matter? Throwing caution to the wind,
Courtney pushed herself to the redline as she chased the girl so impossibly far
in front of her! Speaking of wind, there was a very nasty
headwind on the far side of the track!
It was so awful that night you could literally see runners when they hit
it... it was like they were hitting a wall it was so strong! Court hit it and instead of slowing her down,
she seemed to be fighting through it with superhuman strength, gaining visibly
on the girl in front of her.
Everyone in the whole place was now riveted to this
race. Like I knew Arkport’s Champion,
Megan G, they all knew who Courtney Cornell was. As the two girls were coming around the last
bend toward the last one hundred the crowd was screaming so loud I doubt
Courtney heard me over the din... which probably didn’t matter because I’m sure
all I was screaming was something along the lines of “run faster!” Duh, right?
I remember thinking, “Oh, what a race!
What an effort but she’ll still never win!” Courtney had closed the gap significantly but
the head start her opponent had was beyond belief! Down that last hundred line they went and
still Courtney was visibly gaining! I
wasn’t at the finish line, watching the race from the 100 meter start at on the
infield, but people told me about the finish.
They said, “It was like the Arkport girl was two steps away and Courtney
six and then... suddenly Courtney was in front of her and crossing the finish
line first! We had won! Well, that event anyway:)
In my writing journey, I was about to be deceived.
I don’t want to name of the self-publishing company I had chosen (a big
name company attached to a legit publishing house) because what happened next
might have been an dishonest employee trying to pad their numbers, instead of
company policy. Whatever the reason, I
was about to be tricked. My wife had
been very gracious when I told her they were going to charge us $1000 dollars to
put “An Assumed Risk” in print. We
didn’t have that kind of money but she said calmly, “Honey, this is a life
dream of yours, so we will make it happen!”
The man I was dealing with called me up and said, “Mr. Essigmann, your
book is really too big. We need to
divide it up into two or three parts.”
(That’s not the dishonest part, that is still coming. To be fair the book was huge! 200, 000+ words is enormous!!) I refused firmly, realizing this agent had
never read my book. I replied, “No
way! The payoff is in the back half of
the book! Without there won’t be a
second book!” (If he had read it, he
could have argued for the farm battle as a great stopping point and I might
have listened... might have listened:) I
didn’t have another thousand anyway.
What I was doing was a stretch! A
few days later he calls back. “Mr. Essigmann,
I know I quoted you the price of $32 dollars a book (outrageous for a soft
cover book but I didn’t know that) but I made a mistake. It is actually going to be $34.99. My heart fell but that really isn’t too
different so I took it. “If we split it
up though, it would cost much less!” the company rep said with a very sincere
voice... like he was my friend. He
wasn’t:( “No!” I said. A few days later I got called back. “Mr. Essigmann, this is (blah, blah) from
(major self-publishing company), I’m sorry but we messed up. Your book is actually going to be $39.99 (I’m
not kidding or exaggerating!) I’m like,
“$39.99???? Who is going to pay
that??” He brought up splitting up the
book again and then soothed me with the e-book option where I could charge much
less. In 2010 e-books aren’t quite what
they are today but it gave me some hope.
No one was going to be buying a 39.99 book, that is for sure!! Earlier (back when the price was $32.99) I
had called the company service rep and said, “Why don’t we cut out the $10 I’m
going to make, and sell the book for $22.99?”
“Oh, Mr. Essigmann, that’s not how this works!” he replied. “Besides, you aren’t going to really make
that much off the book. Only a couple of
dollars.” I should have realized with that
bold faced lie there, that this man was very dishonest. But I was new to this whole thing and took it
at face value. “Maybe I’m remembering
what he said wrong,” I had told myself.
A few days later I got another call from the company rep. “Mr. Essigmann, I am so sorry, we realize now
that your book is going to cost $45.99 (I think he actually said $49 but... I
still can’t believe that, so I list the lower price here). I was devastated. No one was ever going to buy my book. He was talking about splitting up my book
again but I wasn’t listening. I was
defeated. The dream was over. Like the relay though, the dream was far from
over... I was just being tricked.
(Author Adrian Essigmann has a page on Amazon where all
eighteen of his books are listed ((soon to be nineteen:)). Type in Amazon Adrian Essigmann and click on
the link that says, “Adrian Essigmann – Amazon.com” which should take you to
his author’s page.)
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