A Writer's Journey Part IX
Title: A Writer’s Journey
Part IX
In 2005 our girls team didn’t look very strong. Courtney Cornell was our super girl, while
the others battled in the trenches.
Arkport girls were about our level that year, so we would battle for the
basement, against each other. We weren’t
bad, we just weren’t great either... except for one race, a race where we were
amazing!
There was nothing that indicated something great was going
to happen that day, when we got off the bus at the LeRoy Invitational. The last meet we had attended was McQuaid and
although we were not last, we again were fighting the bottom coming in 21st
out of 23 girls teams in our race. In
small school girls it is hard to have a complete team, so technically we beat a
lot of other schools. This last year (2018) the
McQuaid invitational had sixty small schools in the race and only 23 had
scoring teams. We were one of those
incomplete teams:) So even the last
place girls team, was not really last considering they beat the 37 teams below
them. Somehow in 2005, that didn’t make
us feel any better. Courtney had come in
13th which would be her highest place she would score in her career
at McQuaid. The other girls had run well
but were buried in the 100s or the 200s.
So that crisp fall morning, we weren’t expecting anything much as a
team... or should I say, “I wasn’t expecting anything.”
Brandon Marlatt had a big year at McQuaid coming in the top
ten and I thought it would be neat if one of my top runners won an
invitational. So I noticed a pond and I
said, “If Brandon or Courtney win, I’ll jump in that pond!” All the kids were excited about that! Little did I realize it was the beginning of
entering very cold bodies of water during the cross country year and that
eventually it wouldn’t just be just for my top runners... but that was years
away yet.
Angel McNeill and Mia Mia Snow ran up to me, very
excited. “Coach, do you know they give
out tee-shirts to the winning teams?”
That question would be like a kid who struggles to place in a league night
meet going, “Coach! Did you know they
give out sectional patches to the winners?”
Okay, it wasn’t that bad but it was close. “Really?” I asked, weakly. Two very determined sets of eyes told me, “We
are winning a tee-shirt today.” “That
would be nice,” I said carefully. There
was no way that was happening but I try to be a positive person. (Vanessa would argue with that as she often
complained, “You give lousy pep talks, coach!”
When one of my favorite says to stress hard work is, “Life isn’t a
Disney movie!” I can see her point.
Well, it was a Disney movie that day!)
There was no indication of anything spectacular happening in
the guys race, which went first. In fact, tragedy
struck! Brandon Marlatt had been killing
his race field but he didn’t realize where the finish line was. He ran around a field that he didn’t have to
run around and there was no way we could tell him in time. He ended up being tenth place after running
so far in front. He was very
disappointed! To his credit he didn’t
start swearing loudly or kicking things but you could tell he was
devastated. I gave him some space and
would talk to him after the girls race about it. The guys had done what they normally did, which
was decent but not enough to get a top three team finish and a tee shirt! The interesting thing was the boys had done
much better at McQuaid than the girls, coming in twentieth out of thirty
scoring teams. This was even greater if
you factor in the pile of non scoring teams that ran that day. Doug and Chris, two future sectional patch
winners, ran in that race. Although
Doug, Chris, and even Josh (who missed a sectional patch by just a little bit
his senior year) were not as good as they would be, they were solid enough for
one of our best finishes as a guys team at McQuaid. So a team that good, didn’t get anything and a
girls team that was much weaker, was determined to get a tee shirt.
The race start signal was given and Courtney roared off with
three girls from Kendall in hot pursuit! Kendall was the alpha team there and one of
their girls would be coming in first... or so they thought. Court told me that when her strength started
flagging she would think about me going in the pond and it kept her going! She held them off, winning her first
invitational!
As amazing as that was something even cooler was happening
in pack. JT girls were surging! Danielle Miller, Brittany Marlatt, Angel
McNeill, and Mykalinn Snow, were running fifteen places beyond where they
normally would be in a race! I was
shocked and growing more excited as each one came toward the finish. When the last one crossed the line, I shook
my head in wonder. I didn’t know if they
had placed top three but what they had done was nothing short of
miraculous! Turns out they got second
place!!!!!!!!! Unreal!!! I had no idea how big of a deal that
was. I have had good girls teams since
then, some much stronger, but we’ve never placed top three at an
invitational! The same thing is true with
my guys teams! The most unlikely team,
with sheer heart, blasted through the pack to pull off the most amazing finish
I have ever seen from a team! It was a
Disney movie! You could almost see the
credits rolling after they got their tee shirts... or after I jumped into that
pond:)
You have to understand that in cross country it comes down to the
whole team if you want to win. In
soccer or basket ball a few stars can make a huge difference but not in
XC. You could have a team where the first four girls went 1, 2, 3, 4 at sectionals but
if your last girl is dead last at 127, you might not even be the third place
team!!! Every girl is critical to the
race! I would say the biggest effort
I’ve seen since then as a scoring team was the Trio’s (Meg, Alyssa, and
Vanessa) junior year where they tried to win sectionals. They tried very valiantly, ran great times,
but it was just not to be! Sadie, Sara,
Ashley, and company beat Addison in a league
meet one time, but they just ran. It was
only until afterward that we realized we had beat them. (To be fair, Addison
was weaker that year and didn’t have a power house front runner like
normal.) But what I call generation one,
a nice but weak girls team did the impossible!
They did something we have not equaled since then! Generation Five might this year if Jillian,
Pink, Cash, Kelsey, Sam, and maybe others can stay healthy!
What is really interesting is I was a weak coach then. Oh, I liked the kids and they liked me, and
we did work hard, but I have more tools in the tool box now (Praise the LORD!!!!!!) One of my best tools is I have a program to
help short distance runners become good XC runners (Mia Mia and Angel would
have really benefitted from that!) So a
weak girls team, with an inexperienced coach, did the impossible!
It’s funny that I like to write about people doing the
impossible. That is the bread and butter
of popular fiction. While Great Expectations
writes a slow coming of age story (with incredible talent! I love the way Dickens writes! If only he had been an action writer!) and
Crime and Punishment pursues questions of morality, a popular fiction writer
does not have such lofty goals... or maybe we do. The newest novel I am working on (The Raven)
has a direct moral concept that I am trying to get across (although I have to
break from that to do round one edits on “Two Paths”). The plot stakes are much higher in popular
fiction. Think about the summer block
busters. Rarely do they have premises
about ordinary life. Independence Day is
about earth vs an alien invasion. I’m not sure the premises of fast and furious
movies but from the advertisements it is something exciting! The Matrix is
about a hero that rises up to face a seemingly invincible foe. I loved the “Sound of Music” and still
do! (Boy is that music catchy!) BUT “The Sound of Music” isn’t popular fiction! It follows a governess that turns a family’s
life upside down in a GREAT way!! If “The
Sound of Music” was popular fiction, the family’s life would have still been
turned upside down but the governess would have been an OSS
(Note: McQuaid's Website of results has a mistake in that they list us doing this in 2004. That is impossible. In 2004 I only had three girls and Mia Mia, Angel, and Brit were all modified runners. I think they must have accidentally switched 2004 and 2005.)
*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on
Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen! All of
them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which
will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.
All of his books are available in soft cover too! Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s
page should come up ***
Book list
Fiction
Wolf Hunting – Action/suspense
Wolf Hunting 2: Trick Shot – Military action/ science
fiction
American Fairytale – Colonial America
Life, Liberation, and the Pursuit of Video Games – Dystopian
Asylum Series (Tribulation genre meets CS Lewis meets lost)
Asylum
Killer Robots
Werewolves
Elf Princess
Zero Book – 666
C-3 Series (Pilgrim’s Progress meets Ender’s Game)
An Assumed Risk
Heavy Opposition
A Distant Boom
Two Hearts
The Magnificent Six
Don’t Pass Go!
Two Paths – Coming Soon!!
The Princess of Ashes Series (C-3 Series spin off)
Falling Ashes
Non-fiction
Miracles Can Happen: The Jim Ross Story – Jim Ross was
miraculously sparred from death... twice!
Attack on Girl’s Track – A look at boys competing in girls
sports, from the perspective of a track coach.
The book uses five years of track results from Section V (2012 – 2016)
to prove its point.
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