The Campbell-Savona Meet Part I
Title: The Campbell-Savona Meet
Part I
This time of year I check the weather a lot and on Monday I
did not like what I saw! Thunder and
lightning were in the forecast. In
Section V we must take a clap of thunder or a flash of lightening very
seriously. We have to send the kids to
the bus or into a school building for thirty minutes. If there is a new clap of thunder or slash of
lightning, we must start the watch again.
“What if a parents cell phone shows that the storm is far away and not
in our area?” you might ask. It doesn’t
matter. Section V does not allow us to
make a judgment call like that. When I
went to bed Monday night I thought, “Maybe the weather will look better in the
morning.” It didn’t. Monday morning the percentage of a thunder storm
had increased and the chances of it stretched from 4pm to 7pm at night! Yipe! I
imagined being trapped on a bus with a bunch of kids, waiting for the thunder
and lightning to move on. “Maybe it will
get better later in the day,” I told myself.
Outside of my house a warm sun smiled down on the world and a gentle
breeze was blowing. “Why can’t this be
the weather tonight?” I grumbled.
I came in from my jog and my heart sank. The odds of thunder and lightning in Campbell , New
York
Campbell-Savona has a great stadium with a nice press box at
the top! At most league meets we fill
out paperwork at a small table near the line or in a class room but at C-S, we
climb the metal stairs to the top. An
official was talking to Mr. Rosko as I went over to the event sheets. Coach Dave was right behind me and we sat
down together. Arkport-Canaseraga had
already filled out the sheets (and of course C-S, being the home team had too)
and I was stunned. Arkport hasn’t been a
huge team in years (they used to be a real power in the league years ago) but
as I began to fill out the event sheets I began to grasp how big they
were! “They have a 3200 relay,” I
muttered to myself, putting ours in. I
filled out the hurdles and then flipped the page to the 100 dash. My eyebrows went up. They had a huge list of girls! “Oh, my,” I breathed. We were in for a much bigger fight than I had
anticipated. It wasn’t just that
event. They had literal armies of girls
in long jump and discus too! At the end
of the meet they ran FOUR 1600 relay teams!
Little D school like us are usually blessed to field ONE team much less
run FOUR!
Like our first meet of the season Cash got us a lead in the
beginning of the 3200 Relay but since at Cuba
Have you ever missed something obvious? I mean something painfully obvious. Well, I missed it and so did everyone else at
the meet. The girls hurdles were on the
guys marks. “Why is that a big deal?”
you ask. Well, the guys do the 110
hurdles the
spacing is different. Girls
hurdles are spaced at 8.5 meters where the guys are spaced at 9.14. That doesn’t sound like a big deal does it
but what most people don’t realize about hurdles is that your steps are
critical to success. Four steps are the
key to the event but if you start five stepping it slows you down. My daughter came in a second slower than
normal. That was disappointing because
she had worked hard over break! Autumn
still won but it was a poor time. Jill
was really off of where she should have been and Zoe had improved over break
and yet her time was poor too. It wasn’t
until I helped set the hurdles for the next event that I realized something was
wrong. The hurdles were on the yellow
and we shoved them up to the white lines above them. That doesn’t sound so bad but when I looked
behind us I saw another set of white lines.
“What????” I thought. Early in my
coaching career I memorized the little ditty, “To the blue and up two” to help
me remember where to put the hurdles. I
got it from another team with blue lines for their boys hurdles too. Boys hurdles are always pushed back toward
the finish line, why was there another row of hurdles? Unless....
Slowly it dawned on me that things were wrong. I mentioned it to the coach next to me (who
is extremely knowledgeable and I have asked his advice over the years many
times) but he didn’t understand what I was saying. “Maybe I’m wrong,” I thought... but I didn’t
think so. C-S kids were doing a great
job getting things set up ahead of us, so I stepped out and counted the
hurdles. Sure enough I counted 11 rows! I told the official, “I’m not great at math
but I think we have 11 lanes of hurdles.”
He did a count and then nodded, “You’re right,” he said. We adjusted it and the boys race went
great. How did so many vet coaches miss
that? It happens:) At least it wasn’t the county or sectional
meet!
The 100 dash was up next.
Remember I said that there were a lot of girls in this event? Yeah, well, in the first heat I saw BOTH of
my good girls. I ran down the lane,
reaching the official while the girls were checking their blocks. “Is this the fast heat?” I asked, very
concerned. “Yes, coach. I asked for the fastest girls from each
school and this is what we got.” I
smiled at him and said, “That is fine, thank you!” Back to the line I went (I was the second
watch and in the 100 dash that is an important place) when a parent called out
to me I had dropped my pen! She directed
me and I got it but now the starter was raising the gun. You have to time from the smoke NOT the sound
of the gun, so I started jogging backwards... barely missing a steeple chase
barrier (ask Brandon Marlatt about how it feels to hit one of the those!) The smoke poured out the top and I clicked
the watch, then I dashed for the line too!
I made it just fine and was able to cheer my girls on for a second
before the fast heat hit the line! My
top 100 runner got third and made a HUGE improvement on her time! I was very pleased and let her know that. My other top girl was very disappointed in
her time. “Shake it off,” I said, “you still
have the 200 dash to go.”
It was then I noticed that pole vault was still not going
and this was the third event, with bad weather in the forecast (which again the
Lord was very gracious about!!).
“Leland,” I barked to my son outside the fence. “Please get me Coach Dave!” When David got over to me I said, “Coach, the
pole vaulters need an adult to warm up.
Will you watch them until I can get over there?” Why did you have to officiate the pole
vault? Well, a few years ago CS stopped
paying their helpers and ever since track and field at CS has struggled to get
enough help to run a meet smoothly. That
is not the coaches fault. So next time
you see Mrs. Green or a board member, thank them for paying our helpers. It makes for a much nicer meet experience!!
In fantasy genre little things (like what happened to us in the hurdles) can throw heroes off too...
or they should. A poorly weighted sword
can handicap an excellent swashbuckler.
A ring of power twisting the mind of our hero can create new problems
for his or her traveling companions. A
sailing ship with great cannons and a great crew is low on powder due to some
of it getting wet. An expert archer has
only so many arrows and he is being pursued by a horde of evil creatures! Like the hurdles, things seem fine at first
but our hero notices something is off during the struggle.
*** 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 ***
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