The Old Track Dog

Title: The Old Track Dog

When I was a kid I learned cultural wisdom through little sayings.  Sometimes those sayings contradicted each other, like “the early bird gets the worm!” and “Haste makes waste!”  I guess as you grow up, you learn when to get the worm and when hurrying is a bad idea.  Some sayings though are a mystery to a younger person and they just have to take them on faith.  Sayings like, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  The first problem is that you don’t really understand the concept of old.  I used to think that fifty was an older age and now that I’m forty-seven, I don’t think it is.  What is old has shifted.  I used to think that being a grandparent made you old. Now that I am on the edge of that and I have friends becoming grandparents, I no longer consider grandparent’s “old.” 

Now that I’m an older coach, (a puppy compared to some and a venerable ancient to others) I have realized that maybe it’s not the old dogs fault he can’t learn new tricks.  I used to think the saying meant that “old” people were stuck in their ways and refuse to learn.  During Wednesday night’s practice I was willing to learn new tricks, but my body was not pleased.  We have a new coach at JT and the track program he went through in high school did more jumping drills than I know.  I had us all do his drills on Wednesday because now most of the team do events in track and field that have some kind of jumping involved.  Even my two distance horses do jumping, so I figured we’d all better do them.  Up until this point different units were excluded from them and that included me, as I was teaching X or Y to other units. 

They didn’t start out too bad.  The first two were similar to plys we already do (old tricks) and so they weren’t very difficult.  Then Coach Laurens did a drill that I would think would be hard for the Rockettes... maybe even a Russian Ballerina!  Okay, maybe not the Russian Ballerina but it was very tricky!  As I attempted to learn it with the team, I realized my growing lack of balance might be a problem with learning this drill!  But it got worse!  One of the drills was hop on one foot to the opposite line.  That doesn’t sound so hard!  Yeah, it wasn’t but everyone else got to the line way before I did!  It seemed like they beat me by at least a minute!  I’m sure it wasn’t actually a minute but it sure seemed like it.  The amazing thing was I was really trying!  When you see a sea of young eyes watching you finish something like that, it suddenly makes you feel old:)  I’m not scared of running mileage and when people are like, “Wow!  You ran from your HOME to the high school???”  (It’s not that big of a deal.  The school is only 6.7 miles away.)  I say, “Running mileage isn’t hard but running mileage fast... now that’s hard!”  (Hey, I just realized I have invented a track proverb from years of experience!) 

Then Coach Laurens squats down like a frog and then explodes into the air!  It looks so easy when he does it.  As I try to do it I realize I can’t get all the way down!  Again, it’s not that I don’t WANT to get down and do the drill, it is that I simply CAN’T!  The kids seem fine with it.  I wonder how ridiculous I look as I get down in an almost squat position and then pathetically “leaping” a small distance.  As I write this I think, “Maybe I need to take up Yoga or something.”  I probably could learn to eventually contort myself into a pretzel but I think, “I don’t have time for that!”  After all running mileage every day and writing take time, much less being a dad, keeping my hot wife happy, being a good pastor, a good coach, and most important of all... spending time with my awesome creator, I don’t have time to spend time on a rolled mat doing painful poses.

The last drill he does is fun... but only because I do the drill with my seventh and eight grade girl distance horses.  If I had done it with my expert boy short and middle distance runners I would have been blown away.  Even my novice girls short distance unit could have probably buried me!  He had us strike the ground rapidly, taking little strides to him and form a line while continuing to run in place.  Then he would tell us to go and we had to run to an area not far away.  Yeah, Cash destroyed me!  I don’t know if she could take me in a hundred meter dash... yet... but she crushed me in that drill! 

When we got done I went on a long run with the distance unit and turned around with the girls not because I didn’t want to run farther but because I’m too slow compared to the guys and need to get back to coach.  Again, the hard part is running FAST.  On speed days I will often say, “If you’re not puking, you’re not trying hard enough!”  Oh, do a lot of people puke in your practices?  No, actually very few do... except for drill 97 in XC.  That drill was awful!  What the saying means to me is that you need to put your all into the drill not just go through the motions of it.  (I just realized I have invented another proverb over the years!)   Lorena is just coming out and today is the day I teach her to pole vault!  “Lorena!” I yell across the track.  “Today I teach you to pole vault!”  She smiles and raises her hands in a tepid victory sign.

We both head over to the pole vault mats.  When I found out Lorena was a gymnast I asked her to come out for track (which she was already thinking about).  Then I found out she could run fast and she got plugged into the short distance unit in a hurry!  (With Allyson Hayes out, someone has to mind the store!)  I told her, “Because you’re having problems with shin splints and are a gymnast, we will start your training with a standing vault.”  Then I realized I had to demonstrate this.  “Wait, I’ve got to go get my fat stick, I’ll be right back!”  I went in and grabbed the 180 beast aka fatty, and jogged back out.  I did the drill and said, “I used to do this drill better when I was younger.”  Yes, I was definitely feeling “old” at this point.

Since we couldn’t have her sprinting on the runway, we did standing vault drills longer than I normally do and something odd happened.  I started getting better at them!  I pulled off a kick drill with standing vault and I was elated!  I said to her, “Hey, this is fun!”  That probably sounded really stupid coming from me as the coach but it was sincere.  I had forgotten how much fun vaulting was!  You see, I’m not as good as my son or daughter, so I let them demonstrate and I just watch, but when the program was younger, I use to vault with the unit all the time!  I realized I still was capable of it, but had stopped because I didn’t want to look bad compared to the really good vaulters.  But by not wanting to look bad, I had robbed myself of something I really enjoy doing!  A hobby that costs tens of thousands of dollars, that I get to do for free because I’m a coach!  I can still vault!  Earlier in practice I felt washed up and now I felt on top of the world!  Isn’t it funny how life is?  Oh, I still can’t beat my best vaulters... not even close but I can still vault! 

In fantasy literature, there is the old knight or warrior that goes with the group on a quest.  He can still fight but he can’t take on the other armies Champions and must leave that for the younger knights or warriors.  Why is he along then?  Hopefully he has gained wisdom through experience that the younger knights can use on their quest.  Maybe the old dog struggles to learn new tricks because his body is rebellious, but it’s not because the old dog doesn’t want to.  In fact the most amazing thing about our bodies is how much they can do, if we have the time and discipline to put into them!  This Sunday a parishioner brought in a newspaper clipping about an 84 year old woman who just set a world record pole vaulting over 6 feet!  If you had told me that at the beginning of my career as a track coach I would have smiled and said, “That’s cool!”  Now it has a much deeper meaning.  It is profoundly inspiring!

  *** 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 ***