Author Adrian Essigmann and Christian Writing

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...

Title: The Surprise Birthday Party! Somehow the cross country team learned that Sara, one of its runners, had never had a surprise birthday party.   One of us brought up throwing a surprise party for Sara as a team and since it was summer, that seemed doable.   We recruited Grandma into our scheme and began to plan.   Then on a beautiful weekday night, we showed up before Sara got home from work. We talked about how we were going to surprise Sara and finally we decided we’d hide all over the house and see which one of us she found first.   Carefully we picked out our hiding spots and then we waited for Sara to get home.   She pulled in and we scattered to our spots.   In the door she came and we heard Grandma talking to her calmly as she hung up her keys.   Grandma and Grandpa didn’t give a thing away as Sara left the kitchen and headed into the house.   Suddenly she screamed and we all came running out of our hiding spots.   We fou...

Title: Easter Weekend Reflections When I was a young boy my mom took me to Sunrise Services put on by our church, Grace Gospel Chapel.   We would go to a golf course (I think) right on Lake Erie before dawn.   I remember it was cold and dark but dawn came while we were singing.   The water far below lapped against the cliffs.   It probably was amazing but that’s not the part I remember very well.   We went back to the little church and a big breakfast with pancakes!    I loved it!  I remember the big breakfast! When mom got remarried Bethel Baptist Church became our home church (I already attended their school, so it wasn’t a big change for me:) and they did Sunrise Service too.   There was no golf course BUT the first year dad took us they had Dunkin Donuts!!   I had two or three donuts at least!!   (I wouldn’t realize I was allergic to wheat until I was in my thirties)   That’s all they would have had to do ye...

Title: Homecoming Supposedly, the University of Missouri claims to have had the first homecoming in 1911.   They invited the Alumni back to an annual game against the University of Kansas .   Later they added other things, such as a parade.   For me homecoming happens in deep track season but it is hardly confined to a day and rarely is at a match.   Former athletes will return “home” to the track.   Lately we have three alumni competing at the college level in track and field and when they return home, we not only chat but we open up the facility for training.   Meg Rogers (former team captain for JT Track and Field) sent me a message on Friday asking me if we had any more practices over break.   We didn’t but there were a few athletes out of town earlier in the week who I wanted to work with, so I told her I’d see.   I found out Miss Cash was available, grabbed Leland, invited Meg, and headed for the track.   Cash and Leland w...

Title: The Four Seasons and Optional Track Practice! Optional practice is vital to our track program.   Unless you’ve been heavily overtraining, taking a week off is a really bad idea.   To encourage the students to come out we have different days such as cookie day, zombie day, art day, and (everyone’s favorite) ice cream day!!   Traditionally, the weather for practice is grim most of the days and this year was no exception.   I told one student, “After you train through this, no meet this year will scare you.   You’ll hear other teams whining about the weather and you’ll think, ‘This isn’t so bad!’ Winter (Monday) – On Saturday we had beautiful weather to the point where slathering on the suntan lotion.   On Monday the distance run started at 1:45 and while on the course we got hit with winds from 30 to 40 miles an hour!   As short distance showed up snow began to swirl around us.   No one needed suntan lotion!   I expected no o...

Title: The Pirate Flag and Track and Field In a fantasy story, sometimes the veteran needs something new to succeed.   In the Lord of the Rings there is a character named Strider, who is really tough.   He takes on several ring wraiths on Weathertop with only the hobbits as allies and drives them off!   Later in the story he (with two of his friends) tracks down a war band of orcs running after them day and night for days!   At Helms Deep Strider (aka Aragorn) helps over a 1, 000 humans hold out against 10, 000 special Uruk-hai (book not the movie).   As tough as he is though, Aragorn (Strider) is up against an army that he can’t fight without help.   In the movie Strider gets the sword of Narsil that helps him enlist an army of the cursed dead.   (In the book he already had the sword when he left on the quest).   In the movie, without that sword the armies of good would have lost the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.   Sometimes a tough ...

Title: Strangers in a Strange Land Part III Cones.   You find them on the road, marking what lanes you are allowed to be in because of road construction.   In PA, I’m fairly certain that road cones are the state flower.   In track and field cones are used to mark lanes in “boxed starts” and boards in jumping pits... or at least, that is what I was used to.   The “Square Deal Meet” had cones in the throwing vectors and near the jumping pit sand.   Are the cones safety markers?   No, turns out they determine whether your throw or jump is good enough to mark.   In the girls triple jumping pit, Pink’s best jump was low 24s (she is new at the event) and the cone was set at 29 feet.   I would love it if Pink got to 27 or 28 by the end of the season and that would be amazing!   I’m not expecting a 29 out of her this year and maybe not even next.   At least they measured the first legal jump you took.   Past that they ignored your j...