“You sound like an asshole. You know that, right?”
Calene is never less than direct. It began as an easy enough conversation: I don’t think certain sports belong in the Olympics. I see the Games as the ultimate purist form of competition. A clear cut winner and a clear cut loser. That means track and field (or Athletics, if you are European), wrestling, weightlifting, cycling, and anything else where you compete head-to-head. This does not mean anything subjective, and by that I mean events decided by a judge: gymnastics, synchronized swimming, break dancing (!), diving, surfing, and on. I am also on the fence about basketball, soccer, and golf, arguing that they have their own pantheon, but grudgingly admit there are clear winners and losers in those sports and should be included.
Calene’s point is that I am incapable of doing the superhuman feats of a Simon Biles. Doesn’t matter. She is an amazing athlete. Her sport is hard. I just prefer to see competition like I saw on the track all week, men and women pushing to the limits, determining their own fate. Calene thinks I am an elitist. I like to say purist. And yes, I know I sound like an asshole.
This is not my hill to die on. For that, I will literally point you to the legendary Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational’s decision to take one of their three legendary hills off the course, altering the finish to a 300-meter finale on the track so their big new video board can be put to use. Poopout Hill is the second of two hills on the 2.93-mile circuit, a short steep incline that segues into another 150 meters of dastardly uphill. It’s been that way for almost seventy years. Changing a course known as “the Cathedral of Cross Country” after that much time for something as ephemeral as a video screen is not really heretical, just kind of dumb.
I feel very strongly about these things. Enough to sit down and write this blog. Not sure why. Do they really matter? Maybe I need something to push up against. Another example is that I think USA Track & Field is a horribly run organization that does little for the athletes. The leadership is a joke. I feel very strongly about that, all the while knowing there’s little I can do to alter that.
So why waste the breath? My thoughts keep going back to that lost guy who bumbled through the crowd to my side during the Springsteen concert two weeks ago, and how much I identified with him. He was angry he couldn’t find his way and was just trying to do something about it.
Maybe that’s where I am. Trying to find my way in a season of change, ranting about things that don’t matter all that much. On the other hand, these core beliefs about the Olympics and a beloved cross country course are dear to me. Standing for God, family, and country are almost a default set of values. It’s those other life opinions that says who we really are, as Crash Davis so eloquently phrased it in his “hanging curve, high fiber, good scotch” and defiantly anti-Susan Sontag speech these many years ago.
So I embrace them and espouse them, even if I sometimes sound like an asshole.
Martin Dugard is a best-selling author, a board member of the USA Track & Field Foundation and a high school cross country and track coach.
