Wits, Wisdoms, and Welcomes to a new Cross Country Season
You can be told school's about to start, or even cross country season for that matter, but perhaps it doesn't totally hit you until you see that first kid walk up.
He's moving slow, the water bottle in his hand almost propelling him forward, mattress marks still lining his face. He sits - the first one there - while you stand with your fellow coaches and your charts and that list of who has and who hasn't gotten their paperwork done.
You have learned - that you can send emails, website blasts, and words of mouth all you want - but there's always one. Or perhaps five or six or 10 or 12.
The lone boy is soon met by many and plenty - suntanned faces, stories of beach trips and hikes and flights to countries many of us haven't heard of. Or those who drudged it out in summer school, stayed home and nannied, did this unheard of thing called sleep.
Still, the sign - the sign that things are about to get real - is when that head guy steps up, silences the masses, begins to tell the instructions. Bring water bottles. Watches. Get new shoes if needed. Don't run alone at the river. Attend practice, too many skips will result in cross country pink slips.
Oh, and don't forget that paperwork thing again. Trainers and athletic directors get REALLY serious about that stuff.
You stand behind the head guy - see those freshmen huddled together - banded and bonded as one from the nerves of getting into the big time - their days of being the big shots of Middle School long over.
As for you, you stand, a man of years, memories of cross countries past have produced a lot - broken down vans, unexpected wins, upset losses, ankle sprains, shin splints, fluids flying out of little faces, heat, cold, rain, the lightning alarm going on and off and on and off.
Still, you smile, because you can think you've seen and heard it all if you want. But when you make your living among 14-through-18-year-olds, you always find out that you haven't. Young perspectives can be chaotic, scattered, smothered, and covered, but they can also make old minds rethink things.
Right or wrong, coaches have to keep up, too. Communication is real, and even though you can't put old heads on young shoulders, you have to at least find entry points, common ground, a shared way of seeing things.
With that said, you watch - and you hear - while muscles and tendons protest as those young ones rise out of their chairs - pre-season speech maybe heard, maybe not - and they begin doing that first warm-up.
Names are crossed off, the trainer collects papers, holds some kids out of practice while soon will answer emails from their parents. The head man puts down his clipboard, looks at his own watch, gathers the coaches.
With that said, the coaches, too, begin their first lap - and though their muscles creak and holler way worse than their youth, there's a sense of Summer's Over as the Georgia sun beats down on those old bodies.
And regardless of how old you are or how many years you've done this, there's this thing called hope, emotions of optimism, those calculations of times, races, and paces, that hopefully will find you in early November, wearing sweats, perhaps cold, as you watch those kids come down that final hill in Carrollton.
Welcome to cross country season. And bring it on!
Dunn Neugebauer
Holder of lots of jobs
Author, coach, nice guy-
2019 GHSA Girls' XC State Champions
2022 GHSA Boys' track State Champions