I have a few memories of cross country but the city meet our junior year stands out. The race was held in a park somewhere and I think we had to run a couple of laps around the course. I don't remember how far we had to run. Does anyone remember? Anyway,  Coach Smith had positioned himself on the course so that he could give encouragement to "his guys" when they ran past. I'm pretty sure only the top five finishers from each school counted in the final results. I have always considered myself a sprinter so I don't think I had much expectation of my effort being counted. Well, I'm hurting really bad and I come up to Coach Smith's position. It's maybe 300 yards from the finish. He runs a few steps with me and he says "go get the purple jersey" I really hadn't been paying much attention but I look up and by god there's a guy up ahead of me wearing a purple jersey. I think Highlands HS was our rival at that time for cross country and I'm pretty sure that purple jersey was a Highlands guy. I look beyond the purple jersey and I see the finish line. The combination of my coaches demand and the sight of the finish produced a tremendous adrenalin dump and I began to close the gap. I'm sure everyone will remember the fire in the lungs and the rubbery legs. I had both of those but I ended up passing that guy about 50 feet from the line. I was the 5th MAC finisher and I got 9th in city. I'm still kinda proud of that. We won the city championship that year. My question is this: Who were the 4 MAC guys that were ahead of me? I've got an idea but I'm not sure.   

It wasn't me in front of you.  I was a poor excuse for a rabbit - probably didn't make it half way, so I sure couldn't tell you how far the course was.  I just know that my course was less than a half-mile.  I seem to recall that this was about a week or two after football was over and was not sure why they allowed me to take up space on the bus.  Does this mean I can tell my kids I was a on the city championship cross country team? - Jay