Archives for July 2019

July 24, 2019

With Team Steve Speed & Hurdle Camp #6 being a little more than two months away, I wanted to write a post that explains my whole philosophy behind why I do these camps, and why I find them very gratifying.

As an English teacher, one thing I always tell my students who see themselves as different or weird is, “Hey, everybody’s weird in their own way. Be weird in your way.” One way in which I’m weird as a track coach is that I really, really don’t like hoarding “secrets” that are accessible only to the athletes whom I coach. Throughout my career, I’ve always been willing to help athletes from opposing schools or clubs, and have had them come and practice with kids that I coach regularly. My attitude has always been, if you have the sincere desire to get better and to do the necessary work required to get better, and you come to me seeking assistance on your quest, and I have the knowledge and wherewithal to help you, then I have an obligation to use my gifts in such a way that you are able to enhance yours. read more

July 17, 2019

When the school year ended this past May, I was planning on setting up a whole bunch of interviews and conducting them throughout June and July, so that I’d be in position to start the first draft of the book by August or September.  But I got a call from my brother during exam period informing me that my mom was in the hospital again, and that “it’s not looking good.” A week later, on June 3^rd, she was gone.

I drove to Delaware from my home in North Carolina, spent the week up there with my siblings. Since coming home, I’ve been writing a lot of poetry—most of it related to my mom—but haven’t been working on the biography very much at all. Indeed, I kind of checked out from my life for a while—stayed away from coaching for about a month as well. I loved my mom dearly, as did all three of my siblings, and the loss of her really tore us apart. I found the grief to be tremendous, almost unbearable. Even though I knew she had lived a full life, that she died knowing that all of us loved her, and that she had died peacefully, none of that could help me deal with the fact that I really, really missed her. read more