Holiday Reflections of a Hurdle Coach
by Steve McGill
Happy new year, everybody! Over the recent holiday break, I had some time to do three things I rarely have any time to do: read, write, and reflect. I read two books — a memoir and a collection of essays; I finished the eighth and last chapter of a book I’m writing, putting myself in position where I can now begin working on a second draft; and I just lay in bed or sat around thinking about my life. Didn’t have a whole lot of coaching to do because one of my regulars was out of town on a family trip. So, in addition to working on my book, I also had time to get in some journaling. The article below comes from my journal, as I reflected on my life as a hurdler and hurdle coach, and to a lesser degree, my life as an English instructor.
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There’s a book I used to teach, and that a colleague of mine taught for many years, called A River Runs Through It. It’s about two brothers and their relationship with their father. The one brother — the narrator — is a writer/journalist, and the other brother is a fly-fisherman who drinks a lot of beer and gets into bar fights. The father is a very strict disciplinarian who is also very religious. The brother who fly-fishes is exceptionally talented at it, to the point where he’s able to develop his own techniques that go far beyond his father’s teachings. So, despite the fact that he’s a screw-up in life overall, he has this one gift that makes him a transcendent figure when he’s immersed in it.
It’s been at least fifteen years since I’ve taught that book, so I don’t remember a lot of the details. I do remember that the first title reference doesn’t come until very late in the book, when the narrator is looking back and philosophizing. He’s realizing that a river runs through the woods, and that metaphorically, a river runs through all of life. This river is ancient, it is outside of time, it is all around us, and it runs inside of us. We are all rivers, each with our own story to tell.
My story is a hurdler’s story; the hurdles are the river that has run through my life. The hurdles have been the one constant. They have been the path I’ve traveled upon. During this holiday break I’ve had some time to look back on what that means holistically, and how, in my years as an athlete and my career as a coach, the hurdles have come to give me a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging in this world where I otherwise often feel like an outsider.
A slight tangent first, so I can make a larger point: a few months ago, I was feeling a little distraught about some things that were going on in my teacher life, trying to figure out how I could be more effective in bringing the best out in my students’ writing. So I was meditating one night, asking my higher self what I need to do in light of my frustrations. I sat quietly, breathing slowly, waiting to hear a response. After several minutes, I heard a soft voice say to me, “Maybe you’re already doing it.”
In that moment, I felt a deep peace wash over me. I was being told that I didn’t need to be a hero, I didn’t need to do anything miraculous or drastically different. I thought about my life as a teacher and coach, and acknowledged that I’ve been doing very meaningful, impactful work by being a part of these kids’ lives, by investing emotionally in them, in giving the best of myself to them, day after day, year after year.
In a conversation the next day with a colleague who was also struggling, I shared the contents of my meditation with her, and explained that the message I received was one that she should take to heart also. “That’s deep, Steve,” she said, and the way her facial muscles relaxed informed me that the message had given her back her emotional balance.
Maybe you’re already doing it. Whenever I remind myself of that mediation, which I do on a daily basis, I drop the “maybe.” I’m already doing it. Throughout my career as a coach, I’ve looked for ways to expand, to “do more.” I started my hurdle website and wrote articles. I started up the hurdle magazine, and have kept that going for over a decade. I started doing hurdle camps and have continued with those as time and energy has allowed over the past seven years. At one time I was hoping to become a professional coach, and more recently a collegiate coach. I almost had the sprint/hurdle job at North Carolina State University three years ago, but they hired someone else, leaving me to feel bitter and disappointed.
But I can honestly look back now and say I’m glad I’m not a college coach. First and foremost, I don’t like to travel. I like to stay at the house and listen to my “In the Jazz Zone” playlist on Spotify. I also don’t like dealing with big egos and extreme pressure to win. I like the creative element, the artistic element, so I wouldn’t have been happy if I had gotten what I wanted.
The river that runs through it all for me is not the camps or the magazine or even the books I’ve written; instead, it’s the regular grind of coaching hurdlers on my school teams over the years and in my private coaching. When I’m out these these days coaching Janie and Raelle, that’s just a continuation of when I used to coach Ayden, and Brandon before him, and Josh before him, and Johnny and Wayne and Booker back in the day, and Keni and Allie J back in the day, and Joe Coe and Ray Ray and DJ way back in the day, and Cameron way back in the day, and Anna Weale and Pyle Style way way back in the day, and McBride and Cockburn in the OG days. A river runs through it. It’s not about doing anything different, anything special; it’s not about “changing” or going in a “new” direction; it’s about continuing to go on.
In my life as an English teacher, I’m impacting lives there too. The other day I received an Instagram message from a former student who graduated in 1999. She now is a wife, a mother of two children, and the owner of a boutique. She hunted me down through a Google search because she had recently lost her father to cancer, and while digging through old boxes she had found a letter of encouragement I had written her all those years ago when she was going through a difficult time in high school. Earlier this school year, another former student, from the graduating class of 2001, reached out to me for solace after her husband had committed suicide and her father had been diagnosed with cancer. If I’m making those kinds of connections, where former students from over twenty years ago are reconnecting with me when they need someone to talk to, I must be doing something right.
So when I see the kids in front of me on a daily basis, I remain aware that I can’t give them anything less than my best, even when they’re super-apathetic or super-rowdy. That’s what I love about this holiday break — it gives me a chance to put things in perspective.
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