A Comeback Story
by Steve McGill

A strange thing is happening in my life. I’ve started hurdling again. Just a little bit, over very low hurdles. But I can feel the vibe again. And I want to do more, not knowing how much more I can do. It started in late November, when I took the students in one of my classes out to the soccer field (we don’t have a track) to teach them how to hurdle. Students are always looking for something exciting to do to get away from the daily grind of the classroom. One student in particular in my B block AP Lang class, Abby Stutts, kept begging me all semester to take the class outside to teach them how to hurdle. I finally relented and took them outside one day last month. 

I always keep a set of five practice hurdles in the backseat of my Honda Civic. So I took the hurdles out of my car and set one up at the lowest height — 27 inches. I gave them some basic instruction and pretty much allowed them to go at it and have fun. Of course, after trying a couple times themselves, one of the students said, “Let’s see you do it, Mr. McGill.” Why hadn’t I figured on that? I laughed and said, “not today.” But they kept pressuring me. “We wanna see you do it,” one said. I literally hadn’t run over a hurdle in 20 years. But after that remark, I felt myself giving in.

I had the same feeling George Orwell had in his personal essay, “Shooting and Elephant” — they were expecting me to do it, so I had to do it. In Orwell’s story, he was working as a policeman in Burma, and an elephant in must had broken loose and had stomped on a dude. The elephant’s owner had traveled far away and wouldn’t be back until the next day. So Orwell grabbed a rifle to kill the elephant. But by the time he saw the elephant, it was no longer in must, and was pretty much harmless. But the Burmese people, once they saw him grab the rifle, followed behind him in large numbers, eagerly awaiting the spectacle of seeing him shoot the elephant. So even though he had no intention of shooting it when he first saw it, the pressure of the crowd made him feel like he had no choice. So he did shoot it — a decision he regrets, and he admits that he did so only because he didn’t want to look like a fool. 

Now, my situation was not nearly as serious, but I did feel the pressure of expectations. In class, I’m often making hurdle-related analogies and metaphors, often trail-legging over book bags, often talking about past athletes I’ve coached, often recruiting a kid to come out for the track team. So now here I was, in what was supposed to be my domain, and I was scared to do the thing I loved to do the most. But with every “come on, Mr. McGill,” the fear decreased and my instincts started kicking in.

I looked at the hurdle and began the process of convincing myself I could do it. I was wearing my teacher gear — button-down shirt, slacks, dress shoes. And the field was soft and a little wet because the sprinklers had been on earlier. But as I stared at the crossbar, and heard the urgings of my students, the athlete in me, buried deep, rose to the surface. Come on Steve, I told myself, just clear the damn thing. From what felt like a high-knee approach (although my knees were in fact quite low), I boppity-bopped toward the hurdle and jumped over it — more easily than I would’ve thought possible, and with better technique than I would’ve predicted. My students gave a roar of approval and I felt like a track star. 

That moment really invigorated me, but that’s all it was — a moment — and I had no plans of trying to do any more hurdling. Deep down, though, I knew this one-off would expand into something bigger. It felt so good to step over that hurdle; I knew I needed more.

The next Sunday, when I arrived at the track for my 10 o’clock appointment, I waited five minutes before texting my athlete to ask if she was coming. She texted me back and said she wasn’t, and it was apparent that we had miscommunicated after our previous session the week before. After feeling annoyed and frustrated, knowing that I’d have to wait around for an hour before my next athlete was to arrive at 11, I realized I could use that hour doing my own thing if I wanted to. So I stretched, did a few old-man sprints, then set up a 27-inch hurdle. I felt even more nervous than before because this time I was actually preparing to hurdle instead of doing it spontaneously. 

I started with a trail leg side drill, added a second hurdle four meters apart and repeated the drill, then added a third hurdle and repeated it again. My hips weren’t rotating too well, so I did some hip flexor stretches and tried again. This time the movement felt smooth enough that I decided to go over the top. 

Again, I started with one hurdle and worked my way up to three, placing them 4.5 meters apart for an easy 3-step that required minimal speed. I was able to do about five or six reps of that, with long breaks in between. It felt really good, and I even went over one 30-inch hurdle at the end just to see if I could do it, and that went well too. 

Three weeks later, I’m up to five hurdles. Still 27 inches, but I’m gradually increasing the spacing, gradually forcing myself to go a little faster. They’re five meters apart now. It’s a once-a-week thing, before or after coaching my athletes. I always make sure one of them is around to film a rep. I’ve been posting them on my Instagram and getting over 1,000 views and receiving lots of encouraging feedback. My old-man videos are getting a lot more views and likes than my videos of my athletes. Don’t know if that’s a good thing.

My biggest takeaway from this “comeback” is simply that it’s fun. Even in the little amount of hurdling that I’ve done the past weeks, I have felt myself learning things that I can pass on to my athletes. While I have no plans of making a legit comeback and competing in master’s meets, I do plan to make some time to go out on the track and get some more reps in. I love hurdling. I’ve never stopped loving it. And I’ve never stopped missing it.