DJ in the 4×4: A Back in the Day Story
by Steve McGill

The older you get, the more stories you have. As an avid reader and a long-time English teacher, I’ve come to appreciate the value of storytelling as a connector, and as a way of keeping the past in the present. While many of the back-in-the-day stories I share with my athletes involve athletes who won state titles and who went on to do big things beyond high school, even more of my stories involve athletes who never won any championships of consequence, and who didn’t go on to compete at the college level.

One of the athletes who ranks among the most dedicated hurdlers I’ve ever coached is named David Jones, who graduated way back in 2004. In the last two years that I coached him, our school had four hurdlers who were among the best in the state. Unfortunately for David, he was the fourth-best of the group.Two of the other hurdlers were defensive backs on the football team, one of whom went on to have an outstanding football career with the Navy. While DJ wasn’t as talented as the others, he worked just as hard as any of them, and they comprised one of the best training groups I’ve ever coached. They were the best group I’ve ever coached on a school team.

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A current photo of David. He’s on the left.

DJ and I have kept in touch infrequently over the years, but it’s always meaningful when we do. He lives in Texas now, where he helps to run a non-profit charity organization. He was always that kind of person – always looking to encourage and uplift others. This past April, as I was struggling through the end of the school year and trying to make it through the last month of the track season, I received a voice message from DJ that really warmed my heart. In it, he discussed the time, at the conference championship meet his senior year, when our team, Ravenscroft School, had a chance to win the conference championship over our rival school Cardinal Gibbons. We had never beaten Cardinal Gibbons before, in the conference meet or the state meet, as they were very strong in the distance events and had a lot more depth than we did.

In 2004, we had a really strong team. At the conference meet, we were matching Gibbons blow for blow. Our hurdlers were canceling out their dominance in distance. Meanwhile, our head coach, Greg Hanson, who was a masters decathlete himself, could coach any event effectively, so we were strong in the field events too. Heading into the last event of the meet, the 4×400 meter relay, we were winning the meet, but we’d have to beat Gibbons in the 4×4 to keep our lead. One of our most reliable relay runners, who was also our best 300 meter hurdler, had to sit out the 4×4 because his hamstring was bothering after the hurdles. DJ was our next man up. I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on him, but I also didn’t want to lose the meet. Our other guys on the relay could all run in the 50-51 range, while DJ’s best was somewhere in the 54 range. A 54 would get us second place. We needed DJ to run the race of his life in that first leg.

I’ll let DJ tell the rest of the story, through the voice message that he sent:

Hey what’s up Coach. I’ve had retreat time with my [non-profit] team for the last couple days, and the theme for us next year is “playing to win.” So I gathered everybody around the table and asked, “What’s a moment when you absolutely dominated, when you were clearly like, ‘I won,’ and it felt good? It was interesting to see how many of those folks drew back to their high school days – their high school sports specifically. And I’ve got some great moments that I thought about sharing with them, but there is one that stands out distinctly in my mind as a pivotal moment. So, we’re at the conference meet, we’re always competing against Cardinal Gibbons. Coach Hanson has been tracking all the [team point] numbers, and he’s like “Guys, I think we won.” And we get up to the 4×4, which if nothing else is for all the bragging rights. As it turns out, it was for everything because the P.A. guy announced that ‘there is a one-point difference between Ravenscroft in first place and Cardinal Gibbons in second place.’ Just before that, I had been talking to you, and our first leg of the 4×4 team had to step out because of an injury. So you came up to me and said, “Hey, David, DJ, I just need you to run faster than you’ve ever run before. Hand it off to the second leg, and they’ll take it from there.” Long story short, I ran faster than I had ever run before. And I remember rounding the final curve, coming down the homestretch, and I don’t think I breathed for the last 100 meters. But I remember seeing one of my teammates’ family screaming for me to keep going strong, and everything else was a blur, and I made the hand-off. I held on; I kept up with the competition and then our guys just took off. And we won. We won the race, we won the bragging rights, we won the event. We won the meet. I don’t think we’d ever won conference before. We set a school record. 

I think back to that moment and it was just so pivotal. It reinforced this idea of someone believing in me; my coach believes in me, my team needs me, and I can do this. I’m just so thankful for all the time that you shared with us – the countless hours of hurdle drills and conversations, the way you knew your people so well. I have countless other stories that I could share that come to mind of ways that you engaged with me. I still have this picture of me as a seventh grader, standing with my hand on a hurdle for the framed pictures they take of sports teams, and I’m the skinniest, palest kid with this goofy haircut. But for some unknown reason that I still don’t know, you were like, “Hey DJ, come over here and try the hurdles.” That was a trajectory changer for, truly, the rest of my life. In middle school, someone believed in me, took an interest in me, brought me in. That was you. Grateful for you, Coach, Appreciate ya, and I’ll catch you later.

DJ as a seventh grader.

The fact that DJ took the time to share that message with me speaks volumes to the kind of person he is. He gave me a reminder, at a time when I really needed one, of how special and magical the relationships I’ve built over the years actually are. It’s often difficult to see the value of what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Reminders like the one DJ gave me are precious jewels. A lot of things in this life come and go, live and die, rise and fade. But the stories we share endure through everything.

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