My Greatest Moment as a Hurdler
by Steve McGill

As I stood in front of my starting blocks, waiting for the starter to instruct me and the other hurdlers to take our marks, I breathed deeply, slowly, thinking of nothing, preparing to unleash my body and attack the ten 39-inch barriers that stood between me and the finish line. 

Six months earlier, in November of 1983, early in my senior year of high school at Malvern Prep in the Philly suburbs, I was diagnosed with a rare, potentially fatal blood disease, aplastic anemia. The disease is characterized by bone marrow failure, thereby leading to a gradual loss of blood, because new blood cells are not being generated while old blood cells die. In my case, I had been experiencing symptoms since the previous March, in my junior year, as I kept feeling more and more fatigued throughout the spring track season. In the beginning of the season, I was hoping to battle for a league championship in both the 110 meter hurdles and the longer 300 meter hurdle race. But because of constantly feeling tired, I ended up dropping the 300 hurdles and focused just on the 110’s. My condition continued to gradually decline through the summer and the beginning of the new school year. Not until I almost passed out walking up the stairs on the way to class was I finally convinced I wasn’t just out of shape, so I asked my mom to schedule an appointment for a blood test.

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I was diagnosed with aplastic anemia by the head of hematology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Dr. Elias Schwartz. Because I had no compatible bone marrow donors, Dr. Schwartz chose to go with an experimental treatment that had a 40% success rate. I spent three weeks in CHOP, and those were the most difficult yet glorious three weeks of my life. Difficult because there were many moments when I almost gave in to despair, glorious because of how kind and thoughtful all of my doctors and nurses were. In my darkest moment, on the morning after the treatment ended, I was crying alone in my bed, accepting the fact that I would most likely never hurdle again, even if I survived this disease. One of my nurses, Meg, saw me crying and sat on my bed beside me. When I said to her “I’m never gonna be able to hurdle again,” she held my hand in hers and said, “Yes you will!” And I believed her. That moment marked the beginning of my miraculous recovery.

In a matter of two months — by January of 1984, all of my blood counts were back to normal, and I was cleared to train with my teammates again. Later, during an outpatient visit, Dr. Schwartz told me that most people with severe aplastic anemia don’t survive, and of those who do, only a small percentage make a full recovery, and of those who do, it usually takes about three years for blood counts to return to normal. The best case he’d ever seen before was that of the blood counts returning to normal within a calendar year of diagnosis. So for me to make a full recovery in two months was a true miracle, not a metaphorical one.

In my junior year, I had finished fourth in the 110 hurdles in our league championship race. The league, called the Inter-Academic League, or the Inter-Ac for short, consisted of private schools in the area — us, Chestnut Hill Academy, William Penn Charter School, Germantown Academy, Episcopal Academy, and one or two others that I can’t remember. My time of 15.9 (everything was hand-timed back then) was not all that great, but everyone who had beaten me had graduated, so now I was the man to beat in the 110’s. Prior to falling ill, my goal had been to run under 15.0, and now that I was back healthy, that remained my goal. 

My stiffest competition would come from a junior from Penn Charter named Mark Delaney. At 6-0, he stood about an inch taller than me, and was broader in the shoulders than I was. Prior to the league championships, we had raced twice earlier that year. Both times, I beat him in the 110’s, and he beat me in the 300’s. But he was closer to beating me in the 110’s than I was to beating him in the 300’s. Still, my confidence remained high, mainly because of my relationship with my coach, Mr. Keeley, a white man in his mid-60’s who constantly smoked cigars and wore a stylish brown fedora on his head in the winter months. He had been coaching for a long time and had just recently come to our school as an assistant in the twilight of his career.

Throughout my senior year, Mr. Keeley was my best friend. By that point in high school, I had resigned myself to the fact that I didn’t like 99% of the kids there, with the only exceptions being my two fellow hurdlers and two sprinters on the team. Mr. Keeley, because he didn’t teach at the school and only came in the afternoons for practice, wasn’t a part of the machinery of the school. He became someone I could talk to and confide in. Every day when classes ended, I would rush to his office in the gym just to sit and chat a bit before changing for practice. When I was in CHOP, he visited me every other day. Whenever I had a bad rep or a bad day at practice, he’d be the one I would seek out to convince me that there was no need to worry or overthink it.

The Inter-Ac championship meet took place the third weekend in May 1984, on the six-lane rubberized black track at Germantown Academy. Back then, for a high school track to have a rubberized surface was a big deal. Eight-lane tracks didn’t exist at the high school level.

The meet took place over two days. The 110 hurdle prelims took place on Friday, and the semi-finals and finals took place on Saturday. I won my prelim heat easily in 15.3, a new personal best. The next morning, in the semis, I ran 14.9, reaching my original goal and winning my heat easily. Delaney won his heat easily too.

In the final later that afternoon, I was positioned in lane three in the middle of the track, while Delaney occupied lane four, to my immediate right. I don’t remember who the other dudes were in the race, because I wasn’t worried about any of them. During warmups, Delaney was wearing a warrior’s scowl as he powered over the first hurdle out of the blocks a few times, his bright yellow Penn Charter jersey standing out against the backdrop of a cloudy sky. I, in my white Malvern Prep singlet with dark blue shorts, paced back and forth in my lane, from the start line to the first hurdle, like a tiger on the prowl. Every breath was a deep inhale, followed by a forceful exhale. I remember looking up and seeing people on the baseball field behind the bleachers; they were throwing a frisbee around. I remember thinking how odd it was that while I was about to run the biggest race of my life, there were people in the immediate vicinity who were totally disinterested. 

“Gentlemen,” the starter said, “stand behind your blocks.”

I did as instructed, still breathing deeply, slowly.

“Runners to your mark.”

I walked in front of my blocks, leaned down, put my hands on the ground, kicked back my left leg, then placed my foot firmly against the block pedal. Then I did the same with my right foot. My breathing was so forceful that I accidentally let out a “woo!” as I lowered my head and awaited the next command.

“Set.”

I raised my back leg, feeling the tension in my fingers and shoulders. 

“Boom!”

I pushed off the pedals and propelled myself forward, making sure to keep my eyes down and drive forward without popping up too soon. At the third stride I directed my gaze to the crossbar of the first hurdle and sprinted toward it. Delaney was right by side, doing the same thing. I cleared the first hurdle cleanly and quickly, not wasting any time in the air. I landed in perfect balance and accelerated to the second hurdle. I could still see Delaney in my peripheral vision, but I had opened up a slight lead. My lead increased a little bit by hurdle three, and a little more by hurdle four. At this point, there was no doubt in my mind: this was my race.

Then I had something that can only be described as an out-of-body experience. For the next three hurdles — hurdles five through seven — I felt like the hurdles weren’t even there, like I was running through the hurdles instead of over them. That’s how easy it felt. That’s how fluid it felt. That’s how absolutely beautiful it felt. It was so blissful that I forgot I was even in a race. The entire universe consisted of me and these hurdles. This dance, this glorious dance. 

The foot of my trail leg made slight contact with the eighth hurdle, breaking me out of my reverie, returning me back to earth. But I finished the last two hurdles with plenty of speed and momentum, and then crossed the finish line in first place. I pumped my fist and let out a “Yeah!” As I turned around and walked back to shake hands with my competitors, I saw Mr. Keeley in the infield smiling. We made eye contact, and I smiled back at him, a smile of gratitude and appreciation for all he’d done for me, and for believing in me through my many waves of self-doubt.

Walking back to the start line to retrieve my warmup clothes, receiving congratulations from teammates, I thought of Dr. Schwartz, and Meg, and everyone at CHOP who had saved my life. I felt so grateful. 

My time was 14.9, same as the semis, but it felt much faster than that. Mr. Keeley said he timed me in 14.7, but with hand-timing you can never tell, so I didn’t really care.

Forty years later, looking back upon that race, it’s clear to me that my greatest moment as a hurdler wasn’t when I crossed the finish line in first place. The greatest moment was that feeling I had during the race, between hurdles 5-7. That feeling is why hurdlers hurdle. To experience a moment like that, no matter how briefly, is why we hurdle.

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