A Look Back in Reflection (or, The Dogs are in the Yard)
by Steve McGill
Something significant happened in my coaching career this past summer, although its significance didn’t hit me at the time. When Keni Harrison won the silver medal in the 100 meter hurdles at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, she became my first former athlete to win an Olympic medal. The reason it didn’t register at first was because I was so in the zone of the race as a fan, and because I was disappointed that she didn’t win the gold, as it had looked like she had a shot to do so after getting out with a very good start in the final. Also, Keni had already broken the world record five years ago, and I’ve had several athletes who have either won NCAA championships, competed in World Championship or previous Olympic Games, or some combination thereof. So it wasn’t until the new school year started up a couple weeks ago, when people were flipping out when I told them that I used to coach Keni Harrison way back when, that I realized that perhaps this was a bigger deal than I realized.
[am4show not_have=’g5;’]
[/am4show][am4guest]
[/am4guest][am4show have=’g5;’]
Everyone who knows me is familiar with my love of jigsaw puzzles. When I’m not coaching, teaching, grading essays, writing, or napping, I’m usually working on a jigsaw puzzle. Last year I discovered a website that makes custom jigsaw puzzles. You upload the photo to them, and they convert it into a puzzle, and you get to choose the size. I always go with 1,000-piece puzzles. Last year, during the school year, I asked one of the buildings & grounds guys if he could move a table into my room that wasn’t being used. It was the perfect size for a puzzle table, so I put it in the corner of the classroom, where I’d work on puzzles sometimes during lunch or after school. After a week or two, students began getting involved, and it quickly became a group bonding thing. I took a photo of one of my classes and that became a puzzle that we worked on, and then the other classes were like “What about us?” And next thing I knew, I had puzzles up all over the classroom walls.
This year, the first puzzle was of Keni from the Olympic Trials. And of course, as I was working on it and as students came over to help out, the question came up, who is she? “Keni Harrison,” I said, “silver medalist in the 100 meter hurdles. I coached her back in the day.” That answer led to lengthy discussions about me. Most of my students don’t even know that I’m a track coach. Our school is so small that we only have about ten kids on the track team, and though I did help out my first couple years here, I just came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth my time, as the track we trained on was a concrete surface. How can you coach hurdlers on concrete? So when I tell them that I’ve coached track for over 25 years and that I’ve coached some of the best hurdlers in the nation and that I still coach privately, they see me in a whole new light. Some ask me why I don’t coach professionally, or for a college. My usual response is that I don’t want to deal with the politics or the pressure, which isn’t a lie. But the deeper truth is that I crave the freedom I have as a private coach to be creative, to experiment, to develop my own philosophy without any impediments.
If the right situation presented itself, I would love the opportunity to coach a professional athlete. I coached Hector Cotto for one season of his professional career, and he ran a personal best at the time. We already had a relationship from when I coached him the summer after his senior year of high school. So we were (and are) like-minded in that regard. We both were adventurous, explorative, inquisitive; we were not only willing to take risks, but eager to do so.
With the exception of Hector, I’ve had several former athletes whom I hoped would come back to me once they finished college, but it never happened. And I’m not the kind of person to plead or beg. Generally, once people move on, they move on, and I’m okay with that. And being honest with myself, do I really want to live the lifestyle of a professional coach, or even a collegiate coach, where I’m consumed with track every waking hour of every day? No, I absolutely do not. I don’t want any one thing to consume my entire life. I need my naps and I need my puzzles and I need to watch my Philly sports squads even when they play like trash.
What I’ve learned over the years is that it’s best to just coach the athletes who come to me, those who are here on the track with me, and to leave it at that. The fact that most of my students don’t even know I coach track doesn’t bother me. I had a dream a long time ago, somewhere around 2010 or 2011, after a group of standouts had all graduated in successive years — Johnny Dutch (2007), Booker Nunley (2008), and Wayne Davis (2009) — all of whom had finished their senior year as the top prep hurdler in the nation. In the dream, I was standing near the 100 meter start line on a track, seemingly all alone, mourning the fact that I had no one to coach. Then a friend of mine approached me and sat beside me silently. Then he looked at me and said, “The dogs are in the yard.” Then he walked away. As I looked up, I saw athletes on the track, warming up. And though I didn’t recognize any of these athletes as any athletes I coached in real life, I did recognize them as my athletes in the dream. Why hadn’t I seen them before? Because my mind was mired in misery, dwelling on those who had moved on.
The dogs are in the yard. Translation: coach the athletes who are here in front of you. Don’t look back, don’t think back. Don’t hope, don’t wish, don’t pray that the good old days will return. These days are good too. Give your best to those who have come to you in search of your guidance, your wisdom, your expertise. They’re here because they trust you. Your job is to help them improve, to develop a relationship with them, to teach them that hurdling is about more than fast times and medals. Teach them that hurdling is about self-exploration, self-discovery, self-expression. Give them all of who you are. The dogs are in the yard.
There’s a part of me that is amazed that I’m still involved in the sport at all. I was a 15.6 guy in college over the 42’s. 15.63 to be exact. 15.63 won’t get you squat anywhere. It got me to the conference finals in a DIII conference. I finished last in the final. I used to lie when my athletes would ask me what my personal best was. I was embarrassed by it. I’d tell them I ran 14.6, something in that range. But then I asked myself, why am I lying about it? Why am I embarrassed about my personal best? I put in the work, I gave my all to the sport, and that’s how fast I ran. That’s how far my talents could take me. No shame in the game.
When I look at my classroom wall and see that puzzle of Keni Harrison from the 2021 Olympic Trials, on her way to a victory, it pleases me to know I played a part in her success, that her time with me served as a foundation for her future greatness. After I finished the puzzle, I took a photo of it and texted the photo to her, writing, “Look! You’re a puzzle!” She texted me back saying, “I love it!” And that’s enough for me.
[/am4show]
