Eighth Excerpt from The Spiritual Dimension of Hurdling
by Steve McGill
Relationships like the ones I’ve had with my hurdlers who have devoted themselves to the hurdles represent the other eternal element in hurdling (the first one being the feeling of being one with the hurdle, as discussed above). Relationships fuel a life, shape a life, define a life. As an English teacher, when I’m discussing a novel with my students, I always focus on the relationships, and how they intersect, and how they serve to lead us to the central themes. When I teach Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, for example, I focus not only on the relationship between the old man the sea, but also on the one between the old man and the boy (Manolin), the old man and the marlin, the old man and the sharks, the old man and DiMaggio, the old man and the big Cuban, the old man and his hand that he talks to at times. All of these relationships need to be analyzed individually and in relation to the novel as a whole.
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Another book I’ve taught several times is the play Fences by August Wilson. For an assignment, I recently had the students discuss one of the relationships in the story revolving around the main character, Troy Maxon. Troy and Rose (his wife), Troy and Cory (his son), Troy and Lyons (his adult son), Troy and Gabe (his brother), Troy and Bono (his best friend), Troy and “that Alberta girl” — with whom he has an affair. Through all of these relationships, the story unfolds. Through these relationships, we see the complexity of Troy’s character.
I sometimes encourage my students to view their own lives as novels or plays, in which they are the protagonist, and the other people in their lives are the supporting characters. And just like we want to consider how a book would be different if centered around a different character (what if Fences were told from Rose’s perspective, for example), they should look at their own lives from others’ perspectives in addition to their own.
As a hurdler, the primary relationship is that between the hurdler and the hurdles — literally, the barriers that must be cleared, and figuratively, “the hurdles” as an abstract entity. Then there’s the relationship between hurdler and coach. This, to me, is the most sacred of relationships, as the coach serves as the guide in whom the hurdler places their trust to help them master an event that is quite difficult to master. Then there’s the relationship between hurdler and training partners. Iron sharpens iron, as the saying goes, so good teammates are essential to hurdlers being able to bring out the best in themselves. The best training partners are always pushing each other, but always rooting for each other. Then, all the other relationships in a hurdler’s life play a key role in the athlete’s journey — parents, friends, opponents, supporters.
For this concluding chapter of this book, one of the things I decided to do was get some insight and perspective from former athletes of mine. So I reached out to several of them, asking them the very open-ended question, “What is the ‘spiritual dimension of hurdling’ to you? I told them they could reply with an anecdote, some philosophizing, some reflections, whatever. Go where the question takes you.
One of the former athletes who responded was David Jones, aka DJ, who graduated high school in 2004. I coached DJ for five years, starting in his eighth grade year. In those five years, DJ was never the best hurdler on our team, in either the 110’s or the 300’s. We had a crew of five really good male hurdlers on our school team during DJ’s time — Joe Coe and Alex Steinbaugh of the class of 2003, and Jacob Berton and Rashawn King of David’s class. Rashawn, incidentally, went on to play defensive back for the Navy football team, and was a team captain his senior year there. Joe had no nickname. We sometimes called Alex “screensaver” because his mind would randomly just go blank. Rashawn’s nickname was Ray, or Ray Ray. And we called Jacob the shorter version of his name, Jake. DJ, Jake, and Alex were white; Joe and Ray were black, and I obviously was black, so we had a really integrated crew, all of whom got along great together.
Joe was strong in both hurdle events, as was DJ. Alex ran both but preferred the 300’s. Ray only ran the 110’s. And Jake only ran the 300’s. Another kid was added to our crew after Joe and Alex graduated. His name was John Ciulli, who ran the 300’s.
What I loved about DJ was that he worked his butt off every day, and never allowed himself to get down on himself when losing to his own teammates so often. It’s not like he was a scrub; those other guys were super-talented. I feel like Ray could’ve been a top hurdler in the nation if he had taken track as seriously as he took football. But track came in sixth in order of importance in his athletic life, with football coming in first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. One of my greatest memories as a coach involves DJ, and it occurred at the conference championships his junior year. Heading into the 4×400 relay, the last event of the meet, we were tied with our rival school in team points. And there was no doubt we would finish 1-2 in the 4×400; it was just a matter of would we beat them or would they beat us.
I forget who it was, but one of our usual 4×4 guys got hurt in an earlier race. Our 4×4 was all hurdlers — Ray, Joe, Alex, Jake. So, one of them got hurt, and I needed DJ to step in. While the 3200 meter race was going on, I found DJ and walked up to him and said, “DJ, we need you to run first leg in the 4×4. If we’re gonna win this meet, you have to run the race of your life.” I placed the baton in his hand. “I got you, Coach,” he said. And he went out there and ran the race of his life. His split was a 52, which was three seconds faster than his personal best in the open 400. We won the relay, and we won the meet. I’m usually not one to care much about team points and team scores, but I was whooping it up with the team after that race. Our guys were tired and rubber-legged but they dug deep and ran terrifically. I hugged DJ after his leg, while the race was still going on, knowing that I had just witnessed a heroic effort, win or lose.
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