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Put Your Hand on Seven - Chapter 14 - 2021

Published by
ILXCTF - Mike Newman   Oct 19th 2018, 12:00pm
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Chapter 14: Take Two at Proviso

 

The week before the district meet was not a major affair at York. Five teams would qualify out of that meet and head to sectionals. It is hard to get up emotionally for a meet four weeks in a row especially from conference meet to the state meet. Newton would tell us that in the meetings. We knew what the big prize that we were chasing, and he was just preparing us for that. We knew we would run hard but without the same emotional uplift that we had last week at conference.

The district meet was different 35 years ago than it is now. You had to run hard to get out. There were some good teams that would force us to do that. It was that way throughout the state. There was no off week in the state series back then. We knew we would have a battle on our hands with Willowbrook in the meet on Saturday. They had given us a great race at the county meet and we could not discount them.

Our top seven was rock solid after the conference meet. Mark Lisy was the eighth man. He was ten seconds behind Mike Wagner at the conference meet. Newton did not announce anymore challenges for the top seven. He had liked what he saw from us out on the course and in practice. We were not seven individual runners. We stepped to the line as one unit that had one purpose. It did not make sense to challenge. That is what I thought. I felt bad for Mark since he had been in the same situation a year before that. I tried to put myself in his shoes, but I could not. I knew when I stepped to the line every time this season, the one thought that would creep in my mind is make sure you are in the top seven.

The one time I was not, besides the intra-squad meet, was the dual meet that we ran at Proviso West in September. I could not ignore the fact that our district meet was going to be held at Proviso West. I knew I was in better shape than I was back then. I knew I had a better routine of eating leading up to a meet. What I had to do was convince my head of all of that.

We ran a 2-mile time trial on Monday. We did not run it on the cinder track of York but headed out to Naperville to run on North Central College. Their track was the mecca of all tracks in the Chicago area at that time. It still is. It was a good place to go out and see where we stood. Last year, we ran both a two mile and three-mile trial. This year because of weather conditions, we would run that three-mile time trial after the state meet. The top runners would pile into several cars and head to Naperville. Mr. Newton would have another teacher, Mr. Paddock, watch the other guys on the team run the time trial on York’s cinder track.

We ran two times trials in my two years at York at North Central College and two track meets. I loved the track. I loved even more this small campus with neighborhoods around it. Every time I came on the campus, my feelings became stronger about the school. It was a perfect fit for me.

Our cinder track did have its benefits. It was soft and would not put as much pressure on our legs. It was great for my hamstring as it would loosen up as we did the runs. We did have a few injuries on the team this year with Tim Krull and Steve Boyd being the most significant ones. There were not as many injuries back then than there are now. We were not on a hard-synthetic track every day which saved our legs. But for this time trial, we needed to be on a synthetic track. Newton wanted to us to run fast. It was something that we did. Cross country times are nice, but you cannot compare different courses. The track would show us where we were at.

My leg did not feel great as I was putting on my spikes. I wanted to run fast, but I did not want to kill myself for the next three weeks. Just like anything else I did, I would stay with the pack and see what would happen.

The first mile did not feel that bad. I went through in 4:50 with Henry right with me. It was the five seniors (Heds, Rags, Willie, Wags, and Freegs) that were three seconds ahead. As Newton was calling the splits, he would yell at Henry and me “GET UP!”

I could not find that gear during that run. The pack ahead of me moved farther and farther ahead. There was nothing I could do. For the team, it was a great time trial. Every guy in the top seven achieved PR’s. Willie ran 9:29. Wags was 9:33. Heds was 9:35. Freegs and Rags were at 9:37. I finished in 9:51. It was a PR for me by four seconds. Henry ran 9:57. It was a big PR for him.

I was down after that run. I did not say much during the cool down. I think I let that time trial run through my head again and again. When we got back to the cars, Newton was happy. I was just waiting for him to ask me what had happened. He never did.

“What was your best time before this time trial,” Newton asked me. I told him it was 9:58. “See, you ran great today.”

I think he could tell I was hurting inside. Somehow, he would always find a positive out of a situation. It was one of those things that I would carry with me whatever I would do once I was done running. Yes, things will be bad. I would always look for one good thing out of that negative.

That time trial would haunt me that I night in my sleep. I was running in that dream. I was running at Proviso West and all of my teammates were getting farther and farther ahead. I woke up and went and got a drink of water. I was re-living that first Proviso West race all over again. As I went back to sleep, I thought I should ask Newton if they could move the district meet to another place. It wouldn’t hurt.

It was something I would never ask him. It was an insecurity that I had to conquer.

The one thing about York is that there would always be someone that would come and visit Mr. Newton. We would have former York runners that would come back and run workouts with us. It was a neat thing. They would tell us stories about the older York teams and Mr. Newton that would make us laugh. We realized that Mr. Newton was tough on us, but we did not realize that he mellowed out just a little bit. How tough was he a few years ago?

There was one person that was hanging around practices and around us at meets. We nick named him “Vita-man”. He was a guy who befriended Mr. Newton half way through the season. I do not exactly know what his profession was. He was a nice man but was a little bit out there. He would talk to us about nutrition and eating properly. It was one of those times where Newton would ask us to listen to him but in our minds our eyes were rolling around. We would be polite but thinking, “What in the world is this guy talking about?”

He would stress nutritional supplements. Hence the name “Vita-man”. He talked to our parents about all of this. Our parents were convinced by some of it. One of the things that I ended up doing was using wheat germ. I would spread it on salads that I was eating. I would put it on my oatmeal that I would eat every day. My mom would make a loaf of banana bread that I would eat on Friday before a meet. She mixed wheat germ into the loaf. Anything that would help me I thought. It was something that we got from a health store. I did not buy it from him.

During every time that “Vity” would be a practice, we would see something a little more out of the normal. One thing that he believed in was pyramidology. During one of the practices, he showed up wearing a pyramid on his head. It was a topic that we joked about during a run. He believed that the power of the pyramid would sharpen our minds and make us run better. After practices on certain days, we would work out in the weight room. He would follow us up there to demonstrate how pyramid power would benefit us. We thought it was weird. We also thought it was time to have a little fun.

He would come up to one of us while we were lifting and want to use the pyramid on us. He tried it on me once. He asked me what was the most I had ever lifted on this machine. I gave him a number.

“Come on, you have lifted higher than that,” he would ask me. Heds and Rags would jump in and say, “Look at Newms. Do you think he could lift that much?”

It was believable. Here I was 6-3 and only 130 pounds. A strong gust of wind could knock me off of my feet.

“Vity” told me to put the weight up forty pounds above what I had told him. I knew that the weight that I was about to lift was well within my limits. Such was the act that we were preforming.

As I was about ready to lift, he put the pyramid over my head. What a surprise! I was able to lift that with ease. He wanted to try that on the other runners. The same thing happened as guys were lifting more and more with that pyramid over our heads. He left the weight room happy. It was a cruel thing to do. But, his act was starting to get old with us.

He would do the same thing with a scale that he would carry around. He would give us a supplement to take. First, he would have us press the scale to see how much pressure we could put on it. Take the supplement. Then five minutes later, he would ask us to press the scale again with the pyramid over our head. Here again, a major improvement occurred. We were young but not dumb.

He was at the state meet and we ignored him. We were concentrating on other things obviously. Mr. Newton did a good job of keeping him away from us. I think he could see what was happening as well. At the first meet of my senior year, he was at East End Park handing out brochures about his supplements. One of the things that he boasted that his product was THE reason why we achieved what we did in 1978. It pissed Henry and me off beyond belief.

A parent gave it to Mr. Newton. He asked “Vity” to stop handing out those brochures. He also told him that he was no longer welcome to be around the team. He took advantage of us.

On Thursday night, I started running that district race before I fell asleep. Five minutes into the process, my mind kept slipping back into that first race. My mind was all over the place. I needed to conquer this fear of this course. It was not a difficult course. It was flat as could be. It was my past adventures there that were ripping me apart.

I got through the 15 minutes of running that race. I was with my teammates. I felt better when I went to sleep. There was that little doubt in my head that what happened before was going to happen again.

I did everything right and what I had been doing the previous weeks. I was not going to do anything differently. That Saturday morning as I got to the school, I had convinced myself that this was just another race. My focus was where I wanted it to be.

We knew that Willowbrook was going to be our main competition. The one thing that Newton told us before we got on the bus was just to run our race. He also told us to wake up and smell the bacon. They would be coming after us. In the back of our mind, we were going to be looking for the powder blue that they wore.

The pace was slow to start out with. The Proviso West course is a flat course but not necessarily the fastest. I still don’t think that the school owns a lawnmower.

I ran on that course four times in my career. I could never explain why the times were as slow as they were. We got to the mile with our pack of seven near the front. We also saw a sea of blue around us as well. This was no longer a district meet. It had become a dual meet where we would be running man on man against them.

We got to the half-way point. A month ago, this was the spot where my cramp took over my body. I was with my teammates at that point. My mind had won the battle in my head. Now, I needed to finish the race to win the war.

Willowbrook took command up front.  Jeff Bowes, Carl Bicicchi, and Art Earl moved away from us in the last mile. They entered the chute taking the top three spots. Our first three was close behind. Rags was only a second behind Earl in fourth place. Willie and Henry finished together in fifth and sixth. Through three runners, they had us beat.

John Walsh from Lyons Township finished seventh. Then Jim Willer of Willowbrook finished eighth. Heds was right behind Willer in ninth. Through four runners, they had us beat 14-24.

It was then a pack of runners that came in. Bob Mileski of Proviso West finished tenth. Then our pack of Wags, myself, and Freegs finished 11-12-13. We had seven runners in before their fifth. We did not know if that was going to be enough.

We went back together to our team area to put our sweats on. We were down. We knew they had run a better race. We knew that they had us beat. It was a hard pill to swallow but one that was a necessary one.

Gary Goss came up to Newton and whispered the score to him. We were watching Mr. Newton. Any sign would be appreciated. “We won the meet 35-43,” he said with a smile on his face. But how?

Willowbrook’s fifth runner in this meet was Tim Vandergrift. Vandy would usually be up with Bicicchi and Bowes in races. His senior year he was the state champ in the 1600 Meter Run. He finished 29th on this day. In the newspapers the next day, Willowbrook’s coach Jim Tyree said that Tim’s foot was hurt. He did not use it as an excuse. It was what it was.

It showed that they had a better four on this day, but they did not have a better team.

Our split on five was 17 seconds. We did not run a great race. We were just lucky to get out with a win. Newton in the team meeting before we went on the bus told us the same thing.

A trend was starting to appear. In the two races we had run against Willowbrook, they had four runners that would run good but not a fifth. Our pack won this meet on this day.

We did not go to Bullfrog Lake on Sunday. Instead, we took a short trip over to the sectional course 10 minutes away at Willowbrook High School. We wanted to familiarize ourselves with the layout while getting an easy run in. He also had us do 4 x 440 from the starting line. We wanted us to go out in a faster pace than what we had done the day before. Our legs were sore and did not want to exert that energy. With a little “encouragement” from Mr. Newton, we hit the 66-67’s that we were supposed to. He had our attention. Rather, the race that we had run the day before gave us that focus.

We would have to battle Willowbrook again next Saturday. We knew they would be ready for us. They would be up for us. They would have one big advantage. We would be running on their home course for the sectional meet.

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