Chapter 18:  Fifteen minutes

 

One year before I had been standing by the finish line of the state meet watching Jim Spivey trying to chase down Tom Graves for the right to hold the state championship. Spivey ran out of real estate that day. That was the last thing that I remembered before I fell to sleep before it was my turn to run at Detweiller Park.

I slept like a baby. I know Dave was asleep before I was. We were supposed to have a wakeup call at 6:30 AM. We were both up at 6:20. You see, when you have been training and working for something an entire year, you want that day to start before it is scheduled to.

The day of the state meet is scheduled almost right down to the minute. Mr. Newton had been doing this routine for almost twenty years. Every action had a time scheduled for it. All of us just wanted the clock to get to 11:30. That is when the gun was supposed to go off.

Henry and I went down to the lobby thinking that we would be the first one’s there. After all, it was 6:35 and the wake-up calls just occurred five minutes before that. Newton was down there. That was no surprise. He would usually get up before us and get his run it. He had not missed a morning run in close to 18 years. He would never run with us. He would run to show us that he was making the sacrifice to get up early and put himself through the strains that we would go through.

Heds and Willie were just behind us. In a matter of two minutes, the entire team was there ready for our walk over to the golf course. Newton looked at his watch and saw that we were early and said, “Let’s go over to the golf course.”

It was a two-minute walk. It was just starting to get light when we stepped foot on it. The golf course across the street from the hotel was a tradition that had been going on close to eight years. We would dodge traffic across of Knoxville Avenue, then run a 10-minute run hoping that no one working at the golf course would see us. We were always told to stay away from the club house. The entire time a York team stayed at this hotel, the team was never caught on that course.

Breakfast was exactly at 7:30 AM. It was exactly four hours before our race would go off. Newton figured that it would be plenty of time for our food to digest. After we all took showers and changed clothes, we were five minutes early for the breakfast in the restaurant of the hotel.

Newton had everything pre-ordered. Everyone, including the adults on the trip, would eat the same thing: Oatmeal, toast, tea, milk for the oatmeal, water, and juice. As soon as we walked in the room where we would be eating, the servers would start to bring out the drinks.

We did not make a sound as we sat down. I do not know if it was nervousness or we were trying to see what kind of mood Newton was in. We found that out very quickly.

We were missing one tea bag for the entire 18-member group. Newton was pretty boisterous when he asked the staff for the teabag telling them that we were one short.

Freegs had to chime in to this conversation.

“If we are missing a teabag, I can have coffee,” Freegs said. Some of us just rolled our eyes.

As soon as he said that, Newton replied back.

“You can have a cup of shut the hell up!”

We all started to laugh. The tea bag was already there. It loosened us up just a little bit.

There was not a lot of small talk during the breakfast. When he saw that we were all done, he looked at his watch. We needed to be in Newton’s room at 9:15. That meant that the meeting would start at 9:15. He reminded us of that. We were then supposed to split up and walk around a little bit before we headed back.

As we were walking out of the room, we heard Newton say, “Make sure you guys stay out of trouble!”

I think he was directing that to Wags and Rags for what they had done the night before. There was some chuckling but that was it.

We walked for about five minutes and then headed back to our rooms. I was not thinking about the day. I was just thinking that it was just another Saturday and that we were there to race. My mind had shifted into that thinking. There were no thoughts of all the training that I had done the last year to get to that point. The only though that I had was that we needed to get ready for a run.

Dave and I were ready to go to Newton’s room at 9:05. Our bags were in one corner. We were told that they would be cleaning the rooms while we were gone, but we could use them after the race was over to change and shower. Our bags were under the tuxes that were hanging in the closet. As I walked out, I looked at that tux. I’ll be putting you on soon. If we placed lower than third, then the tuxes stayed in the plastic. That was not happening today.

As we walked into Mr. Newton’s room, he had a sign that was hanging on his wall. It was hung on the locker room for Northwestern during the 1949 Rose Bowl when the Wildcats came in at half time losing the game.

Newton explained the meaning of that sign. “Will you always want to remember…or try to forget.” That is what the sign said. He wanted us to know that this would be a proud day that we would always want to remember if we just run our race.

I wanted to run the race right away as I was getting pumped up just listening to him. There were a couple of letters, telegrams from former York runners that we would read and pass around. It was just a reminder that they had been in this very room listening to Mr. Newton talking to them before we left for the race.

They had paid their dues for the school, for the program, and for Mr. Newton. Now it was our turn to add a page to the history of York cross country.

The meeting was motivational in tone. It was also a reminder of the race plan. In the middle of it, he blurted out, “What was that Elvis Presley song that we were listening to on the way down?”

Freegs almost jumped off the bed that he was sitting on and said, “Stick like Glue!”

It was very fitting. All year we stayed close together during the race. That song was just a reminder.

The meeting was over. We all walked to our assigned cars. It was a 10-minute drive to Detweiller Park. All I did was look out the window with no thoughts in my head. I just wanted to run.

We came in the west drive of the park and were amazed with how many people were there. The Class A race was just finishing as we got in that drive. There were only two races back then: that race and ours at 11:30.

There were seven York buses that were there. As we stepped out of the cars, the band started playing “When the Saints Come Marching In”. There was a picnic table underneath the big oak that we set up camp in. We put our bags down and headed to the finish line. It was time to measure from the chute back out into the course. That tradition has never changed in all of these years.

All I remember is Newton telling us the various distances. I knew there was sound that was all around us. It just did not matter to me.

We had 15 minutes before we would head to the starting line to warm up. I saw classmates that were there, but it did not seem to matter to me. I was rubbing my hamstring a little just to loosen it up. I was in a zone where no one would approach me.

My parents knew better. They knew they could approach me after a race. Before that race, do not even approach me. Stay out of my view. I knew they would be there. I just did not want to talk to them. When I was in college, I was about ready to run a 10k. My grandfather came down to the starting line to let me know that my grandmother had made some chocolate chip cookies for me. It was a nice gesture, but not before my race. I told my parents that afterwards. It never happened again.

At 10:50, we headed to the starting line. It was a slow jog in which Newton was in front of our pack. We waited two minutes on that line until it was 10:55. At that point, he said, “Set…go.”

We always started our warm-up 35 minutes before the start of the race. Our 2-mile warm-up was a nice pace. Just enough to get us in a little bit of a sweat. Other teams had finished their warm ups. It seemed that we were the only ones on that course at that moment. That was no worry in us. We knew we would be on the line on time. Newton had done this so many times before with so many teams.

We finished our two miles and headed to the middle of the infield where we stretched and did our 110’s. We had 14 minutes before the start of our race. We need to be at the starting line with 8 minutes to go.

I double knotted my shoes. I put my top on over my uniform. It was only 55 degrees that day as we headed to the line. All seven of us together in a group walking up the incline to the south end of the course. We were approaching the starting line. We were approaching the start to our destiny. That actually started the year before.

No words were said as we approached the line. That was not necessary. We knew what we needed to do. No huddles. No last second pep talks. Just get to the line.

I was in the front row like I usually was during the season. My hamstring was tight. I just wanted to get out comfortably so that it would loosen up. That was my hope.

We did a few stride outs. We did not do the 1000 and one count as we were doing that. We were not going to give that away.

In the box to our left, there was Proviso West our conference rivals. To the right was a box of individual runners. The next box after that was Thornridge. I saw some of the juniors that all the newspapers were talking about. I just wanted to race. I wanted to be ahead of them.

The one mistake that some teams make is they start looking for other teams during the race. What happens is that it distracts them from their race plan. Our goal was to follow our plan and stay together as a pack. We were not going to lose each other during the race.

The gun was almost ready to go off. I just had to remind myself to stay calm. The next 15 minutes would go by fast. After I had graduated from York, I would go back to state. The same remark I would hear was the same thing that I thought in my two state races. “Man. That went by so fast.”

The gun went off. Runners charged off the line.

One thousand one…then we went.

We veered to the right of the packs and found a nice slot to work our way up. I heard that we were at 67 seconds. It was close to where we wanted to be. The leaders, I was told afterwards, went out in 61 seconds. That is too crazy of a pace for a 3-mile race.

We were all together as we made the sweeping 180 degree turn. We were on the outside not breaking our stride. We passed the team area and the band was playing. Behind the finish line we went and down the course near Route 29. We approached the mile and saw Newton ahead just as we were ready to cut towards the triangle.

“You guys are in 80^th. Let’s start to move!” he yelled at us.

I could not see the leaders. All I was concentrating on was staying with the pack. As we entered the triangle, I felt my left leg start to twinge. All I could think of was “Why now?”

Willie and Rags had started to move together. I was holding onto the pack with Wags, Henry, and Freegs. I did not see Heds. I just kept going.

The pack that I was with started to open up some ground on me as we left the triangle. While we were back there, we made up some ground. Some of the runners that decided that the fast, early pace was to their liking were starting to feel the effects of that.

Newton was standing by this big pine tree by the 1 ¾ mark. He was just counting runners. I heard him yell at the group that they were in 50^th. Then I passed him.

“You are in 75^th,” he yelled at me. “You got to go. You have 33% left.”

It was something that he would yell at us during the race. When all the other runners had nothing left in their tanks, we would have 33% left. It was from all the training that we had done on days that they had raced.

I went by the two-mile in 10:08. I was about six seconds behind Freegs, Wags, and Henry. My hamstring was starting to loosen up. For this last mile, I had to ignore the pain in my leg. This last mile was going to hurt. I had felt this pain that I was experiencing in workouts. I always made it through the workouts. I should be able to do that now.

I was passing runners now. People that had passed me a half mile before were slowing down. Maybe it was because I was speeding up. Or maybe it was because they did not know how to “pay the price.”

The only thoughts that came through my mind was “Keep passing people stupid.”

We knew Newton would be standing at ½ mile to go. He would be doing the same thing telling us what place we were in.

He was going crazy as I went past him.

“You are looking GREAT! You are in 60^th!”

I knew I had to go. I could see my teammates up ahead as we entered the final straight away.

It was all out. The last 300 yards of Detweiller Park is on a slight incline. It can affect you if you let it. I was still passing people.

As I passed the team area, I passed Brad Rutherford from Glenbard West. He was the guy I could not beat before the start of this season. Now for the fourth time I was ahead of him.

My legs were tired. The chute was getting closer. No one passes me in the last 100. I kept telling myself that. I was closing on Nick Whiteside of Mt. Vernon, but he would not let me go by him. We slammed into the chute.

I was holding on for the ropes for dear life as we walked through. I looked ahead and saw five of my teammates ahead. I started looking for Willowbrook’s uniforms. I saw two up with Willie and Rags. Jeff Bowes was their third man and he was right in front of me.

I caught Wags eyes and he was smiling. We started screaming. We knew we had it. No one else had as many runners up front like we did.

Willie had an unbelievable kick and finished 14^th. Rags was 23^rd. The top 25 were all state runners.

Then came the pack. Freegs lost his shoe in the first three minutes of the race. He wanted this team win so bad that the loss of one show was not going to slow him down. He finished in 32^nd. Henry and Wags were right behind him. We had five runners in the first 34.

I finished in 47^th. I had passed 13 runners in the last 400 to get that. As we entered the triangle, Heds was forced into a pole which knocked him down. Any other runner would have stopped. Heds did not. He finished 108^th. If that did not happen, he would have been in that pack. I know we would have had our entire group in the first 50.

We got back to the team area and everyone was cheering. I think they knew that we had won but we had not received any official word yet. Everyone was telling us that we had done it. We knew it too. There was on one that could have beaten us with all the runners that we had up front.

I was taking my spikes off when Newton grabbed me and gave me a long hug. He was doing that to all of us. We went for a mile jog. The buses were starting to load up and head towards Peoria High School where the awards would take place. We got back. Grabbed our bags and headed for the cars.

The silence that was in those cars on the way to the park was replaced by unbridled jubilance on the way back. We were told to get showered quickly and get into the tuxes. It was nice to hear him tell us to get into the tuxes.

The award ceremony for cross country was something that is hard to explain back then. Since there were only two classes and only two races, the ceremony could be held in the gymnasium of the high school.

We were dropped off in front of the school. All of us in yellow and black tuxes. We looked so sharp.

It was something that I had dreamed of for a year. I had the vision of walking into the gymnasium as a state champion. That dream was becoming more of reality.

We stood in the lobby of the gymnasium. We could hear the band playing and cheering that was going on inside. Mr. Newton and the rest of the adults had parked the cars and had joined us. We then walked inside.

There were close to 4000 people in that gym. One side of the gym was filled with fans from other schools. The other side was York fans. We were just going to go to the corner of the gym and wait for the awards to start. It was the hope of being inconspicuous. With us wearing those bright yellow tuxes, that was not happening.

The band started playing. The fans started going crazy. It was surreal. They were cheering at us. We were just seven guys that worked our butts off to try to get a state championship.

One of the adults was able to obtain the results. It showed that we had won with 80 points. Willowbrook was next with 139 points. It was amazing that the point differential was that much. Thornridge was only two points behind them in third. Fremd, who was ranked #1 in the state most of the year, missed a trophy by only three points.

The awards ceremony is so much different than it is now. There were so many teams that were dressed up in suits looking so nice. As we walked in to the school, Winnebago walked out with a state trophy. They won the class A title. They were dressed in tuxes as well. We had started something.

In the years to follow during the awards ceremony, more and more teams would dress up. When the IHSA started to have girls’ races, the female runners would dress up as well. It made an awards ceremony even more special. Now with the awards taking place in the park, the pomp and circumstance of runners dressed up accepting their awards had disappeared.

Jim Flynn, who was an executive director of the IHSA and in charge of cross country, was the master of ceremonies. The first 25 all-state runners were announced. The state champion was Don Volkey. He was a junior from Belvidere High School. He would be announced last.

There would be loud cheers as each of the individual’s names were called. Rags’ name was announced. The band started to play, and the York fans started to cheer. It happened a few moments later as Willie’s name was announced.

After all the individuals were announced, pictures were taken of the top 25. We just stood in the corner hoping they would start the team awards.

I do not know who started it, but there was snapping of fingers going around our team group. We wanted Willie to fulfill his promise. A few of our teammates in the stands saw what we were doing and started snapping. It did not get around the gym.

Willie just looked at us and smiled. I guess we were not going to do one final rendition. It did not matter.

They announced Thornridge in third. They announced Willowbrook in second.

“And in first place winning their seventh state championship,” said Flynn, “York with…”

As soon as York was announced, the cheering became deafening. Mr. Newton led us to the podium. We did not walk up there as individuals but as one tight group that had an impossible dream. They handed us the trophy.

“We had a certain feeling all year we were going to do it,” Freegs told reporters that surrounded us after we received the trophy. “We never doubted ourselves. That’s the key in cross country. No self-doubt. It’s a shock when someone beats you and wins that trophy. And now we have it back.”

We stood on the platforms and took team pictures. Then it was talking to other runners and to our classmates. Some of the York runners who did not come down with the team picked up Mr. Newton and carried him around the gym. It was a special moment. It was five years since York had last won the state championship. Now we had it back.

“I’m the happiest man in the world. Everybody was saying that this was going to be a down year for York,” Mr. Newton told reporters. “That’s why it feels so good now. This group of kids has done so much with their talent than any other team that I have ever had.”

Newton called us around in a circle and handed us our team state medals. Now, they call each team member’s name up to be recognized. It did not matter to us. We did not care as long as we got that team medal. If they were going to recognize us, it would not be one individual. It would be as team state champions. We had worked together as one to get to this point. Why change it now?

The gym had emptied. We walked to our cars. It was off to McDonalds. Mr. Newton had made a deal with the restaurant owner of the McDonalds that we would go to after the awards ceremony. He would guarantee that our fans would show up. It meant extra revenue for the restaurant. In return, the runners would get their food for free.

We were hungry at this point. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and we were just looking for anything to eat. We walked into the restaurant with the trophy. Our fans were inside and cheering. I have never seen a McDonalds that full before in my life.

There were a few teams that were eating when we got there. I recognized John Walsh from Lyons Township sitting at a table. He muttered under his breath, “So this is what the state champions are eating…at McDonalds?”

I was walking near Heds and we laughed. Yes, this is where the state champions come to eat.

We were able to get whatever we wanted. I ordered a quarter pounder with cheese, fries, a chocolate shake and a cheeseburger happy meal. Henry and I decided that we were going to get a happy meal. “It was just for the toy,” we explained. Wags shook his head and laughed.

The buses left. We would stay at that restaurant for a bit to give the buses to get a head start back to school. There was more celebrating yet to be done.

It was the first moment where we could just relax. On one of the tables, the trophy sat as a center piece. There was talking between us. Plenty of laughter. Newton was on his third cheeseburger. He could eat like a horse.

Henry and I were just sitting at the table looking at the trophy. Heds sat down next to us.

“You realize it is your turn now,” he told us.

We sat there for a second trying to let what he said sink in. The 1978 season was over. The next year was starting. We would be seniors. It would be our turn to defend the trophy.

I fell asleep on the way home. It was pretty quiet in that car.

As we got closer to Elmhurst, I looked out the window. That was the fastest 15 minutes that I had ever been through before in my life. The state meet is not a normal race even though you want to play it off like that mentally. The course is so fast. That race went by in a flash.

All of the times I had run that race in my head, it went much slower. In reality, the gun went off. The next thing I knew I was in the chute.

I reflected on all the training I had done over the last year. I asked myself if it was worth it.

I looked on my chest to see a gold medal hanging from my neck.

I guess it was worth it.

We got to the south part of Elmhurst close to 7 PM. A couple of squad cars and fire engines were waiting for us along with some of the buses that had fans. They were going to escort us through town and then to the school.

People were coming out of their houses to see what the commotion was as we were coming down the street. We were hanging out the windows signaling that we were #1. When we got closer to the school on St. Charles Road, we could see Mr. Newton’s car ahead of us. Freegs was trying to get the state trophy out the window. We could see the runner that was on top of the trophy break off. Rags was sitting in the front seat of our car and started to go crazy. I’m not going to repeat what he said. All I knew is that we were going to kill Freegs.

We saw the school and the driveway leading to the gym. It was packed with cars. Police were there directing people to park in the center triangle to lessen the traffic jam that was occurring. We were led into the drive of the school. Hail the conquering heroes.

For a moment, the cars did not move. All of a sudden, we saw Willie and Freegs get out of the front car. Rags got out and I followed suit. We were not going to get dropped off in front of the school. People surrounded us as we headed inside. A cheerleader that I did not recognize gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek as I walked past. I turned a bright red. Henry, Willie, and Heds were walking near me and saw that happen. I did not say a word. I knew I would get crap on the next run we took. I just stayed within my redness.

We got in the gym and it was packed. The band was playing. People were throwing toilet paper from the stands. It was a mess. It was worth it.

Mr. Newton finally was able to talk about the race and the team in front of everyone in the gym. Each runner was recognized. Newton said a few words about me and I stood up and waved. The crowd in a deafening tone yelled, “Neeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwmmmms.”

I looked at that medal on my chest. Yes. All that training was worth it.

The ceremony was over. We all got back in the cars and headed to Louie’s, a restaurant where the team dinner was held. Our parents were there. We could celebrate our happiness in private.

Then the moment happened that we did not want to happen. We went our separate ways with each of us going to our homes. The weekend was over as a group.

It would not be the same. The one thing that was certain is that even though we went in separate directions that night, there was a bond that would keep us together for the rest of our lives.

I got home and threw my bags in the corner of my room. I hung the tuxedo up on a hanger and placed it in my closet. I would have to wear it a few more times in the next few days.

I was exhausted. My pillow jumped out of the bed and tackled me as I entered that room. It was telling me that I needed some sleep.

I was in bed looking at the ceiling just thinking. I would not be thinking about the race that I would be running in the next week like I had done all season. I just thought of all the great things that had happened on this day.

I looked at the table by the side of my bed. There sat that state medal.

I closed my eyes.

Yes. It was worth it.