Teach Me To Lose, Coach

lose (transitive verb) 1. Miss and not know where to find. 2. Be deprived of; be parted from. 3. Cease to have. 4. Cause or suffer defeat in (a game). (intransitive verb) Suffer loss; be defeated.

"just learned to play this tune. i think you might like it," said the text message on my wife's cell phone.

Suzanne asked me to surf over to YouTube to check out a bluegrass song yesterday morning. After sweating my way through my long run of six miles (still on the mend, my friends!) and pushing my (seventh) anniversary present (a push mower!) around the back yard I was in no mood to spend excess time wrestling with a video which may be little more than a slide show with music in the background.

If the song is really that good I might want to buy it.

I decided instead to use the streamlined (and user-friendly) iTunes interface. What came through my speakers was a nice, hopeful but sad song. I instinctively thought of the joke: 'What happens when you play country music backwards? You get your job back, your house back, your spouse back, and your drinking problem is resolved.'

Then I considered the source. My young relative is struggling with the recent dissolution of his marriage. There's no doubt in my mind he's hoping for a "happily ever after" reconciliation. I've been there; at least the songs he's listening to are more musical than the ones I used to buck myself up almost two decades ago. No sooner do I get out of iTunes and go to my social media account to see what the rest of the world is up to, and find another friend's thirty-year marriage has gone to the rubbish bin.

Then, my phone pings a text message: The mother of my good friend Aaron Boudreaux passed away the previous evening after a struggle with cancer. Nothing you can do but either mull over the fleeting nature of our existence or go stand in the sunshine and appreciate it. Back to the yard, at least for another couple of minutes.

After my wife went off to spend the morning with the grandchildren I turned on the television and channel-surfed through the mens' and womens' college basketball tournament, as well as a spring one-day classic cycling race. The sprint finish of a spring classic, or even of a one-to-three-week stage race places victory and defeat, struggle and suffering, failure and success out for all (who care to understand) to view. Especially when the guy who finishes second or third, nipped at the line because of tactics, pounds their fist on the handlebar in disgust.

Earlier, before the cycling, I surfed over toward Ted Turner's classic movie channel. I'm not an old black-and-white movie fan but the title, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," naturally earned my attention. The book is (supposedly) a classic, as well as the film. I regret that to this point in time I had neither read the book nor seen the movie (either in the original black-and-white or the re-make), so I can't comment about the entire story. I happened to catch the last fifteen minutes of the film, which definitely is not a "feel-good" finish. The ending of this movie is as gloomy as the end of "The Graduate." Why the young reform schooler didn't go for the win is beyond comprehension, especially to his schoolmates and the masters at the school...until you follow (playing in the young man's mind as he approaches the finish line) the struggle of the young man to remain true to himself. In fact (and my wife reminded me this morning) it probably had to do with the small scrap of power or control he had over his destiny, the choice of whether to follow his will or the will of others.

So, do coaches teach their charges about loss?

I was thinking about the types of loss; from the simple and often silly "hidden in ones' sock drawer disguised as..." loss, which if we're lucky turns into an eventual find...usually after we spend money to replace it, to the very painful and very permanent departure of a loved one. Teaching about loss and losing happens it's one of those "oh, by the way" things. More often than not the role of the coach is thought to be like the role described in Kenny Moore's screenplay "Without Limits," the story of Steve Prefontaine and the relationship with his coach Bill Bowerman. One of the goal-setting sessions early in the movie (didn't make the "Memorable Quotes" section of the Internet Movie Database, but...) is a great rhetorical statement of the coach's role:

Bowerman (Donald Sutherland): What do you think a coach does, Pre?

Prefontaine (Billy Crudup): He teaches you to run.

Bowerman: To run a store? A business?

Prefontaine: To run a race.

Bowerman: In order to...?

Prefontaine: ...to win.

Bowerman: Yes. That's what I thought.

So few coaches teach how to lose because loss is more common in life. We all run the race, but there can only be one winner: the rest of the participants who were not the first across the line have lost. Race organizers and teachers and coaches can go ahead and put a silver lining on the dark cloud by giving age group awards, grading on curves and looking for the positives, but coaches need to teach, from personal experience and by illustrative example, that loss and losing varies in pain, in duration, and in permanence. The most painful and permanent losses are the ones from which the individual athletes decides not to learn, and decides cannot be remedied.

It's only a loss if you continue to allow yourself to be defeated.

(P.S. My condolences to the Boudreaux family. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. B. Rest in peace.)

My Thanksgiving

(With a little bit of help from Don Henley, circa 2001...)

"A lot of things have happened since the last time we spoke; Some of them are funny, some of 'em ain't no joke; and I trust you will forgive me if I lay it on the line; I always thought you were a friend of mine..."

Over the last couple of months I've seen my high school classmates attaching through Web 2.0 modalities like Facebook. It's cool to see some of us have changed over the nearly three decades since graduating high school. Some of us haven't changed a bit. Some haven't left the old home town; some of us are sitting on the far side of the world, in places we would have never imagined being in when we were 17, 18, 19 years old.

"...Sometimes I think about you; I wonder how you're doing now and what you're going through..."

It's a d*mn good thing I'm married & I had no social life in high school. No old flames to fear re-kindling. Well, it'll be uncomfortable next year & I have little to recollect upon but the occasional band or track bus trip...compared to some of the parties my friends engaged in that seems pretty d*mmned lightweight. And since there was no Web 2.0 to speak of back then there won't be any incriminating evidence to dig up.

"...The last time I saw you we were playing with fire; We were loaded with passion and a burning desire; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving..."

I'll be looked at with a certain degree of admiration, or pity...haven't figured out which. How many people get to re-make themselves 15 years after high school? How many want to re-make themselves? I think I can name at least one or two who would, but I'm not going there at this moment. Well, maybe I will.

"...Now the trouble with you and me, my friend is the trouble with this nation; Too many blessings, too little appreciation;and I know that kind of notion-well, it just ain't cool; so send me back to Sunday school; because I'm tired of waiting for reason to arrive; It's too long we've been living these unexamined lives..."

Getting married & divorced in the course of two years is a blessing in disguise; it showed me the superficiality of some people's religious faith, how fleeting their emotional support can be. It's a harsh wake-up call when you find the people you most hope to stand in your corner when the stuff hits the fan are the first to bail on you. It's provided insight on religion, on faith, & on the painful revelation the two often are not mutually inclusive.

"...I've got great expectations, I've got family and friends; I've got satisfying work, I've got a back that bends; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving..."

Thank God for those years of solitude & searching in the early-to-mid-1990s. I would have never taken up running, never asked questions of the truths dropped in my lap on a weekly basis, & never thought about doing little more than a seven-to-three, five-day-a-week, working class existence. No college, no job potential, no relocation, no second marriage, no athlete-coach relationships...probably on the fast-track to fat, dumb & happy-ville.

"...Have you noticed that an angry man can only get so far; Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be with the way things are..."

Coaching, here & now, has taught me the need to be less concerned about people who disagree. Most make their case known behind your back, with little or no evidence. They don't want to prove you made a mistake, they want to humiliate you in public. When you're the target of ad hominem attacks, there's not a lot you can do to defend without looking foolish...face it, some knucklehead is bound & determined to drag you down to their level.

"...Here in this fragmented world, I still believe in learning how to give love, and how to receive it; and I would not be among those who abuse this privilege; sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge..."

So, I take my joy from making a difference in a small handful of lives; by motivation, by encouragement, by counsel, by setting the best possible example. The joy comes on days like today, when I can help someone run a personal best at a race...just talking them through the process...not screaming & yelling until it's all said & done (the right time to scream, no?). To those who decide to cross & burn the bridge behind them, all I can do is smile, watch them march into the darkness. Then I'll sit down to roast weenies in the embers.

"...And I don't mind saying that I still love it all; I wallowed in the springtime, now I'm welcoming the fall; for every moment of joy, every hour of fear; for every winding road that brought me here; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving..."

This time of the year, with the darkness & damp & cold, is a strange time for running. You spend lots of time in solitary pursuit if you stick to the road or the track; treadmills only isolate us from each other through music players & headphones. Sometimes it helps just to break the rut; if you've been treadmilling regularly, get out on the track or the road. If you run in the dark under the streetlamps, get inside every so often. Break the monotony.

"...For everyone who helped me start; and for everything that broke my heart; for every breath, for every day of living; This is my Thanksgiving."