Sep 25 2009
Cross Country Dad
All parents commit to not becoming “the crazy sports parent” when their kids start competing. Then, when their child’s sporting interest intersects their own sporting interest, some parents start slowly losing their grip. It takes a bit more resolve to pull back from the edge.
Dale has encouraged Josiah’s running for years. They have competed together in several 5k road races and Dale has mapped several neighborhood routes for Josiah’s training runs. When Josiah joined the cross country team, Dale asked him about practice and took him to buy shoes – return shoes- buy different shoes. He was helpful, but not overly involved.
Then, Josiah started competing. Dale drove Josiah to his first big race. It was a massive race with competitors from the top public schools in Northern Virginia. Runners from small private schools like ours were shocked at the size and skill of the public school teams. Dale wanted to see it all.
When Gabe and I finally arrived, Dale briefed us on the race route and then he was off and running. While Gabe and I sat on lawn chairs overlooking the finish, Dale ran back and forth to various mile points on the course to cheer for our school’s runners. This racing about would have been easier had he just worn his running gear, but in an attempt to project “laid back parent” he had worn khaki shorts, t-shirt, and leather sandals. When the day was done, his back was splattered with mud from feet to shoulders and his sandals were completely mud encrusted from running through a ditch.
For another race, Dale did wear his running shoes and running shirt, but offset it with a pair of jeans to project “almost laid back parent.” He dashed through the woods again to various mile points to cheer on our school’s runners with “Looking Good! Keep Your Pace! Finish Strong!” He does this as a counterpoint to the coach who says things like “What’s wrong? You can run faster than that. Look at all those people in front of you.” On that day, Dale returned home with a large scrape on his arm from falling after tripping on a tree root.
Although he was falling in the mud and on the path, he had kept himself from falling completely into the “crazy sport parent” category. Then, Josiah ran a race and posted his best time ever. Dale arrived home, checked the race results online, and saw that Josiah had been omitted. He emailed Josiah’s coach and attached a photo of Josiah crossing the line behind another runner who was on the list. The coach emailed back that he didn’t know if the other school would change the results.
Another email was written with photo attached to the coach of the school who posted the results. Welcome to the world of Cross Country Dads!
