As with all sport, track & field at Suitland Senior High School was a fickle maiden for me my sophomore year. Certainly she had revealed to me a small sample of what was in store for us but for me, once Tom went down, we were running up hill and failed to recapture any of the magic we had achieved on a few occasions.

Perhaps it was another lesson that I needed to learn. One thing I did learn was to never underestimate Tom Beaudreault's value to the relays that were my world. For all his shortcomings, as a starter on my relay team, he was the "best at that business" and no one else on our team could hold a candle to him. We were inexorably joined in a way I was still unable to fathom. My fondness for Tom went no further than my need for him. I never felt the chemistry that had been established between the man that handed off to me and the man that I handed off to, and perhaps in my being insulated in that way kept Tom and I from having any chemistry. There always someone between him and I.

My concept of a team had changed and Tom Beaudreault, Bob Shroeder, Whitey Sheldon, and myself were "The Team", and I don't mean that as an insult to the other boys who worked every bit as hard as we did. From my limited perspective few of them existed in my world, certainly not beyond the track at Suitland High School and the confining buses that kept all of us too close for my comfort that first season.

I'd never liked crowded buses even before track, so like so many other things, it was my perception and certainly had little to do with who my teammates were. As I came to know boys like Charlie James and Bob Droter, I both liked and respected them. It all had little to do with any larger reality for me. I was there to run track and if I happened to get to know someone, that was just an accident of life. I'm sure other boys on the same team with me, while reflecting back on it, would have come away with an entirely different picture than I did. I don't even hazard a guess what some of them thought of me, but I never cared. I was there to run.

Being the youngest member on my first track team gave me a unique perspective. From the first day no one treated me like I was any different than anyone else, certainly not Coach Becker. Any visible difference between me and the rest of the guys only took place in my mind, being made possible because I was younger than anyone else and I carried with me certain preconceived notions about the age difference that weren't necessarily valid.

I earned my letter if not the status it gave me. I felt no different about my life or the greater world I was lost inside of. I certainly felt no different about my life. There was one subtle change that I did notice. As my junior year proceeded and my friendship with Tommy and his family blossomed, I kept one eye on the calendar, and after we returned to school at New Years, time seemed to crawl, but finally the call came:

"Anyone interested in joining Suitland's Track & Field Team, report to the area just outside the boy's locker room promptly at 3:30 P.M."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I couldn't wait. Being in a different class than the rest of my teammates, I never crossed paths with them. I hadn't seen anyone but Whitey, during football season, and except for a few nods and a hello every once in a while, there was no contact with track, except in memory, but I was ready when the call came my junior year.

Our new numbers shocked me. I suppose there were upwards of thirty of us. I recognized Don Kennerly, Ronnie Powell, Terry Huff, and Mike Farrell, all juniors with me and some I had attended classes with. There were also some sophomores. Kennerly would run hurdles, one of our biggest weaknesses, and he, like Whitey, was a natural athlete and in a category by themselves in my book. I knew Don was a good addition. Ronnie had always been a baseball player and so I was surprised to see him join the track team, but he played baseball for Knights of Columbus or maybe the Catholic League. I knew he was good but for some reason he didn't want to play baseball at Suitland. He would sprint instead, but only in a backup role our junior year. The main sprint team was all but set long before the call came to report for practice.

These were all good additions that strengthened us in all the right places. Ponder and Palmer gave us good middle distance men. Terry Huff would join Mike Todd as a distance man. He was consistently fast and always competitive.

A lot of the old faces were back, James, Stein, Gorely, Merrill, Kickpatrick, and Mulligan.

There was one other new addition from my class, another Tom, Tom Scherer, who I hadn't known previously. He would replace Tom Beaudreault as the source of much irritation for me over the next two years and once again he was someone more like me than I cared to admit. If anything, Tom Scherer was unconventional to say the least and an irritant to me. I might have thought everyone named Tom was difficult, except my best friend had the name. To make matters worse, when Coach Becker asked for people to try out for the high jump, source of much anguish for him, Scherer stepped forward, assuring himself a place on the team for at least the short term.

There were no tryouts. All you had to do was show up and have a heartbeat or look like you did, and you were on the team. My first day of track practice the year before was still etched painfully on the inside of my brain but Coach Becker did not torcher us with a run in the cold this season and the sprinters wouldn't see the outdoors for nearly a month.

The residue shin splints that deserted me shortly after the previous season, returned shortly after the beginning of the new season and my use of Atomic Balm was at addictive proportions and I once again went nowhere without it. This year no one mentioned them but both Whitey and Bob would take turns watching me as I tried not to limp around and forgetting often enough to bring there attention to my sore legs.

Tom Beaudreault had returned with a smile and a new attitude that I never quite trusted. While the difficulties between us had faded, it was a tentative peace in my mind. I knew my track future was directly related to Tom's track future and that was enough to get him a pass with me. I'd refuse to give in to my curiosity about how a dough boy could run so damn fast.

There was no adjust time for the sprinters, not the four sprinters that ran the relays. We were a team onto ourselves. We were usually together or close by except when Tom was off doing his thing with the starting blocks, but I no longer question his devotion to that science, understanding how important it was to the success of the relay teams that gave me something to do.

Whitey and Tom were still the core of the sprint team. They'd run the open races, two relays, and from time to time, the long jump and triple jump, but we had enough warm bodies to take the pressure off of us and Coach wasn't on us so much about practicing our jumps, being content to watch us run.

He very seldom got involved with our handoffs anymore. He stood and watched and didn't say much, but there was a pleasure that seemed to come to his face when he did. We were not so much any unknown quantity any longer. While Northwestern had taken back the Prince George's County record in the 4X100 relay after our relay team had faltered, but we had owned that record for several weeks my sophomore season.

I did one thing. I did it well and Coach Becker always got the same race from me, whether or not we set a record. I did what third legs were supposed to do. I was never passed, in my first season, always holding my own or advancing my position. I was confident that with a year's experience I was improved, bigger, and stronger, and more in tuned with what I was supposed to do.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

This is only the beginning of an adventure that grabs our narrator and doesn't let him go for two track seasons, until the last race is run. In his senior year Charles is the only one left from his sophomore year. No other boy shared the experience from the meek beginnings and then returned after the championships were won. Coach Becker is the only other one to witness the difficult birth of his championship team.

In his senior year the only things any of his teammates have known are winning and championships. The guys who took Suitland to the top of track and field in Maryland are all gone. The boys Charles learned his craft with and depended upon graduated, leaving him alone with their memory and the memory of how it all began.


Send Rick an email at quillswritersrealm@yahoo.com

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