It’s interesting to read the tee shirts. Long distance runners are a unique breed and it shows in what they emblazon on their shirts. One of my favorites says that Cross Country is a mental sport – you have to be mental to do it. Which reminds me of what my son Thomas said early this season after running over the nearly vertical hills at the Columbus Scotus course, a course that loops around so the runners have to do the hills twice. Once he had recovered enough to speak he said “Why in the world do I do this?”
But about five minutes after a race, when his oxygen level is back up to about 50%, he isn’t so negative. Ask him anytime except right after a race if he likes Cross Country he’ll say he likes “everything but the running.”
And I can understand. I enjoy Cross Country (XC) meets, and not just because I don’t have to run (though sometimes I do in order to see the runners at various places on the course). I love the setting – except for the Scotus course hidden as it is in the foothills of the Himalayas — most races are held on golf courses which are understandably well-kept. And the meets take place during a nice time of year.
But what I like most is the atmosphere. Just because the spectators are there to support their runner and their team doesn’t mean they’re against anyone else. Many times they’ll cheer runners they don’t know just for trying hard. This collegiality is shared by the runners who routinely congratulate opponents who finish ahead of them.
They’re remarkably polite, too. When my wife Lori and I help at the tables where the runners get water and bananas after a race, many of them sincerely thank us for providing these refreshments.
The worst part of Cross Country is how nervous I get waiting before the races and wondering how things will turn out. Everyone wants their child to do well but doing well in Cross Country is relative – there’s only going to be one runner who wins. What’s important is that your child does his or her best and improves over the course of the season (and not get hurt, of course, by pulling a ligament or something).
For the second year in a row, the Boone Central/Newman Grove girls Cross Country team has won State in Class C (Thomas, the only BC/NG boy to run, finished 40th). Winning twice is an amazing accomplishment and both the girls and Coach Dickey are to be congratulated. It certainly makes running more rewarding when you win.
Yet I suspect that to both the girls and the boys winning is just icing on the cake. Cross Country is a mental sport, a sport where you really run against yourself, against every ache and pain that screams at you to stop. For some, just finishing the race is a victory, and for everyone who runs it isn’t just about whether you win or lose – it’s about how you “play the game” – how you run your race and do your best.
I would like to extend my best to all the runners and everyone else who make up the Boone Central/Newman Grove Cross Country family. Cross Country is a unique sport, and though every sport has much to recommend it, there’s something about Cross Country that sets it apart, and I’m sorry to see the season end.
They say “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” and things have certainly changed since the early 1900s. Yet in some ways they haven’t changed at all, either in marketing or politics. I was reminded of this recently when I ran across something long-time Albion resident the late Norman Smith wrote in 1982:
“My father used to tell me a story about the early 1900s. As a boy he went to an auto show back East. There he saw all of the latest autos. Each was in a booth and every booth had a salesman out front telling about all the wonderful things his car could do. There were fabulous claims and counterclaims and sheets full of statistics. My dad told me the show was just like politics.”
Norm went on to observe “Between now and Election Day we, the voters, will be treated like the crowd at the car show. The strategy is to confuse and mislead those who cannot recognize dirty political tricks. Perhaps the dirtiest trick will be the amount of money spent on campaign ads. As you endure the full-page ads, the fancy TV commercials, the last minute bombardment of charges and countercharges, remember what your candidate said about not being influenced by ‘moneyed interests.’ Stop and think about the cost.”
The only thing that’s changed since Norm wrote this in 1982 is that the candidates no longer try very hard to pretend they aren’t influenced by “moneyed interests.” One of the points presidential candidate Donald Trump trumpets is, in fact, that he’s so wealthy he isn’t beholden to any donors.
Because donations can lead to influence, until recently voters could access reports filed by candidates disclosing who had contributed what. By following the money voters can judge for themselves which moneyed interests are going to have the most influence on any particular candidate. Every state – and the federal government – requires disclosure.
Now, however, as more and more money floods the political landscape, wealthy donors have found ways to circumvent state and federal disclosure rules. When challenged on this it’s claimed that disclosing how much money certain donors give would generate a backlash against them. In other words some people donate such outrageous amounts to influence elections that the rest of us would be outraged if we knew it.
The Supreme Court has ruled that making campaign contributions is a form of free speech and as such protected by the First Amendment. Yet in all other areas of speech – with the notable exception of the Internet — it is understood that one must take responsibility for one’s words. With rights, after all, comes the responsibility to exercise them wisely and accept the consequences for what one says — or contributes.
I suppose in an age when our Second Amendment right to bear arms has become divorced from seemingly any responsibility to use those arms safely and wisely, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the right to free speech is now divorced from accountability for what one says or donates. But whether or not we know who’s paying the bill, with the exception of Trump, every promotion for every candidate, and every “information ad” that denigrates his or her opponent has been funded by individuals and/or groups that have a vested interest in seeing their candidate win.
Times change but politics doesn’t – so long as it takes money to run for office voters need to know where that money is coming from. The fact that more and more donors don’t want us to ‘follow the money’ only emphasizes how important disclosure really is.