The Front Of My Throat Is Stuck To The Back Of My Throat (Part 3 of 5)

That fall I began my ninth grade year by going out for the volleyball team. Since there wasn't football in Junior High, if you wanted to be a real jock, you had to be on the boys volleyball team. I had really improved in volleyball over the summer but I was cut from the team on the final cut. I was devastated because how else was I to get girls to like me? So I went out for the cross country team as an alternative. I soon found out track practice in the spring was nothing compared to cross county running practice. Coach Egan was the cross country coach. He was also the basketball coach and a great soccer enthusiast as well as soccer player. One of his life's goals was to go to see a world cup game someday. Practices consisted of running to our cross country course which was about a mile through a residential area. Then we ran our course which was at a park and the course stretched for a mile and a half.
Fall. The waning days of summer and then autumn takes hold. A slight crispness to the air. Leaves crunching beneath your feet. Fall is my favorite time of year. And starting in 1976 it also represented cross country running to me. Even now, I'll catch a whiff of fall air, and my memory will take me back to junior high and ninth grade . . . and running.
We had a few cross country meets with other schools and then the district cross country meet was held at our course. I didn't come in first place, in fact there were two others from our school who ran faster than I did. However I helped our team do very well. In cross country, the lowest score wins. First place gets one point, second place gets two points and so forth. The points are added up and there you have it. The team with the lowest overall score wins. The next school day, when the announcements were read, my name was included. A real tough kid I had known since elementary school commented to me the next day, "I heard that you are on the cross country team." Yes I said. "Did you score many points for us?" I thought of my "high" score. "Yes" I said.