Brains AND Balls

Cross country runners are outcasts. They don’t play with balls. They don’t play football, basketball, or baseball; the sacred big three sports. Runners don’t need others to pursue their sport. The balls needed by runners can’t be bought in a store. Running is all about pushing your genetic makeup to the maximum. You don’t know how far and how fast you can go until you do the miles to find out. Running is all about pushing your heart until it is pounding out of your chest; your lungs until the brain fogs from lack of oxygen, your legs and arms tighten with lactic acid from anaerobic exertion; the brain screams with feedback from all systems that you must stop or die; and yet your will and your balls insist that heart, lungs, legs, arms, and brain go one more lap of the track, one more repeat, one more mile.

Distance running is a cerebral sport. There is just you and the body given to you by the genetic cesspool of your parents. Only after running for months and years can you find out what you are capable of. And only you know whether you gave your best effort. You inhabit your body; no-one else. The coach and your friends have no idea if you wimped out, or toughed it out. You know how badly your body screamed for relief from the workouts. Only by pushing the limits day after day can you go from one level of fitness to a higher level. Several days of rest only take you backwards to where you were, not where you want to go. Your mind has to be master.

The runs are too long and boring unless you have a good mind. Fascination with the visual world passing by during a long run is briefly entertaining, but does not last. You have to be an interesting person. You must have an inquisitive mind. You have to entertain yourself. You have to know interesting things, recall them, ponder them, and ponder the imponderable as the miles go by.

Take a minute to Google search the average GPA of a cross country team. The first hit I came across showed the University of South Carolina Women’s Cross Country team finished the 2008-2009 academic year with an average GPA of 3.767

Now do a Google search for the average GPA of a football team. The first hit for me was an article announcing that the University of Florida football team had just set a record high average GPA of 2.81

I rest my case.