Smile

I was in my senior year of high school during the winter of 1969-70 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Coe College let the local high schools use their 13 laps per mile indoor track in the basement of Eby Field house a couple of afternoons each week. I often ran there.

I remember I was hammering through a particularly difficult workout at Coe one afternoon when Coach Wilkinson interrupted my workout. He rarely did that because rest during a workout is prescribed in carefully measured doses. A conversation is unusual in the middle of a workout because it results in too much rest, but again, I digress.

Wilkinson barked, “Millen, get over here!”

I trotted over, “Yes sir?” wondering what was up.

“Why do you have to scowl and grimace while you are running?”

“It’s a hard workout. It hurts to run that fast. I was concentrating on running.”

“You are scaring the sophomores! How the hell am I supposed to get anybody to run distance if you make it look so hard? Try smiling! Make it look like fun. Get back to work!”

“Yes sir!”

I thought that was funny as hell. I did try running with a smile on my face for the remainder of that afternoon, but it was a distraction from the workout and felt completely unnatural. I abandoned the experiment the next day. I did try to be friendlier to the underclassman during warm-ups and warm-downs after that. Wilkie never razzed me about it again.


Postscript

Speaking of warm-ups: After a warm-up run of a couple of miles we were required to get on the ground and perform a series of stretching exercises. As a team captain I felt esprit de corps was my responsibility, so I made it my habit to occasionally pounce on unsuspecting teammates and allow them to learn first-hand the names of my favorite tortuous wrestling holds. It was all good-natured tomfoolery, quite literally, and generated laughs from all, even my victim of the day. I tried to pick on a variety of victims so no-one felt left out. From time to time my teammates would gang up on me and give me a shellacking. It generated a sense of camaraderie and was great fun. I continued the practice in college.

If your buddies aren’t harassing you in a good-natured fashion, then something is wrong. I suspect that it may be different with females.