Fine whine

I’ve spent my fair of time shivering in the cold over the past 20 years as a track coach. Saturday at Monmouth promises to be another doozy of a cold-weather day with the forecast high a balmy 38, no doubt with a stiff breeze.

But my cold-weather practice and meet misery pales in comparison to Terry Horton, our fine assistant coach and longtime legendary coach at nearby Arlington High School.

Athletes and others that think I’m “old school” when I make reference to long-ago meets that I was coaching at in the early 1990s (when most of you on the team were BORN) should talk to Terry. He was “old school” before I was “new school.” Whatever that means. Bottom line: Terry has more than 40 years of track coaching and track officiating experience. That translates into literally hundreds of days out in fairly miserable weather.

Yesterday out at Vassar, as my outer extremities slowly began to lose feeling and our athletes were warming up in preparation for their workouts, Terry was regaling me with stories of winter track practices and meets – YES, MEETS! – in the parking lot of Arlington High School. Early in my reporting days at Dutchess County’s Finest Daily Newspaper, I vaguely recall a parking lot track meet locally called the “Polar Bear Relays.” Nice.

Terry was telling me about a long ago Coaches and Officials Meet in the Arlington parking lot. It was so cold, snowy and icy that Terry was out there shoveling snow and chopping ice along the “track” to keep the meet moving along. The “coaches and officials”? Terry said it was all he could do to keep them outside to get the meet moving along. As I most certainly would have back then (and now), those coaches and officials were often scurrying inside for warmth and probably a hot cup of coffee.

So, no matter how cold and miserable I complain about being, it’s heartening (sort of) to know that Terry has been cold and miserable in bad weather twice as long as I have. And probably complaining about it half as much as I do.

See you in the snow …