Old-school shirt from 1991

Witnessed on Facebook recently: This circa 1991 T-shirt from our first year as Marist cross country coach. Man, does this shirt bring back memories! First of all, the phrase on the front of the T-shirt is so late-1980s/early-1990s – a reference to an old Nike ad campaign (“Bo Knows”) centered around the multi-talented Bo Jackson. I really don’t know who came up with this idea for “Bo Don’t Know Distance.” I don’t think it was me, but it may well have been. Remember, that was a long time ago!

The back of the shirt brings back memories, too, of that first season (for me) as men’s coach and for Phil Kelly’s second season in charge of the women’s XC team. I think Phil would agree that it was the first season in a long time of a truly unified “program” and it laid the groundwork for what was to come over the ensuing decades. One thing you’ll notice is how frequently we raced! For those keeping score at home, our season began with six meets on six consecutive weekends; that’s not a typo, it’s true. And! Unlike modern times, we did not split the squad back then, for there wasn’t enough squad to split – about 10 runners per gender back then! We all ran every meet, and we traveled to most of them in vans.

How old is this schedule and how long ago was it? The venue of meet #3 doesn’t even exist anymore! The King’s College used to be located inBriarcliff Manor, but has since shuttered that campus and relocated to New YorkCity; our athletes loved that old TKC course. It was a fast road race, and we left there with happy PRs almost every year.

Other random memories from that first year:

--We brought home a huge, third-place trophy from the CCSU meet. Pretty neat, right? Well. There were only three teams in the meet.

--Mr. Bucket, our fearless leader, had a mostly successful season as lead runner. One exception? When he took off like a bat out of hell up a huge early hill at LeMoyne, and faded badly to like 50th place. This was unusual for the usually savvy racer, but he made up for it with a great Northeast Conference meet.

--Ah yes, that NEC meet out at Robert Morris. Our one “bus” trip – it was a stuffy and cramped minibus reeking of garlic (those who were there remember exactly what I’m talking about). Both teams did well on that mountainous course, and then we had a raucous, karaoke-style sing-along of Billy Joel tunes on the long drive home.

--And no, we did NOT attend the NCAA Championships – that or any year. Not sure what the T-shirt designer was thinking there.

Hey. There’s only one first time, and all these years later – as I enter my 25th year as a coach at Marist – the memories endure of that first season.