An interview with Kirk Dornton

 This one is long and this one is special. Oh heck, ALL of these Pandemic Papers interviews are special, neat and memorable. As we start another week of them, it is my stated goal to keep it going for many more weeks and maybe even months! As long as you keep reading them, and as long as we have willing alums willing to take hours out of their schedule to give such well-thought-out answers, we’ll keep posting them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Let’s keep it going.

So anyway. Today. Today, we have Kirk Dornton, one of the toughest, fastest, strangest (and that comes from a vast catalog of unique individuals way too numerous to mention!) and most cerebral athletes we’ve ever had the honor to coach. The initial thought was to have a dual interview with Kirk and his wife, Liza Grudzinski, who graduated as the greatest women’s distance runner in school history. Liza’s interview will follow later in this series. Today, it’s all Kirk, and a lot of it. As I noted, Kirk’s a cerebral sort. He thinks, a lot. He writes, a lot. He used to run, a lot. All that “a lot” is all good, it’s all great actually.

Because Kirk and Liza live locally, about a half hour away, we’ve had the wonderful treat of becoming good friends with them as young and now not-so-young alums. Of course, given our busy lives – they have two very active toddler boys – we don’t see them as much as we used to or we’d like to. One story that Kirk didn’t include in his long-winded answers (not complaining, dude, they were great!) is one that has become the stuff of legend in our house. One summer, I think it was between his junior and senior years at Marist, Kirk was doing an internship locally. He was bored and lonely being in Poughkeepsie without his good pals, so we’d have him over the house for dinner on occasion. Every time Kirk would come over – without fail! – our plans for a nice BBQ and dinner on the deck would be foiled because it would start raining. Our kids got used to it. “Hey Joey, Kirk’s coming over for dinner tonight!” “Oh, it’s gonna rain, I guess.” Yup, sounds about right.

Anyway. It’s fitting that this might be the longest intro to a Pandemic Papers post. What follows are long answers. Very long, in some cases. I hope you’ll read them. For younger readers, you’ll get insight into the origins of the “MAAC Songs.” For older readers, it may bring back some unusual memories. For all of us, again, what the heck else we got going on? Another long blog post? Sure, why NOT? Here, then, is today’s Pandemic Papers interview with Kirk Dornton (Class of 2004).            

I know it’s a long time ago, but tell us how you became interested in Marist and how you wound up here. If I recall, it was an interesting story, to say the least?

I became interested in Marist because my mother told me to be. I kid, but not really. Pete was eyeing me as a potential recruit my senior year of high school, having something of a Henninger High School connection with my coach Jerry Riordan and fellow Syracuse runners turned Red Foxes, Mike Melfi and Jamal Padgett. Now, I was a decent runner posting decent times consistently, week after week, through cross, indoor, and outdoor track, taking names and turning heads all the way up to the seasonal NY State Meets without fail. And yet, the State Meets always proved my Achilles heel. Just as consistently as I succeeded during the season, I consistently bombed at every championship meet almost without fail.

Now, I heard a story from somewhere -- call it a rumor -- that my flops secretly tickled Pete to no end because he knew what I was, knew my potential, and knew that every other college and university would now pass me over given my lackluster end-of-season performances. I was the underappreciated penny stock only those investors who know how to play the market are willing to pony up dough for. Well, that’s what Pete did, offering me a solid package to come to Marist which my mother, being a single parent at the time, swooned over. I had my mind set on Boston College and Boston University, but when those schools didn’t pan out I gave Marist the attention it rightfully deserved.

So, one late August day, I hopped into a car with Marist alum Mike Melfi and went down to Poughkeepsie to check Marist College out right and proper. It was a memorable visit for several reasons: first, I was paired with host Chris Salamone, younger brother to the late and much missed Greg Salamone, who promptly abandoned me to spend my evening in the Sheahan lounge alone until Chris McCloskey happened upon me and asked what the hell I was doing (I harbor no hard feelings about this, I actually find it hilarious in retrospect).

Second, I will never forget my first meeting with Pete in his office at the time. He was a little on edge, what with his wife ready to deliver their first child at any second. This, of course, was exactly what happened, and no sooner had I been hastily ushered out Pete’s door than I was informed by others of the team he was on his way to the hospital to witness the birth of his child. Where was Melfi, during all of this you ask? I couldn’t tell you. I think he was chasing an old girlfriend still going to school there at the time. I honestly don’t think I saw him until it was time for me to get in the car to return home.

My first impression of Marist? I was alone, forlorn, frightened, confused, abandoned for girls, first-born children, and whatever the hell Chris Salamone was doing.

I was sold.

Talk about some of your biggest highlights and memories of your time at Marist. What are your fondest memories of the day-to-day life of being a student-athlete at Marist?

Biggest memories at Marist? For sake of blog space and time I’ll list two. Without any thought, I will say my junior year 2003 Penn Relays was and always will be one of my greatest races. I was running my specialty, the 10k and my outdoor season had been going … well, I didn’t have much of a season to speak of, truth be told. Pete and I had taken on something of a mad scientist approach to that season, holding me back, and holding me back, and holding me back for just the right moment to flip the lid and press the little red ‘Dornton Detonate’ button (sounds awesome, I know). I ran an initial 10k down in Virginia that outdoor season but then took the next few weeks to just TRAIN, but in a concentrated, low mileage, high-intensity manner. By the time I stepped up to the line late at night before a largely empty Franklin Field (I hold no grudges. It IS boring watching guys run circles for 30 minutes straight) my legs felt like they were ready to explode with energy. And then the gun sounded.

           

I have a quote Greg Salamone sent to me before that race. Until that evening, Greg had held the 10k record for a number of years and, being the good friend and inestimable teammate that he was, sent me the following email for encouragement: “Kirk, Jensen (Greg’s high school coach) always told us that we only use 10 percent of our brains when we run. So, we all figured that if we used 100 percent of it we could run like sub-4:00 3200m. So, if you go into Penn using 100 percent of your brain, I am sure you will break 19:00 for the 10K.  Reese (Greg’s nickname, another story in itself).’’

           

I can’t say whether or not I used 100 percent of my brain that evening, but I can say I had one of the few runs of my life. Much of the race is a blur, but with Led Zeppelin’s ‘When the Levee Breaks’ reverberating through my head to keep the adrenaline simmering, that’s exactly what happened. I hit my splits like lightning and pounded the track like thunder (A little over the top? Whatever, it’s my memory) What I do recall is Coach Chuck and Pete losing their minds as I came around for my final lap on pace to take the record. At that point I might as well have lifted off the track. Only one other time in my life can I say I felt a runner’s high like I did that race. Without sensing a single step, breath, or heartbeat I charged through the finish with a PR and school record of 30:38, beating Greg’s old record by something like 10 seconds.

           

My second memory is that of Kirk’s Day. It sounds megalomaniac, I admit, but the heart of it is pure. March 11, 2003 was a great day: I aced a ridiculously hard Environmental Ecology Test, got a call from my future wife Liza informing me she really enjoyed our first date and we should do it again sometime, and then proceeded to tear up the McCann shin-splitting, ankle crushing, basketballs flying track by doing a 12x800 workout of my own diabolical devising. (What can I say, I was on cloud nine at this point). Pete never tried to stop me or talk me out of so much lunacy, as I was hitting my splits with 2:20 or less interval after interval. Most of the team bagged the workout after six, some stayed through eight. I just kept going and Pete just kept clicking the watch. On the last interval Chris McCloskey jumped back in to keep me humble, crushing me in fine fashion and turning his head to laugh at me the whole way. It was a perfect end to one of the best days of my life.

           

From what I understand, Kirk’s Day is still commemorated by the team, although they’ve gone on to make the workout their own and call it by another name, and rightly so. I just wanted to celebrate a real great day in life, something everyone should do at least once, hopefully more, each year. (Steve Hicks mentioned 2004’s Kirk’s Day workout in his own post.) Even now I still commemorate Kirk’s Day in my own little way, usually a call to my former teammate Charlie Williams or a text to Pete. Liza always laughs when I remind her what day it is. Some traditions are just to sweet to let go I guess.

I know it sounds cliché, but I’ll always look back on my days at Marist as some of the most happy and carefree of my life. Everything was simple, innocent enough, and, most of all, shared with the most fantastic bunch of people you could ever hope to meet––you woke up in a house full of teammates, hit your classes with friends (who likely were teammates), went to practice with, you guessed it, your teammates, laughed your way through dinner in the dining hall with those same teammates, and then spent the evenings trying not to do anything stupid enough to raise Pete’s ire with, bingo, your teammates.

           

No blog would suffice to hold the vast compendium of stories any Red Fox runner has to tell about his or her times at Marist. And yet I imagine as many years might separate all of us, our many and varied stories likely share similar threads, perhaps not in the details, but certainly in the emotions and feelings involved. Happy, carefree, simple, innocent enough.

           

I could speak to the workouts, the meets, to one hilarious tale after another, all in an effort to sum up what it was like to be on Marist’s Running teams, but to truly encapsulate what the sum experience meant to me I need only mention the MAAC Song. If you were/are a Marist runner from 2003 onward, you likely have an inkling what I’m talking about. If not, allow me to elaborate.

           

I was bored working the reference desk at the library one dark, mid-winter’s night. Possessing an overactive overtly creative right-sided brain, I got it in my head to start messing around with the lyrics to The Beatles “Hey Jude”. Voila! By the end of my shift I had the parody “Hey Phil” about then women’s running coach Phil Kelly written in full. So, what does one do with such a frivolous use of one’s energies? He sings it, of course! But I’m not one to possess the honeyed tones of McCartney, or melodious vocals of Lennon.  No, I need to be drowned out when I sing, lest I drive away flocks of migratory birds and send animals stampeding into the Hudson River in despair. That said, I got a battery powered CD player, a copy of ‘Hey Jude’ on CD, printed off a stack of copies of my song and, on the way back from Indoor MAACs at Manhattan College, bade all my fellow teammates, men and women alike, join me in song. The smiles and joy of that bus ride were nothing short of priceless. People were standing, singing, laughing, draping arms over shoulders and swaying in time, all to the effect of creating something singular to that moment. It was like crossing a finish line in PR time with each one of your teammates at your side doing the same, together.

           

Many more songs followed ‘Hey Phil’, with many hands, or should I say voices, volunteering their creativity. It became a tradition on the MAAC meet rides, and, last I heard, was still observed in the present. The MAAC Song is my legacy to Marist running, to my friends and teammates and the happy times we shared together. I never cared about the longevity of the records I set, nor did it matter to me if my name stretched through the ages. As long as people keep singing about what it is to be a runner at Marist, no matter how ridiculous the stories may be, I’ll be there.

You did some great running post-collegiately. Tell us about your running after college.

           

I had a two-week break between getting my diploma at Marist and beginning my Masters in Education at UConn. I ran during this time, but I don’t remember much of what I did owing to the workload heaped on me (it was an abbreviated year and half program). Once I moved from being a student of higher education to an educator myself I decided to take the leap and train for marathons. I ran four between 2005 and 2008––Philadelphia, Boston, and New York twice. I posted my best time in New York and am honest when I say I don’t remember exactly what it was, something in the low 2:32:00s. What I remember about that race was how proud my father was to see me running such a big race and do so well (He passed away from cancer in 2010).

           

In 2009, I was training for a spring marathon in Ottawa. I pounded the treadmill all winter long as preparation but never felt the perking in the muscles that goes along with good training. When the weather turned for the better I set out on my usual long runs hoping things might come together better than they were. Still, I felt a certain blasé feeling in my legs.

           

Then I went for a 20-miler one day and, half way in, just stopped running. I’ll never forget it (in fact, I still know exactly where I was and what the morning was like). At that moment I said to myself, “Yep. You did well Kirk. And that’s it.”

           

I walked home and haven’t run a competitive race since.

           

Is there some mystical lesson to my story? Maybe, maybe not. It takes time, A LOT of time, to be good at something. It’s all you do. It’s all you think about. While it’s there, it is you and you are it. Period. If you embrace the defining nature of what it is you strive to achieve, any, and I mean ANY amount of work and effort can be justified. I spent 14 years of my life running with exactly this in mind, then one day I couldn’t justify it anymore. There were other things out there I wanted to do, things I’d sacrificed because sacrifice was the only way to make my running a reality. I’d pushed my body to its limits. Could I have pushed more? Sure, but that wasn’t going to change my definition of myself as a runner, the competitor I’d already solidified in my own mind and the minds of those who truly knew me. “You did well Kirk. And that’s it.”

           

That’s it.

           

I run on occasion, when the mood strikes me. I never wear a watch, no longer hold any concept of mileage or what it is to run fast. Of all that the act of running and racing stood for in my life, I can’t say I miss any of it with the exception of one small facet. Every so often I’ll get nostalgic for the unbound feeling of being able to run deep into the countryside with nothing but my own physical strength to propel me there. To be lost in nature, lost in thought, lost with what my body was capable of achieving at the time … I miss that, as any runner would I imagine.

Talk about your career path – how did you get into teaching, how long have you been at your current positions and how your teaching careers have evolved through the years?

I’ve been an Earth Science teacher at Arlington High School for 15 years now, beginning in 2005. It’s the only real job I’ve ever had (outside the usual jobs kids have in high school). I’m thankful for my job and the opportunities it has provided me over the years. When teaching works, it’s awesome; when it doesn’t work, it can crush you like a lead weight. The tricky part is that it takes two to tango, student and teacher. I can come at my days giving all I got, but if the kids aren’t willing to reciprocate, no amount of magic is going to bring that class to life. It’s all about wonder and curiosity. If a student has even a shred of either walking through my door, I can make it grow.

Now that all of our current student-athletes are “distance learning” … what is it like to be “distance teaching”?

I’ll let you know what it is to ‘distance teach’ when I figure it out myself. Personally, I see it as an oxymoron. There is no substitution for in-person interaction with students. Every nuance of body expression, emotion, and interpersonal interaction is excised over a technology-based platform, no matter how savvy it touts itself to be. I told my students the other day in a ‘post’ to my ‘class page’ the best thing they can do right now is take any of the lessons I present them with, find one thing about it they find interesting––whether it be a concept, a place used as an example, or just a picture of something intriguing––and go check it out for themselves on-line or in a reference book if they have one available at home. I feel this is the best use of their time under the present conditions. Teaching in its intended form has gone out the window for the time being. Students have to come at this as an exercise in self-determination and self-directedness if they are to truly continue to learn.

“Distance teaching” has an added component/challenge with two very active toddlers in the house. How are you managing that and what “schedule” are you on with the boys?

Distance teaching with two kids in the background is, let’s see, one step below impossible. It would be great to have a schedule––makes complete sense, constitutes a good use of time, a fantastic business model…HA HA HA! Since when did a pair of 2- and 6-year-olds follow business models? It’s the most fluid situation imaginable, our days at home. Liza and I try to work with the 6-year-old for 30-40 minutes in the morning, after lunch, and at night, doing reading writing and arithmetic. I emphasize the word ‘try’, and any parent of children will understand why. We do not use any online learning or electronics. One of the things I relish about the current situation (horrible as it is in so many other respects) is the opportunity to teach my children the way I was taught, which I feel was pretty effective all in all. We write letters to family members regularly, we write stories using words we learn, we work on basic arithmetic, we read, read, read BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS! As an educator I have always said and firmly believe if a child can read proficiently he/she doesn’t need me. He/she can teach him/herself!

What message would you give to our current seniors who lost their final outdoor track season and final few months of their senior year?

I’m not sure I could ever put together a statement suited to fill or alleviate the void created by the loss of even a moment of one’s senior year. It sucks, there is no other way to put it. I will say this however: the races you did not run, they are STILL in you; the diploma you did not walk across the stage to receive, you WILL get it one way or another, by mail, in person, or from personal delivery by Dennis Murray himself (I could totally see him doing this, he’s that dedicated to his Marist Foxes); the last few months of memories spent with your friends and teammates, you MUST find ways to make those up. With every day that passes after this pandemic is over, the opportunities to do so will become less and less. Life will slowly creep in and interfere, ambitions and careers will take over. Do not lose a minute. Get together as a group, in pairs, as a team, as often as possible. Do not let missed time stay as such. Relish the memories you did make as a college student and do everything in your power to stay in contact with those who are a part of them as long as possible after all this mess has passed. You are each an indelible part of one another’s lives thanks to Marist. Never forget that.

What advice would you give to current team members and/or prospective student-athletes considering Marist?

If you will be coming back to Marist next year or plan to attend such a wonderful institution, I have only this to say… you have something rare, you have something precious. Don’t let a little pathogen piece of s%$t tarnish it for a single moment.