Ridin' with Reed

We are very much looking forward to this weekend’s MAAC Outdoor Championships at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD. As stated earlier, it’s been a long time since we’ve been here. A long, long time! (1996, for those keeping score at home)
 
Friday’s travel to The Mount was … well, interesting! It’s a long story, but along with two buses, we (as in, I!) had to drive a van all the way down here. Basically, there weren’t enough field event officials to handle implement weigh-ins, and all weigh-ins for Saturday throwing events needed to be completed on Friday afternoon. Again, for those keeping score at home! We have two javelin throwers – Liam Haggerty, Julia Kropo. Their javelins needed to be weighed in. On Friday afternoon. Since our hotel is located 45 miles and about an hour north of The Mount (another long story), it would have been beyond impractical to have one of the buses make the long trip to Emmitsburg, then back to Mechanicsburg, PA (where we are staying). And so? I drove one of our athletic department vans, with the javelins on the floor, to get them weighed in on Friday. So our throwers could throw on Saturday.
 
As I was about to depart the Hannaford’s Plaza in Highland, by myself, with audiobooks/podcasts cued up, one of our student-athletes called me. Wanted to ride along in the van and keep me company. That would be … sophomore sprinter/football player Reed Dexter! Reed (or Dex, as we sometimes call him) said it had been a long time since we had a chance to talk and he wanted to catch up on things with me. Hmm. That’s ONE perspective. Here’s another! The old coach (me) has been mildly annoyed at Dex’s lack of attendance at practice this week. Oh sure, we knew that Dex was getting in his work -- going to the track on his own, etc. But we are hoping to put together a 4x100 relay and we need Reed to be a big part of that. His not being able to join his fellow sprinters at the track that often this week, coupled with his remarkable lack of follow-through on text messages, left me in an agitated state for much of the week.
 
But alas … Reed is Reed and we love his drive, passion and dedication to everything he does. It’s just that … these past few weeks, “everything he does” has been too much: Spring football (practices, lifts, spring game, meetings, etc.) and academic pursuits (papers, exams, group projects) have left Reed quite stressed out in trying to fit everything into his schedule (track included). Join the club, kid. So, OK, in the van he goes. We stopped at Stewart’s for essentials (gas, then coffee) and on the road we went. We chatted the whole way through to Scranton and south, then it was nap time (for him, not me!). I (and then we) listened to a bit of Cuesta’s podcast interview with Vess, stopped at a truck stop, and eventually made it to The Mount for weigh-in and some block starts for Reed, followed by an excellent dinner stop in Gettysburg at a Jersey Mike’s.
 
Ridin’ with Reed (or, maybe, Drivin’ with Dex?) made the day go by. Reed loves to talk, and I enjoy our conversations. He’s from northern Virginia, so he doesn’t quite have a southern drawl, but there are hints of it. He talks fast, I listen slow, and the miles flew by. There’s a lot more driving ahead of us in the next 48 hours. And oh yeah, a track meet, too!