Convention(al) wisdom: Thoughts on a few days in sunny Florida

As I was writing this, I was sitting at Gate 8 at MCO Airport (Orlando), awaiting a Friday evening return flight to Westchester County Airport and a return to the reality of December weather (the flight was delayed, got home after midnight, it's cold and rainy as I update this on Saturday morning). For the past 72 hours, I had spent as much of my waking hours as possible out in the warm Florida sun. I bypassed most of the optional symposiums and other continuing education meetings in favor of long walks in the sun, listening to podcasts and audiobooks. I sat through a few mandatory (and mostly tedious) conference, regional and national coaching sessions. The end-of-convention voting session on Friday afternoon was marred by technical difficulties with the voting Web site – someone mentioned that the voting site needed to be “scraped,” which most certainly didn’t sound promising. And so? We voted in the very old-fashioned method of raised hands and then makeshift paper ballots. It’s almost 2022. You can’t make this up! Aside from boring but sunny walks in the vicinity of the JW Marriott/Grande Lakes convention center and resort, here are a few highlights from the 72 hours I was at the USTFCCCA Convention:

--There was a PNC golf tournament on site. It seemed like a big deal. Why did it seem like a big deal? There were lots of golf people around, NBC Sports cameras, stuff like that. And oh yeah, some guy named Tiger Woods was playing. That seemed to cause quite a fervor among a lot of coaches who are into golf. Me? I just kept walking.

--My first night there, I had a lively and raucous dinner with our neighboring coach, Billy Poole-Harris at Bard College in northern Dutchess County. Billy is new to Bard and he’s got big plans for the Raptors. He’s got an infectious enthusiasm for this profession. This is his first head coaching job and he has hit the ground running, recruiting like crazy and aiming high for a team that even he admits has nowhere to go but up. The night ended with him scribbling down workout ideas on the back of a napkin at the bar – this is the type of stuff you often see at coaches’ conventions! I look forward to future lively talks with Billy. Highly neat.

--On Thursday morning, I attended a triple jump symposium that was led by Mario Wilson, an accomplished jumps/multis coach at the University of Virginia. Mario is a Marist alum and we are proud of the career he has forged as a track coach. Mario was a very talented football player here at Marist and only dabbled in track a little after his football eligibility was over. We take no credit for his meteoric rise in the sport, but we can still take great pride in this Forever Fox. I scribbled notes and marveled at his expertise. He has coached All Americans and Olympians. It was really awesome to see this!

--The other symposium I went to was on my first night down there (right before my burger-and-beer with Billy at the bar), with renowned pole vault expert Dennis Mitchell of Akron University. Coach Mitchell provided a head-spinning array of information in the nearly hour-long seminar. Once again, I scribbled notes and tried to digest it all, as we attempt to expand our event offerings at Marist to include the pole vault. How about that? The only two “continuing education” type talks I attended were non-distance related – heck, they were non-running related! Old dog, new tricks.

--Lastly, like all conventions, the main goal is connecting and socializing with our peers. I’m not the most social guy and often darted the other way when I saw large crowds of coaches talking and socializing (hey, it’s a convention, that happened a lot). However, I do enjoy one-on-one and small group discussions with our longtime friends in the sport – including our former assistant coach Erica Maker. As stated in a previous post, Erica is enjoying great success at her alma mater, St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. We were able to share a few meals together and it was great to get to know some of her fellow St. Olaf coaches during the few days down there.

While we enjoyed our time at the convention, the sobering undercurrent of Omicron variant pandemic news could not be ignored. Well actually? We were in Florida. So … it was mostly ignored! But seriously, there were times were I looked around and thought to myself: “What are we DOING here!” Or even, “what am I doing here!” We were mostly unmasked, mostly inside, mostly eating and drinking and mostly in large groups. I mean yeah, it was a convention. But still … As we head into the coming weeks and months of winter, what will become of this variant, this never-ending pandemic. I guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we!