sayonara, sweet days...
while talking with my mom this afternoon, she updated me on how Coach Watkins is doing and he is really not doing well. Coach Watkins was my cross country and track coach in high school, and he was diagnosed with cancer in the beginning of this year. it's the kind of cancer where it's in your bones and he's had all kinds of treatments that don't help at all. he's a great guy and he doesn't deserve this. well, no one does, but... he's only in his mid- to late-thirties and he has two kids, aged 5 and 7. i remember when the younger one was born, and i babysat both those kids for two years. and his wife is really sweet too, but she has problems with migraines. it's not fair.
Coach Watkins changed my life. i wrote my personal statements for college about my cross country and track experiences. i have asthma, but for some insane reason i loved cross country. but because of the asthma, i was never very good. i would never even have been given the chance to be on the team at any other school. but Coach Watkins didn't care about my times. he saw how much i loved cross country and how hard i tried even though it hurt me. he even told me once that he was thinking about having time trials for the teams, but he didn't want to because of me, because if he had time trials he wouldn't have people on the team like me who weren't very good but had great spirit.
he was upset whenever i was having extra problems with my asthma, and i will never forget the last race that i ran and finished, the league finals in my junior year. we only had 8 girls on the team that year, and one of them wasn't running that day, so he decided to put all of us girls in the varsity race. i was devastated when i found that out because i knew i was going to finish last by a lot. but i ran that race in 25:52, which was a personal record for me by a minute. i did finish last, but not by that much. and Coach Watkins came over to me afterward with a huge grin on his face and said "Laura BANG!" and told me what a great job i had done. i still have the acorn he gave me at the team dinner the night before that race. he gave us a really cheesy speech about how we had all been little acorns, but that at league finals the next day we had to be mighty oaks. and then he gave us each an acorn. that's the cheesiest speech i've heard, but that acorn is in a box of my most treasured possessions.
i want to write to him, but even though i'm a writer i can't find the words. no matter what i say, in the background will be "you're dying..." and i don't want to say that. i don't want to believe that. i don't want him to go. i'm not ready for this. it's not fair. he deserves better.
Coach Watkins changed my life. i wrote my personal statements for college about my cross country and track experiences. i have asthma, but for some insane reason i loved cross country. but because of the asthma, i was never very good. i would never even have been given the chance to be on the team at any other school. but Coach Watkins didn't care about my times. he saw how much i loved cross country and how hard i tried even though it hurt me. he even told me once that he was thinking about having time trials for the teams, but he didn't want to because of me, because if he had time trials he wouldn't have people on the team like me who weren't very good but had great spirit.
he was upset whenever i was having extra problems with my asthma, and i will never forget the last race that i ran and finished, the league finals in my junior year. we only had 8 girls on the team that year, and one of them wasn't running that day, so he decided to put all of us girls in the varsity race. i was devastated when i found that out because i knew i was going to finish last by a lot. but i ran that race in 25:52, which was a personal record for me by a minute. i did finish last, but not by that much. and Coach Watkins came over to me afterward with a huge grin on his face and said "Laura BANG!" and told me what a great job i had done. i still have the acorn he gave me at the team dinner the night before that race. he gave us a really cheesy speech about how we had all been little acorns, but that at league finals the next day we had to be mighty oaks. and then he gave us each an acorn. that's the cheesiest speech i've heard, but that acorn is in a box of my most treasured possessions.
i want to write to him, but even though i'm a writer i can't find the words. no matter what i say, in the background will be "you're dying..." and i don't want to say that. i don't want to believe that. i don't want him to go. i'm not ready for this. it's not fair. he deserves better.