Season's Greetings: This was forwarded by Dave Frank who
now coaches up
in Portland. Jeff Johnson came out to speak to the HS runners
in the
Washington/Oregon Border Clash. (An XC duel between the two
states sponsored
by Nike.) Jeff is a low-key humble man who resides in New
Hampshire. He was
Nike's first paid employee, developed the concept of the
swoosh, retired in
1985. He came out here to coach the Farm Team (for free) to
Nat'l prominence
for 6 yrs.
BORDER CLASH, 2001: REMARKS
Jeff Johnson
Thank you. Good evening.
It's a real pleasure for me to be with you tonight.
It seems to me that I've spent my entire life surrounded by
winners. First,
on my own high school and college teams, then later working
here at NIKE, and
finally in coaching. It is a privilege to be back in the
company of winners
once again.
I come to you tonight with a question. It's a rhetorical
question, so don't
raise your hands.
Here's the question: Why do you run?
You've probably been asked that question before. It's not an
easy question
to answer, is it? If someone has to ask, they'll probably
never understand.
A man once came to Mozart and said: Teach me to write a
symphony.
Mozart answered: I can't teach you.
The man said: Why not? You were writing symphonies when you
were 4 years old.
To which Mozart replied: Yes, but I didn't have to ask how.
To write timeless symphonies requires a genius that running
does not
demand, lucky for us, but the problem of explanation is much
the same:
If you have to ask, you just don't get it. And you probably
won't get it.
But you get it, don't you? You would never ask someone: Why do
you run?
(Except maybe rhetorically.)
Nevertheless, even you who "get it" have a hard time
articulating your
passion.
I think that is because running is a passion of the spirit.
And explaining
the spirit is never easy.
Running is the expressway to self-confidence, self-awareness,
self-discipline
and self-reliance.
From running, you learn the harsh realities of your physical
and mental
limitations.
From running, you gain strategies for extending those
limitations, that you
might run farther, run faster, and run tougher.
You learn that personal
responsibility, commitment, sacrifice, determination, and
persistence are the
only means of improvement.
Running, you come to understand, is a profound, far-reaching
and never ending
contest of the runner with himself, or herself.
And you learn that runners only get promoted through
self-conquest.
Running asks a question of you, and everyday it's the same
question:
Are you going to be a wimp, or are you going to be strong
today?
And when you answer that question in the way that you people in
this room
have answered it, you become a better, stronger, more
confident animal, with a
capacity for achievement greater than before, and a formula for
success that
is forever engraved on your brain.
(It is no accident! I think, that this place was founded by
runners.)
The single, most outstanding characteristic of the runner is
independence.
Through your own will, you present yourselves to the fire; and
the fire
changes you, permanently and forever.
Body and spirit
I surrendered whole
To harsh instructors - -
And received a soul.
Rudyard Kipling wrote those lines nearly a century ago. It's
unrecorded what
Kipling's PR was for 5K, but I suspect that he had one.
Why do you run? Each of you may articulate it differently, but
perhaps we
can agree that running touches us spiritually, it forms
us, and it strengthens
us. It makes us who we are, and at some level, it is who we
are.
But you can be a runner without being a racer.
So here's another question for you: Why do you compete? Why
do you race 3.1
miles? That's gotta hurt. Why do you do it?
For most of you, I imagine that you race for the
challenge, the danger, the
'rush' of putting yourself in a place where you must do your
absolute best.
Because the race requires it. To give your best is to honor
your fellow
competitors, your teammates, your coach, your school, your
family, your
community, and all the good people who have worked so hard to
put on the race.
To give your best in a race is a matter of honor, and
duty, and you know that
going in. You know, also, that the course will challenge
you, that your
competitors will challenge you, and that you will challenge
yourself. You
know, too, that there will come a critical moment in the race
where you must
make the decision to lay it on the line, to take your
shot, or to fall back
and regroup.
And you hope you'll be up to the challenge, but you're never
entirely
sure, and it's that uncertainty that calls to you, because it
is there, at
that moment, that moment of decision, that you offer yourself
up to be
measured: by the clock, by your legs and lungs, by your guts,
and by your
heart.
And if you want to win the race, in that moment of decision,
you're going to
have to go a little crazy.
You race, then, because races are a big deal. (In fact,
speaking from the
vantage point of both experience and hindsight, I dare say that
at this time
in your lives, the race may be the most important thing that
you do. A girl
on one of my high school teams came up to me on the day of her
graduation and
said, " I learned more in cross country, than I learned in high
school."
"I'm glad," I said, "so did I".
Races are a big deal. Races are the culmination of all the
forces that have
brought you here:
desire, commitment, focus, sacrifice, suffering, self-discipline, hard
work, responsibility. You race because you are invested in
effort, and you
are invested in success.
Moreover, you are invested together.
Look around you. Go ahead. Do it. Look around.
Who are those people you see? Do you think they are your
opponents? People
who oppose your quest for excellence?
Well, they aren't. They are not your opponents. They are your
fellow
competitors. In fact, they are your co-conspirators, for to
compete is to
enter into a conspiracy.
The conspiracy is revealed in the word itself: compete, which
comes from two
Latin roots, com (CUM) and petere (PET-ER-AH), which mean "to
strive
together".
Al Oerter, the 4-time Olympic gold medallist in the discus,
once said: "I've
never competed against anyone in my life. I've always competed
with people.
To compete against people is a negative thing. To compete with
people is a
celebration, a celebration of human capability."
And so it is. The worthy competitor is essential to the race,
not as an
enemy, but as a co-conspirator. The race, you see, is a secret
form of
cooperation. The race is simply each of you seeking your
absolute best with
the help of each other.
Steve Prefontaine said: "To give anything less than your best
is to sacrifice
the gift." What gift do you think he was talking about? The
gift of your
talent, surely. But perhaps also the gift of opportunity, and
the gift of
youth, perhaps even the gift of life itself.
In any case, you give your best to the race as a matter of
honor? You can do
no less, because your competitors are giving their best to you.
Now, not all races justify all out, total effort. For some
races, your have
lesser goals - - to score points for your team, to qualify for
a more
important race later on - - or just to have fun.
I offer that qualifier to my remarks tonight because I know
that all of you
are coming off a long, hard season. For some of you,
tomorrow's Border Clash
is not another test but, rather, a fun, end-of-season reward.
For others, it
may be a tune-up for the Footlocker Regionals still to come.
For all of you,
your goals for tomorrow's race are a matter between you and
your coaches.
We understand that. It isn't my intention tonight to try to
get you "fired
up" for a race where an all out effort may be inconsistent with
your goals.
The Border Clash is held solely to honor you, the best cross
country runners
of two states, and in the hope that you will all gain something
joyful and
positive from the experience of meeting and competing
with each other.
But the next time you step to the starting line of an important
race, the
conspiracy of striving together for excellence will be about to
unfold! That
white line on the ground before you, and that other white line
five kilometers
away, will define a sacred place, rife with potential, an
arena in which
excellence and ultimates are the only acceptable, indeed, the
only honorable
standards - - and an arena into which only a few, special
people ever venture.
There - - between those white lines, in a race that matters - -
you will give
your best to each other. And there - - between those white
lines, on that
sacred plain, you will learn who you are, of what stuff you
are made, and what
you can endure, which is essential knowledge, for it will
inform your whole, entire life.
Billy Joel wrote: "I won't hold back anything; and I'll walk
away a fool, or
a king."
For my money, if you've done your best, fool or king, there's
equal honor in
both. Doing your best is much more important than being the
best.
A friend came to visit me last weekend, and he looked over my
intended
remarks for tonight.
"What are your goals for this speech?" He asked me.
I told him: "I want to tell these kids that they have chosen a
sport that
ennobles them."
"So many runners are thought of as loners or geeks. I want
these kinds to
recognize themselves as people who are learning to take
responsibility for
their lives, people who are learning to control their own
destinies."
"I want them to know that the lessons they learn as cross
country runners
will stay with them their whole lives, that as a result of
being cross country
runners they will gain the habits of winners: setting
goals, working
hard, doing their best, being patient, persistent and
focused."
"I want them to see that making a commitment, laying it on the
line, and
taking a chance, pays off more often than not."
"I want them to understand that competition is not an
anti-social act, but a
social one, and that to give their best is part of the social
contract."
"I want them to know that whatever else they do in life will
always be
secondary to having been an athlete. That from being an
athlete first - -
and especially a long distance runner - - they are already
fundamental
victors."
"They don't know it yet - - and they certainly don't understand
it - - but
the sport they have chosen will never leave them. It will lead
them down
avenues of achievement and success that they cannot yet
imagine."
Those are my goals for this speech.
"Then say that," my friend said.
Good idea, I thought. So I just did.
Thank you for listening to me tonight. I have the greatest
admiration and
respect for cross-country runners, and it's been a genuine
honor for me to be
with you.
May you all have a safe race tomorrow, and may you all reach
your goals.
Thank you.