Penn Relays Retrospective

As I sit here in my cushy hotel room in Philly, listening to the soothing tones of hotel room doors slamming and kids running back and forth between rooms, I can’t help but reminisce on some good Penn memories I have (and some bad ones, too) since I started coaching in 1999. Here, on the eve of the eve of my last trip to Penn with the Ironmen, are some of my thoughts on the Penn experience…

My first trip(s) to Penn with the NV/OT girls, including rainy races, come-from-behind medals, parking tickets, almost missing check-in because of underestimating the length of the security lines, sleeping in the astro van one night because the hotel lost my reservation and only had rooms for the girls, my first trip to Tony Luke’s (thanks, Mare for introducing me to those delicacies!) and hijacking the van on the way home to swing through Rider and visit my old dorm – where some scholars I knew back in the day STILL HADN’T GRADUATED! Annie, Mare, Wentzler, Cat, Cerbie, Zoe, Stacy…we had some good memories!

As I made the move to the Prep, the memories continued…Phillies games, midnight cheesesteak runs with B.Toal, finding Mikey Ray lobster and steak the night before his race because “he always has seafood before a big race” and watching him turn green when he ate the surf and turf at a South Philly diner, Madden tournaments with the guys, staples in Marvin’s chinese food, hotel lobby feel-good old fashioned cry-fests, a huge DMR (but not fast enough to keep Belg’s legs hairy), literally giving the shirt off my back and the socks off my feet to keep the 4×8 guys warm on a freezing cold and rainy April morning (and still being blamed for their poor race), racing across parking lots, down city streets, and through crowded parks because Coach Gibbs took off on us (last man does pushups!), going for a run from the hotel through lovely Cherry Hill and not-so-lovely Camden, where a friendly campus police offer kindly directed me to “head back where I came from” because school was going to be out soon, and “I [wasn’t] from around there” (obviously), leaving the kids in the hotel with Drew while I went to get my gall bladder checked at a hospital and being sent home with my mommy and daddy from Philly, Wex going sub 50 to get us a medal, accidentally finding the Rocky steps on a nice little run one year, and getting yelled at for running up them (who knew?), Greg falling not ONCE, but TWICE as our leadoff leg, Tyler freezing like a deer in the headlights on a handoff, Baker stealing sodas from a Holiday Inn conference room and so many other memories and stories that I couldn’t possibly list them here…

Things have been good and bad, happy and sad, successful and abysmal and though I won’t be here in Maroon and White next year, if I can and do come, I’ll be sitting in our usual spot, reflecting on 11 years…there’s something about Penn that changes a team; marks a turning point in a season, and builds bonds that last…hoping for a few more good memories before we cross the finish line tomorrow!