I'll start! Sorry, it's kinda long.
The sport was NOT baseball.
It was cross country. I was the guy--there is one on EVERY cross country team--with the panda bear shape and the pace of a mollusk and the throngs of fans urging their glacial progess to the finish line with raucous cheers of either empathic encouragement (“YOU CAN DO IT!!!) or mocking derision (“HURRY UP! WE WANNA GO HOME!”). I never could tell the difference. In fact, I never even heard them when I raced because, like most elite athletes, I'm able to shut out the noise around me.
But I digress. It was my first year in HS and my best friend, who was an excellent distance runner, kept goading me and goading me to run cross country. Finally, I caved, and joined the team. The coach was a very inspirational guy, Mr. Real Short. He was half Spanish so his first name actually meant "royal" according to the guys I knew who were taking Spanish. Not real as in "very" which would have been an oxymoron because he was 6'7". So if you pronounced his name correctly it would sound like this: Reee-al Short. We had a smart-ass on our team--there is one on EVERY team--who whispered to me "I wonder if his middle initial is E.?" The guy was the dumbest smart-ass I ever met.
Coach actually preferred to be called "Captain Courageous". He always signed his name with "CC" in the middle somewhere and an arrow underneath. I know this because he wrote short notes to his runners once a week and always signed them that way. At the time no one knew why that was his nickname, and he wasn't talking about it. I found out later that he finished a race after a fall midway through that fractured his right tibia.
Perhaps because of his nickname, Captain Courageous gave all his runners nicknames. Mine was Moose. My best friend, whose last name was English, was called Limey. Another guy was Caveman, and someone else was Stallion. That last one I wasn't sure why at the time but I think I've figured it out now. He had nice....things.
But I digress. The evening before the conference championship race CC and his wife (who was lovely in a Karine Vanasse kind of way) would host a dinner for the team.
Karine Vanasse
Ms. CC would always make something she called “Magic Taffy.” CC guaranteed that, if we ate it, we would have the best races of our lives the next day. And, remarkably, he was right. I have no idea what was in that stuff—it was the 70’s after all—but I shaved 7 seconds off my best time and other runners did even better.
CC also had a big, two-handled mug filled with something he called the "Elixir of Victory."
Each runner would drink from the mug and pass it to the next runner, creating a brief moment when they would both have a hold of it, a sign of team unity. Performed in complete silence, the buildup of unseen energy as the mug was passed runner to runner, hand to hand, drink to drink, was palpable. We had no idea what was in the drink—it was the 70’s after all—but it tasted like rootbeer. I was at the end of the line, just before the two team captains and CC himself, nervously waiting my turn. The mug finally got to me and it felt like a barbell as I curled my hands up to my mouth. I could hear the beverage fizzing, feel the handles cool and smooth, and as I tipped the mug toward my mouth the bursting carbonation tickled my face. When I finally took my drink, this happened, right back into the mug:
And then my brothers in legs did this:
And then CC stood up, walked over, took the mug from my hands, and did this:
And I have worshipped CC like no other human being ever since. LEGEND.
