Please remove your running shoes

Some of my favorite memories from high school were playing on team sports.  I played fastpitch softball and I ran on the cross country team.  If you can't figure it out based on the shoes in the picture, these are all shoes of runners :).  Every week our team would have a Spaghetti feed where the entire team would show up to one of the families homes and the parents would cook a feast for all the hungry long distance runners.  This wouldn't be a huge deal if the team was made up of 12 teammates...or maybe even 15.  However, our cross country team was HUGE.  We took 2 buses to every cross country meet.  Our school was always known as the school with a huge JV cross country team (only the top 7 could run varsity, so the rest of the runners ran the JV races).  I remember there were some schools who only allowed the top 15 students to even be on the team. 

I am sure you are probably questioning the sanity of a school that can get two school buses worth of students to agree to run cross country :).  I have thought of the same thing and after reflecting on my experience running cross country for Stanwood High School, I can only come up with one reason:

Meet Coach Johnson

Coach was the best coach I have ever met.  He loved running and he loved what he did.  He could relate to students better than most adults.  He had a great sense of humor and I looked forward to going to cross country every day to see what he was going to say to make me laugh.  Coach was the king of nicknames.   For example, mine were Goddess and Besting (stebing was my last name, switch the letters around and you get besting).  It wasn't uncommon for him to call you ugly.  In fact, it wasn't uncommon for him to call your father ugly the first time he met him.  haha.  Luckily my dad thought it was hilarious.  Truly, he meant it in the most loving way possible.  It is so hard to describe him to others....but to me he is a one of a kind coach. 

He always pushed me and my teammates to work hard in school, to work hard when it came to running, and to be a good person.  I remember one time a group of us secretly ditched our workout one day to play capture the flag at a nearby park, me being one of them.  Coach found out (of course he did) and just asked that those of us who participated to come to him and let him know.  There was no possible way I could lie to him, and it was torture knowing I had to let him down.  I remember I was in tears telling him, but this example just shows he truly brings out the best in people. 

Not sure what got me thinking about my cross country team, or Coach, but I thought I would share.  I am so grateful for all that I learned and was given in my 4 years on the SHS cross country team, but what I am most grateful for are the lifelong friends I have because of that team.

This was in 2010 at our friend Lizzie's wedding.  Pictured L-R are my best friends, Amy, Kaleigh, Coach, Liz, me, Lara, and Sarah. I met these girls on the CC team 12 years ago and we still keep in touch.  Coach, I hope you know how much you impacted our lives!