Somewhere Between Atlanta and Carrollton 

You're standing in the rain in some town off I-20 West—practically at Dark Thirty—water starting at your shoes and slowly drifting upward into your socks.

This is after waking up at an hour you once got home in your younger years, and therefore you briefly wonder why you gave up teaching tennis for a living.

After all, tennis happened after school; if it rained, it was simply canceled.

The bus ride over was semi-eventful for an XC Saturday morning—usually, one look back gives you a view of mattress marks, pillowcases, and adolescent faces, many of which are too young to snore.

The head lady—you coached her when she was in eighth grade—but God winked, and now she's 30-something and about to marry one of our assistants not long after the leaves turn.
You will speak at the wedding, with the two goals being to laugh and cry.

Hopefully at the same time.

Anyway, "Shy" Meg is dancing and rapping, perhaps even lecturing on the wonders of llama yoga. Emma—a shy freshman—is so into her drawing that you see zero difference between her hand, her heart, and her palate.

Bobby and Beatrice—both upperclassmen and large and in charge for the day—are no longer shy in the high school world. Instead, they're talking at 750 words per minute, with gusts up to 1,250.

Later, our tent is up among many others in what you call the Non-Olympic Village.

A coach you know from running camp walks over, smiles, and says, "We signed up for this, right?"

We laugh while looking at the forecast.
Rain.
Followed by rain.
And more rain.

But now it's race time, and we have six girls navigating a soggy roller coaster already kicked up by two races before them. We've told them this is like a Mock ACT or SAT.
We won't grade your paper.

But we do want you to know what you're getting into.

Ellison Losin, Laney Kate Miller, and Eden Coil are our first three across. Times aren't necessary—the tough course and worsening weather should perhaps have us subtracting two minutes.
Sloane Hodgson, Madison Angell, and Emma Boeschen follow suit.

You find the girls afterward. Sloane has a smile on her face, but mud still in her teeth.

"I almost fell eight times," she says. "Almost got sick once!"

"Don't you just love cross country?" you tell her, laughing.

Emma, one of the quieter ones, is still smiling even though it's already her fourth race. They've gathered in a rugby scrum—it's funny how runners do that—smelly and all, huddling up like it's fourth-and-one on Super Bowl Sunday.

Harris Bradford gets eighth overall for the boys, his medal covering up some of the mud. Brayden Briles—who started the season looking for something to do—is currently discovering he's pretty good at this.

In order behind them come Matthew George, Gavin Campos, Connor Jaax, Lucas Chong, Merrick Moorehead, Xavier Smiley, and Graham Goddard.

Back at the tent, Campos's face is so mud-caked he looks like he just lost a pie-eating contest. Bobby Spencer—barefoot, no less—swears he just stepped in somebody's breakfast.

The freshmen are a bit quiet, but you can sense the feeling of accomplishment among them.

After all, they were just thrown to the wolves, the sharks, and - pun intended - Bears. 

Later, on the bus headed home, the Cheese Wagon smells like a combination of Chick-fil-A fries and Carrollton sod.

Fleetwood Mac is blaring through the speakers. Stevie Nicks is telling us that women, they will come and they will go.

There's dancing going on in the back, though you're not sure the movements are matching the music.

Still, you've always known runners danced to different drummers.

One look back is proving it.

Earlier, you were joking about wishing you still taught tennis.

And besides hoping you have laundry detergent at home—and that the Dawgs cover the spread—something else pops into your mind as you look back at this snapshot.

These random events waiting to happen.

All huddled together.

Maybe you're just weird, but what you really want—right then, right now—isn't to be entertaining a queen in some foreign country, sipping wine on a deck.

Or even washing your feet off in salt water while the waves go in and out and, in a friendly way, carving up your feet.

No.

At that moment, all you want is to be on a bus somewhere between Carrollton and Atlanta.

With a fellow formerly shy coach.

And 20 or so kids you'd die for.

Thanks for listening...

—Dunn