Sunday was the statewide indoor relays—all relays, no individual events. Graham was assigned to the distance medley relay, as were three other freshmen. A team stacked with four freshmen is not likely to be a main contender, and indeed, they were seeded twenty-first in the field and put in the slow heat. The medley relay consists of a 1200, 400, 800, and 1600, and Graham was assigned the 1600, making him the anchor of the race. All week, Graham told his teammates, “Guys, just stay in the middle of the pack, and get me the baton. Then, I’m gonna cook.”
Running on a 200-meter track, the runners all got pretty mixed up, and it was tough to tell who was winning, who was way behind, and who was in the middle somewhere. The three in front of Graham seemed to run good legs, though as freshmen, they were clearly not with the leaders. Graham got the baton, and off he went. His stride was long, and he looked comfortable. Lap after lap, he seemed to pass people, though it was hard to tell who might be a lap or more ahead of him. Finally, the bell rang out—last lap for the leader! Graham wasn’t the leader, but he approached the line probably ten seconds later and took off like a shot. Each fifty meters he ran faster than the last, and by the final fifty he was flying. He passed several guys and crossed the finish line, put his hands on his hips, and walked off the track, as did a kid from Mansfield that Graham had run down.
It was a stunning performance. His mile split was 4:25, and unofficially the team had finished third in their heat, outpacing their seed by at least four places. Just one problem.
Graham’s run was one lap, or 200 meters, short of a mile.
I turned to Lauren, laughing. “I think he was two laps behind the leader not one. No way he just ran a 4:25 and cut 33 seconds off his PR.”
We found Coach Moore. “Uh, pretty sure Graham only ran seven laps,” I said.
He sighed heavily. “This is why we have freshmen do this race. It helps them learn to do things under pressure. Like count, for example.”
We spotted the senior captain who is also a miler. He seemed shaken by Graham’s stunning time until a teammate said, “Think he only went seven.” Then, they all laughed.
A moment later, the scoreboard flashed that both Silver Lake and Mansfield had been disqualified—Graham not only sank the team, he brought Mansfield with him. In the words of Patrick Star, “That’s not what he wanted to cook.”
When we found Graham, he already knew and had taken it all in stride. The other guys on the relay told him after he got off the track. His main takeaway was, “Well, I felt great and was running great. I think I could have improved my PR.” Ever the opportunist, he then demanded that we go to Dairy Queen for ice cream . . . “because I got DQ’d.” We did not oblige.
Unfortunately for Graham, he probably won’t live this down among family members anytime soon. Lucia played soccer for one outdoor fall season and one indoor winter season. She had precisely one goal—a beautifully centered ball that she one-touched home . . . into her own goal. Twelve years later, her siblings still clobber her over it. Grant still gets grief for his brief season in baseball where his biggest moment was getting beaned in the back whereupon he threw down his bat and threatened to charge the mound and was only restrained by my yelling at him. (There was also the time he played “pitcher” while the coach pitched and he fielded his position by putting his glove on his head.) And then there was Lindsay who, when young and playing soccer, finally got so motivated about scoring that she stole the ball from her own teammate who was about to score . . . so she could make the goal instead. Likewise, the one blemish on her state championship year was the time a defender tried to clear a ball, smashed it into the back of Lindsay’s head, and it sailed into the goal for an own goal.
Better luck in the kitchen next week, Graham.
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His Smile Lit Up a Room and Other Things to Say at My Funeral 
In your list of things that you’ll never let your kids forget I’m a little surprised that you didn’t mention a couple of things from Grant’s soccer year. For instance when it looked like he was finally getting interested in a game and he’s charging down the field, the smaller kids are jumping out of the way for the sake of survival until Grant got to the soccer ball, which he scoops up and walks off the field with. Turned out they were using his ball right then and he wanted it back.
There’s also the one where the Aunt (Not saying which Aunt!!!) had told him that Quidditch from Harry Potter was like Soccer, so he flopped over in the goal and pretended that the bones in one of his arms were all gone! Of course it’s not Grant who gets blamed and teased, it the Aunt (again, not specifying which one!) who actually gets teased for that one. 😁🙄
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