In my previous post about my athletic bio I decided to quit swimming. A division I college team was just too much for my talent level. My grades were not good and it was all not that much fun. It took me at least a year to get adjusted and figure it all out. This was definitely another turning point in my life. The dean in the engineering school told me that I had to get my act together. Well a couple of semesters later he told me he could not believe I had such a great turnaround. I finally figured out how to take tests study and have fun at the same time. It is not easy but deep down inside I know I could do it. One problem however, my waste line was huge. I hated it. So now I had to get back to working out. What do I do? The University of Miami had a soccer team and I went to watch. They looked alright but not super strong. Turns out the team was what college sports were meant to be. This was a team of real students. No full scholarships and little recruiting. I had a chance I thought. So I got back to running every day and kicked the ball around to get ready for open try outs. I got in as best a shape as I could and I showed up to try outs. I was one of the fittest people on the pitch and was first to finish any sort of endurance run we did. I made the team.
I ended up playing soccer for the University for about three years. We had a couple of coaches, some great players, fun road trips and I made some great friends.
Being a varsity athlete had some great perks. You got to take any class you wanted as coaches did not want you to miss practice so we got to register for classes before before anybody did. Everything was open. We also used the great training facilities as the famous Football team. I met many of the football players from that era including Jim Kelly, Vinny Testaverde and others. One summer when Vinny was a freshman other football players cut all his hair right on the door of my dorm room. What a mess! Another guy who I used to chat with quite a bit was Mark Richt who is now a great head football coach at the University of Georgia. He was the fourth quarterback besides Jim Kelly, Vinny and Bernie Kosar. If you know anything about pro football that is quite a competition. Amazingly enough Mark got some playing time before any of those guys did but he could not keep the starting quarterback job for long. Think of the combined wealth those four guys have today. Football is king in America.
On my second year on the soccer team a freshman named Jay McCutcheon showed up who apparently was a hot shot goalkeeper. I was looking for a roommate and we hit it off so we requested to room together. We became really good friends. This guy loved to train and trained hard. The only thing that held him back was that he was not that tall. As you can imagine being tall helps a goalkeeper. But he over came his height and did very well for the team. He eventually turned pro and played for the Chicago Sting of the old MISL. I even drove to watch him play one year in Dallas. I had not talked to him for many years but a couple of years ago I found out he was training for an Ironman and had a heart attack. To this day I do not know exactly how he recovered or how does the heart attack affect his life today or anything about the whole matter? But I do know he started the Active Survivor Network to help other survivors of serious illnesses, diseases or accidents get back to a healthy living with exercise. If you live in Maryland you may have heard of the organization.
http://www.activesurvivor.orgWhile training for soccer I also met some of the runners in the cross country team. They had some good runners but I could run with them for a few miles. One day the school had a 10K that started right in front of my dorm and finished there too. The course was around Coral Gables. Well I signed up and took on the challenge. A 10K was a long ways for me. My longest run race ever had been three miles. I lined up and tried to keep up with the cross country team guys. My first mile split was a 5:15. The crazy thing was that I felt great but soon after that I started to slide back in the race. Mile after mile my splits were getting slower and slower. I think only in the last two miles I found enough grit to keep the pace together. The picture here is right near the finish line. Don’t you love my Budweiser two dollar cotton shirt? I was sore for a week. I can not recall my time but I think it was 39 or 40 minutes. I just remember that guy calling my outrageous mile split. What was I thinking?
So there was life after swimming. After not swimming for a couple of years I even went back to the pool and trained a little for intramural swimming and won the 100 IM against another former Varsity swimmer. That was fun and painful. I played some intramural basketball but Varsity soccer was the main thing.
It took me 5 years to get my Engineering degree. I also met Joyce Woods who later became my first wife. She did not like the University of Miami that much so when I graduated, she and I moved to Arizona and we both attended Arizona State University. She was finishing her Bachelors degree while I was getting a masters of science in Engineering.