Be True To Your School
Posted May 18th, 2008 at 11:30 AM by Jesse Squire
Section: News & Results, Cross Country, Track & Field, College
“I got a letterman’s sweater
With a letter in front
I got for football and track
I’m proud to wear it now
When I cruise around
The other parts of the town
I got a decal in back
So be true to your school now
Just like you would to your girl or guy
Be true to your school now
And let your colors fly
Be true to your school”
I did not go to a track meet this afternoon.
This is an unusual situation for me on a Saturday in May. There’s always a meet going on somewhere, and my previous blog wasn’t written under the name of “The Track & Field Superfan” for nothing. But this wasn’t just any Saturday, and not just any track meet that I didn’t attend.
I ran at Bowling Green State University in the early 90s, and while I wasn’t particularly good for a college runner I thoroughly enjoyed taking on the extreme physical challenge of training and competing in the NCAA’s highest division. I liked my experiences in Bowling Green so much, I remained in the town for fifteen years after graduation, only leaving six months ago when my wife’s career took us away. I bled burnt orange and seal brown.
In 2001, the university cut four sports programs, two of which were the men’s indoor and outdoor track teams. The reasons never made sense; they blamed Title IX (while already being in compliance, one of only 25 universities in the country at that time), and said they couldn’t afford the annual team’s cost of about $200,000 (but since have spent $6 million on a student-athlete center and will build a new $35 million basketball arena). My continued anger and bitterness might even shock Lewis Black.
The current state of the housing market has kept me coming back to BG on a fairly regular basis (i.e., my house still hasn’t sold). This weekend my alma mater hosted the Mid-American Conference championships, and I thought I’d go after mowing the lawn at my old house. The MAC is a pretty good meet and I’d probably run into some old friends. But as I went by the track I became full of rage. They were charging $10 for parking — and since the term ended two weeks ago, the massive parking lots surrounding the track are almost completely empty. If that weren’t bad enough, the press box that was blown off the top of the stands in a freak storm two years ago still hasn’t been replaced. The athletic administrators just don’t care.
You see, once Bowling Green cared about track and cross country. In 1972, a junior on the teams named Dave Wottle won an Olympic gold medal in one of the most thrilling races of all time. The previous year teammate Sid Sink set an American Record and won a silver medal at the Pan-American Games, and the team took runner-up honors at the NCAA indoor championships. BG hosted the then-prestigious Central Collegiate Championships four times, attracting top teams from as far away as Tennessee and Kansas and requiring extra seating for crowds of up to 3,000 fans.
Now, no one cares. This weekend, the women’s team couldn’t manage a single top-three finish in any event and took second-to-last with a minuscule 29 points. Men’s cross-country still exists at BG, but whereas I never made the team’s top ten runners back when I was 20, now I could easily be a top-seven runner as a 37-year-old shadow of my former self.
Last month, Sports Illustrated ran an article about the new direction of the Nebraska football program, one more centered on tradition and community. A quote from new head coach Bo Pelini had great meaning to me:
The walk-ons have always helped set the tone … A lot of times these are guys from small Nebraska towns who are grateful just for the chance to become part of the program. They’re the ones who understand what it means…and the example they set in their enthusiasm and effort tends to become contagious.
I was a walk-on too, I put in my 100-mile weeks, and I fully embraced the words of Brian Wilson and Mike Love that started this post. I was loyal. It always hurts when an intense relationship ends … but I never thought my school wouldn’t be true to me.
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Tags: be true to your school, BG, BGSU, bo pelini, bowling green, bowling green falcons, bowling green state university, brian wilson, burnt orange, college cross country, college track, college XC, dave wottle, editorial, indoor track & field, mac, mid american conference, mike love, ncaa cross country, ncaa division I, ncaa running, ncaa track, ncaa track & field, ohio, outdoor track & field, seal brown, sid sink, Title IX, title IX compliance, track, track and field, track program, XC
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May 18th, 2008 at 11:37 am