The Voice of a Father

Today's my dad's birthday. I won't say what number it is since reminders tend to annoy him. Let's just say he's had a long life, and a good one.

I owe my running to my dad. Back in the 70's when the "running boom" was hitting the US like some pre-Oprah inspired craze, my dad jumped on that bandwagon and beat the drum into my two sisters and I. We were living in Nepal at the time, and I can still remember my dad organizing little road races for the students in the Wycliffe Bible Translator's school where he served as principal. I always got beat by my older sister, but somehow the memory that serves me most readily of those races was getting a little ribbon at the conclusion and seeing the monkeys roam around the Buddhist temple we ran out to and back from. Strange, I know, but that's my story.

Ribbons and monkeys aside, I really didn't like running. I was in elementary school at the time, and getting beat by your big sister, (and occasionally my younger sister too!) was humiliating even at 6 or 7. We came home to the States in 1974, the year before Steve Prefontaine's death and the heyday of Frank Shorter and Bill Rogers. My dad kept beating that running drum on into my junior high years and for the most part it just gave me a headache. He'd take us down to the track at California High School in Whittier and run laps with us. I'd cry. I hated it. As part of the school's PE program, we were occasionally timed for a mile and I remember running 5:58. It was an accomplishment, but not big enough to make me like running. I was stubborn.

I'll never forget a conversation we had near the end of 8th grade at the kitchen table. Dad told me that once I started high school I would have to be involved in some extracurricular activity. I guess I had few options, and maybe now that I look back at it, he knew that. I was all of 5-5 and 120 pounds and afraid of getting hit, so football was out. My adventures in piano and accordion lessons (yes, accordion, that was my mom's fault) never worked out, and lets just say when God handed out the whole "eye-hand-coordination" thingy, I was in the bathroom. So that left cross country.

But I don't like running!

Get over it.

So there I was in my short-shorts (hey, it was cool in 1980!) on the first day of summer practice. Nervous, yet eager to prove myself. We went for a seven-miler that day, a "lets see who's been running this summer" kind of run. The competitor in me drove me, despite the discomfort, and I finished near the front of the group.

I was hooked.

I went home and proudly gave my dad a play-by-play of the whole run. I don't recall what his response was, but he must have smiled.

For the next four years I ran. Like most kids, I had highs and lows, good races and bad. But one thing remains today, as clear in my mind as if 1983 were just yesterday: His voice.

That voice, above all others, carried. It was at every single meet I ran, never missed one of them. It was cheering, encouraging. It was loud. Not once was I told I had a bad race, even when I did. I heard his words of support even before I heard my coach's. They could cut through the pain and push their way through the exhaustion.

The air on which the words carried became a tail wind. In those lonely, painful third miles, they'd get me to the finish line.

Had it not been for the push my dad gave me so long ago, a significant part of my life wouldn't have been formed. Running became a part of my identity, even more so than it was part of my dad's. But through the last two decades we have shared pieces of the sport, including running the LA Marathon together in 1987. In 1996, when I ran the 100th Boston Marathon, he came along to lend that voice at the finish once again. He has on occasion traveled to Fresno to cheer on my cross country teams at the State meet and to Walnut for the CIF Finals. Though his voice at those meets wouldn't rise to a shout, when the last of my kids had crossed the line and the score had been tallied, he was always quick to offer praise or a simple "good job, Bradley".

Now drenched in a coach's sweat, that tail wind of my younger days has become a refreshing breeze.

And it pushes me on, still, in the miles we cover together today. Life is like a long distance race, how great it is to have a cheerleader, someone to shout from the side lines, "You can do it!" My dad has been that for me for 43 years. And for that, I'm eternally grateful.

Happy Birthday, Dad!