D-Day

Dale made his head track coaching debut yesterday. He took his Tigers to the annual indoor meet to kick off the season. I think he was nervous, but never said. Track does that to him. He was really good at track in high school and college. He won state his sophomore and junior year in the 400 and ended up pulling his hamstring at Districts his senior year, which ruined his chance at 3 state titles. That was a big deal to him. He always talked about the nervous feeling he would get before a race. I use to do the same exact thing. When I was at the line waiting for my race to start my stomach was going crazy. I think it is adrenaline and nerves all together plus the feeling that what I was about to do might kill me. Of course I knew it wouldn't, but I knew how bad my butt, lungs, and thighs would hurt when I was done no matter how good of shape I was in.

He mentioned having this feeling when we were at the doctor visits when I was pregnant with both boys. It was the 20 week appointment that brought this feeling back to him. I'm not sure why finding out the sex of our babies would make him so nervous, but it did both times. On our way to find out what Waylon would be I told him I was excited to find out and he said he felt like he was getting ready to run a 400.

I love what a good coach he is and what he puts into it. He cares about the kids and their success and he trains them hard. He puts his heart into it and gets the same feelings today that he use to get when he was in their shoes. I think that says a lot about him. I love that we have the love of sports in common especially when it comes to track. You won't run across too many people that would be willing to hang out at track meets all day, but we would pick that over a lot of things if given the chance. It was something we both did well at and loved. I'm glad I get the chance to continue to enjoy the thing that really brought us together in the 1st place.