Flashes of Panic

Yesterday I linked to this interview with George Dole, a native of my town and graduate (in the late 1940s) of my high school, who went on to Yale and Oxford and wound up as an Oxford runner in the Oxford v. AAA meet fifty years ago where Roger Bannister ran 3:59.4. My brother noticed the typical Morse athletics story (Dole started out in basketball) but I noticed the education part. Morse still sends a student to Yale every five or six years (if we’re lucky) but if anyone winds up at Oxford, it’s a closely guarded secret. Can’t have those kids imagining that if they study hard, they’ll get anywhere other than Orono, right? Because they can’t teach you to draft, or weld, or anything like that, at Oxford.

So, on the other side of aspirations, there is the University of Michigan. Two of Michigan’s brightest track stars, Nick Willis and Nate Brannen, are “red-shirting” the spring season (not competing for Michigan) in order to train and race for the summer. The stated goal for both is to run at the Olympics for New Zealand (Willis) and Canada (Brannen). The odds are pretty even; Brannen (Alan Webb’s freshman roommate, before Webb transferred to George Mason and went pro) has two NCAA championships and a small collection of Canadian records, but has to run certain marks and place at the Canadian championships. Willis, who is simply a beautiful athlete to watch, has to reach more challenging marks, but will be automatically selected if he runs them.

What’s nice about this is how Michigan’s sports information department is treating it. Most red-shirt athletes simply don’t exist from the university-SID point of view (unless they win a national championship.) Michigan, on the other hand, has put up a whole section of their website to follow Brannen and Willis’s pursuit of their dreams. It’s really well done.

The only thing that’s missing is video of one of Willis’ unearthly surges. Now there’s something to aspire to.

Now playing: Superhero from Dilate by Ani DiFranco