Flashes of Panic

I have a column up today about Nick Willis, who won the mile at the NCAAs last weekend, then dropped out of the 3,000m. I’ve got quite a bit more conversation with him in iTunes waiting to be transcribed.

Talking to Willis, who I like immensely, made me think about the intersection of religion and athletics. There are some athletes who won’t finish an interview without telling us how grateful they are to God for the victory, or simply the ability to run. Some of them are more graceful than others at slipping this in; others (I’m thinking of Olympic silver medalist Catherine Ndereba here) can’t complete a sentence without testifying, and have become nearly un-interviewable as a result. Even the single most famous movie about running, Chariots of Fire, is really a movie about religion.

I grew up in a New England tradition which regards one’s relationship with God as somewhat more private than that with one’s spouse. Dour Puritans that we are, we regard PDR and PDA in about the same way, but we’ve also learned to shrug and move on in reaction to both. But I have learned a new sort of respect for someone who prefers to make themselves an example rather than an advertisement.

I didn’t notice until after the 3,000m what was written on Willis’s hands. Athletes often have marks on the backs of their hands; it could be target splits, it could be the names of their teammates, or in the case of BYU’s women one year, it could be smiley faces. Anything to catch the runner’s attention and remind them of something during the race. Willis had a cross—it looked more like a big “X”—on one hand, and “For Him” on the other.

They were notes to himself, not to us. He talked about his teammates and team, his coach, and his country. He talked about where running fit in his life. He’d spent the evening in an emotional parabola, from pre-race jitters, to the race, to winning, to another set of jitters, to a DNF and all the disappointment and self-recrimination that comes with that. Never once did he talk about his faith. Or, perhaps that was all he talked about?

This was the quote I closed the column with, which I think sums up why I like him so much: “If I’m to keep on doing this for 15 years, which I would like to do, I’d better be a good person to be around.”

Now Playing: Capsized from You Were Here by Sarah Harmer